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Local depot: Acocks Green

Favourite depot? I suppose it would be Acocks Green too, for no other reason than when one of their technicians found my mobile phone which I'd lost on one of their buses and contacted me (indirectly), invited me to the garage and personally handed it back to me!  A credit to NXWM's staff! His name was Dave, I recall.

In all honesty, I would like nothing more than to see this route get the 'flagship' upgrade it deserves.

This is now the only bus service that directly links Wolverhampton and Birmingham city centres. I would love to see new hybrid green buses operating this service, however due to the high frequency of the service, and thus the number of buses required to operate it, the cost would be too much.

The Outer Circle is a flagship service, if not THE flagship service of NXWM, due to it being reknown across Europe as the 'longest urban bus route' and the fact that it links so many suburbs around Birmingham, however it would be good if NXWM could lavish some attention to the 126 (and indeed also to the 900) as being 'inter-city' urban bus routes.

There's no immediate requirement to withdraw their B6LEs as they don't operate into Birmingham city centre, nor Merry Hill. So for now, they will remain, like WBs.

PE will probably shift Mercs onto B6LE routes, if Mercs don't get withdrawn or rotated first.

Of the garages that operate B10Ls, only AG will have most of their allocation withdrawn; YW only use their few B10Ls on the 27 service now, now the 2 and 3 have been upgraded back to double-deck operation. PB are receiving some more ex-Dundee Omnilinks which they can use to replace any B10Ls on the 66, I believe they're using a double-deck Gemini or two on the 46 service now. There are still plenty of B10Ls in decent condition, these may get rotated around to other garages to withdraw battered B10Ls, or could even go to other garages to replace battered Mercs that don't operate into Birmingham city centre.

I imagine WBs B6LEs will remain for now, but the immediate concern must be for the B6LEs at BC to be replaced for the 636 service by Summer 2012, when this new emissions requirement for city centre buses comes into force.

With the deals already taken place with Wrightbus and ADL, it does look like a toss-up between the Wrightbus Streetlite, and the ADL Dart E200.

As National Express currently use the Dart E200s in the Hotel Hoppa division, the smart money is probably leaning towards this one.

But the Streetlites look interesting, the smaller versions could replace the Optare Solos on the few services that only require a mini-bus. However at this time, it looks more likely that NXWM want (or need!) to replace B6LEs on the 636 service, with the remainder to go to Pensnett garage to replace B6LEs on services that serve the Merry Hill bus station.

I thought it had already gone to Dundee.

Or they could just get a few more Geminis and upgrade it to double-deck operation instead.

I'm not a fan of branding buses either, and the current brandings just look awful, though the blue is preferable to the green.

And they make no sense either when these branded buses stray onto other routes, like the two 'Every 8 minutes round the Outer Circle' branded Geminis I saw this morning, one on the 1 and the other on the 37!

I say forget the brandings, and just concentrate on getting all the buses in the fleet into the same livery, so they all look 'uniform'. That way they don't look out of place when they are used on other routes, or transferred to other garages.

Yeah, unless you didn't know any better! I was in Solihull the once with my brother, up from London, and we wanted to get to Moseley to meet some friends! I foolishly suggested we get the 69 from Solihull to Kings Heath, and then take a short trip on the 50 to Moseley. Little did I know that it would take us 40 minutes to get to Kings Heath lol  :o

72 is in the process of receiving Eclipse2s

AG haven't used double-decks on the 72 for sometime, and would be impossible I believe because of a low-bridge.

And don't forget they also operate the double-deck 966 (Solihull - Erdington, via Airport), which can use Presidents as this route doesn't serve the city centre.

Otherwise I like your plan, its not far off embellishing what I suggested previously.  ;)

[might]

According to http://www.centro.org.uk/nmsruntime/saveasdialog.aspx?lID=7711&sID=4284, the following is meant to happen in the Brierley Hill area:

- £2.2.m investment in brand new euro 5 buses

So presumably PE/WN might end up having more new buses.

I believe the new buses already introduced at WN and PE are Euro5 compliant. And that total figure includes other operators too.

And the 1 doesn't go to Merry Hill.  ;D

Now I'm getting greedy! It would be nice if they were destined for the 1 in Birmingham (from Town Hall to Acocks Green), as it used to be a 'showcase' route, and was last upgraded with refurbed Presidents!  ::)

However using some on Wolverhamptons 1 would be a nice idea, as its a regular well-used route linking Wolverhampton and Dudley, don't think they'd need all 21 though, BC get away with using 18 on both the 22 and 23 routes.

They've just had 40 brand new single-decks in the last couple of months, no need to get greedy!  :P

The priority is unfortunately going to be in the Birmingham area, I'm afraid. I reckon next year we'll see a load of new double-decks for the 11A/C Outer Circle.

594 and 595 were both getting a bit 'tired' when they finished duties at AG, I think they were only repainted back into red/white before they left there, still they were in much better condition than some other B6LEs out there!

They're older than the Presidents, so probably not.