First Bus - Potteries

[PM]

Think the Raspberry routes will benefit from timing changes to improve reliability. Today the 6/6a's were running in tandem on a number of occasions in the direction of Hanley despite being scheduled 10 minutes apart.

From different reports it seems 53041 to 43 are here with sightings of all in service (I've personally seen 53041/2) I also have seen 53059 at the depot but not yet in service.

The expected arrival of some Worcester E300s later in the financial year will further improve the fleet profile to an acceptable standard. Hopefully First don't rest on their laurels in the coming years though as a large proportion of the fleet will have 5-8 years service life remaining, which will soon become an issue unless addressed in the intervening years.

Ben

Yeah, they seemed to be the routes with most tendency to run together, saw 2 StreetLites leaving Hanley virtually together the other day, the Rasberry and Cherry routes seem to load well. I just wish they'd repaint more buses' fronts to match the lines they spend time on, I think it would be possible otherwise they become a bit meaningless if your tangerine line bus is just a standard looking First Olympia livery.

I think you're spot on about the age profile, post DDA it'll be good but right across First group there are a huge number of 2001-5 buses that will need replacing starting in the next 5 years. It will be interesting though to see where average vehicle life settles down at with DDA met whether some buses return to having longer lives? Although tbh anything non DDA is a minimum of 15 years old and probably needing replacement anyway...

I hope First don't rest on their laurels, D and G are expanding with intention up there, they were lucky they only had the Arriva Wardle op to contend with between 2011 and 2015 as opposed to D and G otherwise they could well have kicked First more when they were out of form...

[barry619]

It will be interesting though to see where average vehicle life settles down at with DDA met whether some buses return to having longer lives? Although tbh anything non DDA is a minimum of 15 years old and probably needing replacement anyway...

First have missed a trick in the past by not gutting and refurbishing some what are now life-expired Wright-bodied B10BLEs and L94s. Had they done this at about 12-13 years old, coupled with some cheap Northern Irish plates, new destination blinds, eLeather seats, DDA conversion and so on they'd have got another 10 years out of many of them, chassis and body frame condition dependent. They are heavy-duty, well-built buses which are easily capable of 20+ years' hard work if looked after. Instead they have been used and abused and are now fit for little other than scrap. Some of those which remain with Potteries are awful.

Contrast that with the StreetLites and E200s: Wrights insist that the StreetLite is an 18-year bus, but the condition of some of those which are just a few years old suggest that many of them and the E200s will be scrapyard fodder by the time they're 15, if they even last that long, although I can see that the economic benefits of running a Micro Hybrid StreetLite with its low fuel consumption and enhanced BSOG payments (for now...) more than make up for a shorter service life.

[Bob]

18 year life for a streets###e?  Lol

[T840MAK]

18 year life for a streets###e?  Lol

18 years? Don't make me laugh!

When Sheffield's Streetlites were first delivered they only had a 5-8 year service life expected on them until Wrightbus fiddled around with them even more ;)

[Bob]

People seem to like them though. I don't see the attraction, I find them slow, hard ride, and very noisy, not in a good way like a leopard or ailsa etc, just in a screechy unpleasant way. They judder horribly and jerk badly if accelerated too much for example slowing at an island and accelerating out of it. I think they're pretty poor

[Tony]

People seem to like them though. I don't see the attraction, I find them slow, hard ride, and very noisy, not in a good way like a leopard or ailsa etc, just in a screechy unpleasant way. They judder horribly and jerk badly if accelerated too much for example slowing at an island and accelerating out of it. I think they're pretty poor

I travelled on one of Arriva's Monday morning on my way to Walsall to pick up 1781 for Dundee and it did none of those things, only thing that wasn't smooth was the downward gearchange when slowing

[Bob]

The driver of 3308 on Wednesday which didn't do the jerk thing but was noisy and a bit juddery said he'd been driving another example earlier that day and people had complained about being thrown forward when it jerky.  I personally think they're noisy and not particularly good especially for a so called premium route, or what's left of it.  Incidentally have you seen the letters complaining about Arriva and the 1 & 2 in this week's chronicle?

[T840MAK]

People seem to like them though. I don't see the attraction, I find them slow, hard ride, and very noisy, not in a good way like a leopard or ailsa etc, just in a screechy unpleasant way. They judder horribly and jerk badly if accelerated too much for example slowing at an island and accelerating out of it. I think they're pretty poor

Kind of like @Tony I've travelled on far too many of them just getting home what with Sheffield preferring to put the Streetlites out on duties that remain out until midnight for their increased fuel efficiency and slow is one problem I've definitely not found with them, probably shouldn't be making this public as the driver can get into a lot of stick for it but we have managed to take one past its supposed limiter as an attempt to make up time after it spent 10 minutes trying not to start up! Not got any ride quality problems and but I can see where you're coming from re the jerkiness - although as our drivers are getting used to the new gearbox set up (which vastly improves their performance on hills - not often you get 25-30mph out of a bus going up quite a long & steep hill!) there's less jerking as they're preventing it more.

[barry619]

18 years? Don't make me laugh!

When Sheffield's Streetlites were first delivered they only had a 5-8 year service life expected on them until Wrightbus fiddled around with them even more ;)

At no time have StreetLites ever had a 5-8 year service life projected, at least in the real world.

The jerkiness when slowing was purported to be caused by the Micro Hybrid system, which is logical.

[T840MAK]

At no time have StreetLites ever had a 5-8 year service life projected, at least in the real world.

The jerkiness when slowing was purported to be caused by the Micro Hybrid system, which is logical.

The initial estimates on their projected service life was 5-8 years through what was happening with the prototype Streetlite we had, LK62FUJ, if no changes were made. Sheffield is a very hilly city and the hills had taken their toll on the bus within its first couple of weeks of service - it was trialled on Sheffield's hilliest route, like most demonstrators that visit the area are, so that First know how to specify vehicles in their order - the 51 is a seriously trecherous route with the amount of hills that it uses and has killed numerous B6s, B7s, Tridents and even B10s. Wrights learned from the problems that LK62FUJ was having and made suitable modifications to all of First's production examples and once the first 37 had been delivered to us the prototypes recieved modifications to bring them to the same standard as the production versions.

The production versions that First have recieved since 2013 are different to how their initial 4 were delivered.

[barry619]

Hills don't kill buses, contrary to popular enthusiast belief. There are hills in Hong Kong which make anything Sheffield may have look like a speed bump, yet they have no difficulty getting 18 years' service and above from many models, including Darts.

They may slightly reduce engine life, and potentially transmission life due to increased retarder use causing greater heat build-up, but nothing more. Remove the expired one, drop a new one in and away you go.

I also struggle to comprehend how some minor changes to a bus (and not completely rebuilding it) can massively extend a 'projected service life'. Then again, enthusiasts often know better than manufacturers do.

The StreetLite is not a vehicle which can be majorly re-engineered 'on the fly', as an Olympian or similar could be. Not only is it designed and produced to very fine tolerances in terms of load bearing and available space but there are various Type Approvals to consider which preclude doing so. You can alter the driveline performance via computer (or perhaps change Cummins for Daimler, or vice-versa), or retrofit Micro Hybrid (one of Bristol's is currently having this done) but not a lot more.

[Tony]

Hills don't kill buses, contrary to popular enthusiast belief. There are hills in Hong Kong which make anything Sheffield may have look like a speed bump, yet they have no difficulty getting 18 years' service and above from many models, including Darts.

They may slightly reduce engine life, and potentially transmission life due to increased retarder use causing greater heat build-up, but nothing more. Remove the expired one, drop a new one in and away you go.

I also struggle to comprehend how some minor changes to a bus (and not completely rebuilding it) can massively extend a 'projected service life'. Then again, enthusiasts often know better than manufacturers do.

The StreetLite is not a vehicle which can be majorly re-engineered 'on the fly', as an Olympian or similar could be. Not only is it designed and produced to very fine tolerances in terms of load bearing and available space but there are various Type Approvals to consider which preclude doing so. You can alter the driveline performance via computer (or perhaps change Cummins for Daimler, or vice-versa), or retrofit Micro Hybrid (one of Bristol's is currently having this done) but not a lot more.

There is also no way First Group, or any of the other big groups, would buy a £100,000 vehicle and depreciate it over 8 years

[Bob]

They are horribly noisy though, noisier than any volvo/volvo decker, any sb120,  dart, and even an old sb200  ( and they are noisy ) . I can't find anything nice about them. Some of Cannocks now rattle as badly as nx enviro 200 . Poor all over I think personally. Their introduction on the 1 & 2 obviously didn't make journeys sparkle, had they done so they wouldn't of had to cut the services lol

[T840MAK]

Well I apologise if what you're reading you believe to be incorrect - but this is information that was given by an engineer when they were delivered and have nothing to do with my own personal opinion...

And yes, I am aware hills don't kill buses, I'm not that stupid.

[barry619]

Well I apologise if what you're reading you believe to be incorrect - but this is information that was given by an engineer when they were delivered and have nothing to do with my own personal opinion...

If you were told by a garage spanner monkey then any info they give is usually best treated the same as that from drivers. It is often suspect, either because they don't know as much as they think they do, or because they are feeding you BS on purpose for whatever reason.

And yes, I am aware hills don't kill buses, I'm not that stupid.

But you did say that hills 'take their toll' on buses. They do not.