Topics

I read on facebook that Chris had died. I called at his flat this afternoon and his neighbours confirmed the news. I have got no information of what happened or funeral arrangements. I have been contacting Chris regularly over the last few years by phone as he found it increasingly difficult to get out. Chris has been a bus enthusiast for most of his life, I gather from conversations with him.    R.I.P Chris.

Sad to see the Bendies go from the 67, but if they can be replaced by the same number of deckers on the same schedule they did not make commercial sense. Why carry about an extra 4 tons of bus all day? In London on the 436 26 Bendies were replaced by 32 Enviro 400's, and on the 453 23 Bendies were replaced by 34 Enviro 400's. I took the information from Visions [The London Bus Guides].
NXWM have successfully operated express routes to Perry Barr and along the Coventry Road for some time now and are upgrading them with Platinum buses. This is surely the way ahead and not "Sprint" which does the opposite and puts the faster buses on the shorter routes. If Bendies have not worked on the 67 why reintroduce them. I can miss the 59 in the City Centre and take the next 900 or 957 and be able to catch up the 59 by the Swan. Why not let the operators work out the routes instead of Councils or Quangos, who know nothing about how to run a bus service.

Do NX still own part of LH? Tony has mentioned some buses being inside and when I passed there last week the doors were open and the building seemed to have been partitioned off about two thirds of the way along.

Tony, some time ago you told us that all but one of the B7RLE's were on the road on one particular day. Would it be possible to do the same check on the Presidents. They are near the end of their working life and it would be interesting to see how reliable they are. I can't remember the last time I saw one of them parked up having failed, a big contrast with the Mercedes when they were on the 13 and 17 through Yardley.

1601 was shown as withdrawn from WB June 2013 and sold to PVS July 2014.It is shown as WB on the current Fleet list. Can some one clarify this please. 

I read on Buszone that Reading are sending 10 Hybrid E 400 Enviro'to Glasgow for the games. Should be interesting going up Shap and Beatock.

I saw a bus in Solihull on 2nd May registered YJ13HJC. I have been waiting for someone to report it as I didn't get a good look at it. My guess is it was a long Optare Versa in Clarelibell livery. Has anyone else seen it?

BY seem to have removed the TWM branding from most of their Scanias and I noticed on my last visit that Coventry had removed the Travel Coventry branding from quite a few of their vehicles. Are we going to see National Express being applied to these before repaint?