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How many more ALX400s are going to transfer from PB to WB

4269 now at WB, on the 74 today

I Had a feeling 4269 will move to WB :)

Probably depends on how many Presidents are at WB. I have no idea on how many Presidents WB have left, but if it's quite a lot, I'd say the last few Geminis from AG will replace them all, and if that's not enough, it'll probably be a handful of ALX400s from PB.

I have to be honest, I saw P728 RYL on the 37 today (quite rare really) and it had a 37 written with a pen that was blatantly running out on a tatty cardboard in the window, with the side blinds working with full 37 information, so I stand corrected, however this was the first ever time I've seen this after using the 37 very regularly to get to college, home and work!

Just thought I'd let everyone know it was terrible. The gazeebo thing flew off.

Does a B7RLE Urban 2 on the 1 (Acocks Green - Birmingham) count as a rare working anymore?  ::)

To most people on this group probably, as I reckon their mainly from North Birmingham and hardly any have been on the service! To us, no lol.

The Presidents do seem to be everywhere at AG at the minute, I only ever see the Geminis on the 5 and 11, and there seems to be more Presidents on the 37 than Omnilinks! Though I did spot a B10L on the 5 this morning!

Ah, it must have been 1430, as 7128 was on the 31 all day.

Yes there certainly does! I got 4050 from Solihull to Acocks Green this evening, with four Presidents passing the other way and 2 Scanias. Might as well make the most of the Presidents on the full 37 to Birmingham, as after the Summer they'll only be on the 37E's I imagine.

Also, it's starting to get frustrating having Outer Circle Geminis randomly placed on any route. There was one on the 31 today, and it seems that it has been on the 31 for the last few days.

See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN1O5FfKDb4&list=UUe-_qzGEU4g48p-mRfO24SQ&index=1&feature=plcp for video evidence, the bus in front! Annoyingly the sound cut off!!

Presidents in 2000.

No President's have been new to West Brom, They are Yardley Wood cast off's in 2002 when the Trident's replaced them on the 6. 4087-4097, 4099 all moved in May 2002 and then moved to BC when Hockley Closed. I'm guessing to make room for the 42** Volvo's and other buses gained during the closure. West Brom didn't have any President's again until 2007 when the 451 gained refurbished examples.

My mistake, I confuse Hockley & West Bromwich a lot, where the Presidents and ALX400s are concerned!

I think I saw 4076 on the 11 today as well, should hopefully get a list of all April's changes this week

No doubt it'll have a million Presidents to AG

Scanias in 2008. Geminis in 2006. Presidents in 2000.

the realtime still works on the 11, all the presidents are fitted to trigger it as well as the Geminis

So they could be used as peak period extras on the 11 then (presuming there are such things these days?) I would have thought filling the route 100% with Presidents would not give a good signal - the Geminis are very 'noticeable' vehicles to the public.

I might be able to help here.

If you take a look at the following photograph:

http://www.wmbusphotos.com/NXWM/4001-4224/4070.html

You can see next to where it says '31A', there is a satellite symbol thing. Vehicles with that symbol are fitted with the real time software, however as Tony said, all Presidents are fitted with it, so the ones without the symbol just leads me to believe that it was simply NX not putting the stickers on the earlier refurbs, or the later refurbs.

Yes but all services NXWM run are given normally to the nearest garage to the service in question to reduce dead mileage, i think the worst case of dead mileage ive heard of was when the 900 was ran by Walsall garage with the dp metrobuses, dont know the year was too young to remember and i believe Acock's Green has ran the route, has Coventry ever ran the service?

I second that. All garages can terminate certain routes closer to their garage on the last journeys rather than just drive up with that dead mileage.

Yes, new in 2000, and replaced by Trident's in 2002.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you would have been about 3-4 when they were new, as you told us your age in another post. Remarkable memory isn't it.

So you're telling me and everybody else in this forum that the reason the 11 is a double deck service is because of the parking in Handsworth. The whole of the Outer Circle 26 mile service is double deck because of Handsworth parking issues.

I do not even wish to question you on the 11S ran by Perry Barr then...

Ive only ever seen 1 problem with an omilink on the 11A and thats Handsworth, were the drivers decided to park the cars wereever they want which makes it hard for buses, hence why doubles are used on the 11A/C

Do you just make b***s*** up on the spot or what? The 11 is a double deck service because of it's high usage, not because of parking in Handsworth.

I think they should do just this-maybe extra long wheelbase volvo b9tl/geminis like Lothian have as these are really smart looking buses and should be solidly built and reliable. These would help capacity problems on some routes.

But would they be able to cope with the tight turns on the Outer Circle? A little re-routing could easily fix the problem however.

Ominlinks can just about cope with the tuen on the 11 so why carnt other buses

They can, but they do struggle. The Scanias are around 12metres, and the long wheel base Geminis are 11.4m I think, as opposed to the standard 10.6-8m double decker.

I didnt initially propose them for the outer circle as this is what i thought but for many routes they would be fine...

Fair play. Hopefully NX is developing some sort of relationship with Wrightbus (what with the 152 Eclipses), so maybe we can expect more orders. It would be nice though for AG to gain some newer vehicles for the 11. As previously mentioned, the 11 hasn't got a history of getting new vehicles, but what about in 2004 when it gained 45 new Geminis (split between AG & PB). NX must have saw sense when they bought the Geminis, although I do believe that Centro supported the funding.  Maybe with the BSOG and Centro, NX could get some B5L Gemini2s for the 11.