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Another bus broken on the 63/64/65 again seems to keep happening often leaving routes that run every hour and people rely on them without a bus.

Isn't time to start looking for buses that arent 15 years old and ready to become tin cans and somthing that isn't them stupid vans...

It's about time something was done, the older bigger capacity vehicles on these services are always breaking down, or we get a bread van which isn't suitable at certain times.

The previous operator was more reliable

the gemini 2 are volvo b5lh hybrids, not straight diesel so doubt that, but be interesting if wrights are only offering it on their integral vehicles. Im sure i heard in the press that the big story involves a company in oxford with the repower solution

Because they carry on driving them in an unsafe condition?

That's the description given at the PI of a couple of the vehicles

strange situation isnt it? as if they were that bad and appealed that decision, although they could carry on operating if they were that bad surely the appeal would have been rejected and them being finished. However maybe they have made some changes in the mean time and got their act together? I agree vehicles should be clean, but in this weather thats a difficult job

I must tell the BBC that they're printing lies on bbc.co.uk/news. . When I read the article about that thirty mins ago £3 was the stated figure

the clue is in the word cap. The fares will be capped at £3, so if a specific operator wishes to charge less then thats upto them

lets go, or travel express tried it many years ago using their old step entrance darts. Diamond went on there for a bit, and did a 59h which did the new cross loop, but lost quite a bit of time doing that as i remember.

So you still have not read where I said all seats will be re-covered and new foam added where needed

tbh to most people, having seats recovered and foam replaced where needed, & retrim = same thing! 

That has taken 4 times longer to paint, and cost 3 times as much, hence why most buses around the country are going one colour (Stagecoach, London, Manchester) or sometimes 2 (First).

Single colour repaint is

prep, mask (one day), undercoat, bake, top coat, bake, varnish, bake (one day), apply vinyls. (0.5 days)

This one was prep, mask undercoat, bake, re-mask for khaki, paint, bake, re-mask for cream, paint, bake, re-mask for blue, very time consuming due to thin lines, paint, bake, re-mask for complete bus, varnish, bake, apply vinyls. Now while the prep & vinyls take the same time the painting took 4 days, not 1.

I think it would be nice to keep a vehicle in the heritage livery at each garage that originally had them. Obviously, the time and extra prep increases the cost, as does any repairs those vehicles require, but it was a nice touch by nxwm. 

I understand where 900 was coming from as previously it was mentioned there were to be no more, especially when they get replaced by electrics. 

As for the time taken to prep the different colours, you can see why many bus and coach operators started to stay with whiote or one base colour and use vinyl

saw e228 on lichfield road by peacock avenue 

has the appeal date been set or has it been heard, only bit late reporting by route one

Yes, they acquired it from Llew Jones dealer stock in October 2023

i thought as much remember it rang a belle with a dealers youtube video

Setra S415-HD BU04 EZA (previously C23 JKT) has now left the fleet, with Irizar Century YN64 AMV being acquired & gaining the registration C23 JKT.

had the setra been in the fleet for long?

Interesting, but it's a bus which travels on bus routes daily, not a car used once a week for shopping and church. What kind of mileage would they expect?

some buses allocated on certain routes regularly will clock up more miles than others. A good example was the wolverhampton 54/154 service where the e200s branded for those routes quickly clocked up a lot of miles compared to others of the same batch running on other routes. 

So in the case of the 9, its a busy long route, and if (and i dont know for certain) for arguments sake there was a an agreement on mileage, over the term of the lease you wouldnt want those vehicles reaching the mileage limit before the time is up. Depending on the agreement that could inccur extra costs/penaltys.

Yes I was thinking there may be some spares kept whilst the electrics 'bed in' and in any case you might cover any elderly Euro 6 double deckers or Scania (single deck) which might fall by the wayside with major and costly faults, like 4600 did recently.

I shall be very interested to see how you deal with AG's allocation of non Euro 6 Geminis in the short term - although they don't necessarily need to replaced based on non B'ham city centre routes, I guess, if really necessary, there are enough Euro 6 ones at WB to move across if they get some more E400s (noting the next fleet number, leap frogging the 5 Omnidekkas is 4799).....

Anyway, a very interesting period, fleet wise approaches!!

i bet the non euro 6 ones, and when their time is due any good euro 6 converted geminis and tridents may follow some of the already sold on ones. 

id of thought that a 67 plate would be euro 6 as most manufacturers were building vehicles to euro 6 from 2015/16. it definitely wouldnt be euro 4, possibly euro 5

10A terminates at the bus stop outside the shops, then turns around in the mouth of the road by the pigot arms. It can be done in one if no one parks against the church wall, done it many a time in coaches and the nx b7rles. If they park there, usually need to do a reverse to complete the turn, then Pickup is the bus stop facing out.