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I can confirm that arriva cannock has 2976 and its an optare versa. It was seen in pye green on the 26

A fleet of Versa's would suit Arriva Cannock.
Modern stylish looking, cheap to run i'm sure Bob would love them!!

Chg is on 94s today & ghf is on 167/168

Many thanks for your reply, just boarding the train from Shrewsbury so will be about shortly.

There is no set allocations for the pulsars & they do switch around depending on where they are parked on the evening for morning allocations, this does generally lead to them staying on the same routes but as stated they could go anywhere.

If I remember I will pm you on Friday to let you know where they are.

Tof719s a range of different pulsars have been on.the S16 reprising for the optares if they are on private hires. Fdv has been the most prolific on there though.

Thanks for the reply Steve, hopefully I will find them. if you could let me know via this post what they're on that would be great as I can't seem to log in on my phone to the pm section.
I always seem to get the 57 plate and 58 plate in Eardington also seen BCU a couple of times too with the 14 plates on the 94 everytime I visit.
Thanks again.

Thinking of popping across on Friday and looking for my last 2 Pulsars in the fleet, would anyone know if YJ60GHF and YJ12CHG should be about in service (mechanical failure excluding) and if so where do they normally operate??
I know from previous visits the older stock seems to operate in Eardington but a recent photo of GHF shows it on an S16 in Solihull??
Any help would be grateful  ;D

Good luck with that one; has one of the most confused and jumpy gearboxes ever :/

The workshop staff at Oswestry are very good with the SB200 so I'm sure they will have it running at its best within a few days.

I'm not a fan of their Volvos- the 39** series anyway , pulsars far superior

A good pulsar is probably he best bus out there at the minute, sadly a certain fuel saving device seems to have turned many of them into snails!! North West and North East appear to go better than Midlands examples.

I was looking at 4707 today and the seats look well passed their best to be fair. Hopefully something a little tidier can be found to replace it?
Any idea what will come for the 54 service in September? 3717 would be nice  ;D

Personally I would have thought that 3022 would have been better going to Aylesbury along with many others of its type there and send Sapphire SB200 3796 to Cannock.
I remember a couple of years ago there was a big push to standardise vehicle types at the depots which was a great idea, it seems this is now not the case??

See Simon Dunn's comments as well.

Do you maintain them?
Do you operate them?

They are not cheap vehicles compared to others, but as I said really reliable  and Volvo back up is better than a lot of manufacturersvwhen things do go wrong

I have had involvement in maintaining B7RLE's yes and I must say that Magirus Deutz engine they use is a pretty shocking piece of equipment. I have seen them throw engine oil out at fairly low mileages and witnessed several issues with low oil pressure and low fuel pressure. My present employer has one and the only reason it's retained is for a contract requiring 40 seatbelts, it's been to Volvo 3 times in 2 years for work to be carried out on the engine!! If there was an SB200 with belts out there I'm sure they would happily swap.
And no I don't operate them, if I had a choice I would opt for the tried and tested Cummins powered bus.

Wright bodied B7RLEs are some of the most reliable buses made in the last few years.

If the Ex Shires ones at Cannock are anything to go by I will stick to VDL's

Also if they're so good why did Midland Classic sell all theirs off so quickly??

You reckon any SB200 is better than a B7RLE???

I would say 110% an SB200 is better

The only thing wrong with Stafford is suffering one of those B7RLE devices there from Cannock, I actively avoid them and await any of the Darts, Cadets or and more preferably a Pulsar to get there :) Stafford is one of those towns in decline, sad really as I was there in Uni in the good old days, the R-TJW Darts were very youthful back then and the 9 was quite a money spinner, the Uni has closed the Stafford site now and that certainly knocked a prime town service into decline, the town isn't as buzzing either with shoppers as it was who used the buses.

I worked from Stafford Garage in late 2003 and its very sad to see the decline in the town since then, My last visit was earlier this year and the town has many boarded up and empty shops and to be fair with the said closure of the uni it can't be ideal bus territory for Arriva. I would say the main reason for the decline in the shopping district has to be the massive shopping development outside the town which can't help things and also lead to massive traffic problems which lead to an unreliable bus service.
I agree regards those nasty horrible Volvo B7RLE's, they're very stuffy in the back and you sit so high up you can't see out the windows, give me a nice light and airy Pulsar anyday they're much nicer than any Volvo.

A new management structure has resulted in attention to Cannock and the aim will be to.....


·         SB200 Pulsars allocated on 25/26
·         Spare Pulsar (3795) to be dedicated spare bus for Sapphire routes and possibly refurbed to Sapphire spec.
·         Refurbed Solos to be allocated to boards that work on the 75/12/1B (They have been tried on Pye Green but not enough pushchair space)

Might as well just send 3796 up from Aylesbury as its been Sapphire'd, the X8 route seems to carry very little and seems to follow the 280 anyway!!

I had a report of 3705 being on the route 7 today.

Did you manage to find 3705? I found 4807 was on the Free Tesco Bus last time I went but that only operates during the week.