Another big order announced today

[Tony]

National Express West Midlands is investing £150 million in 300 UK-made electric zero emission buses, for delivery by the end of December 2024. The buses will be deployed across the West Midlands.

https://www.nationalexpressgroup.com/media/news-releases/2023/national-express-west-midlands-invests-record-150-million-in-300-uk-made-electric-zero-emission-buses/

[winston]

Can NX spec them Autonomous, that will save the issue of no drivers....

[Steve3229vp]

National Express West Midlands is investing £150 million in 300 UK-made electric zero emission buses, for delivery by the end of December 2024. The buses will be deployed across the West Midlands.

https://www.nationalexpressgroup.com/media/news-releases/2023/national-express-west-midlands-invests-record-150-million-in-300-uk-made-electric-zero-emission-buses/

Replace as many single deckers as possible ....... please !

[Tony]

Replace as many single deckers as possible ....... please !

A lot of these 300 'deckers will replace Scanias. The order is now more than 600 vehicles (130 for Coventry, 170 added on announced at Conservative party conference and this 300 + Sprint vehicles) and a large number of Scanias are in the 600 oldest buses in the fleet.

[Stu]

National Express West Midlands is investing £150 million in 300 UK-made electric zero emission buses, for delivery by the end of December 2024. The buses will be deployed across the West Midlands.

https://www.nationalexpressgroup.com/media/news-releases/2023/national-express-west-midlands-invests-record-150-million-in-300-uk-made-electric-zero-emission-buses/

I don't suppose there's any indication yet on who will be supplying these? (ADL or Wrightbus?)

Also in that press release I found the following paragraph interesting:

A further 124 electric or hydrogen powered buses, including 24 articulated vehicles for the Sprint route on the A34 and A45, will be delivered next year through the Zero-Emission Bus Regional Areas (ZEBRA) fund.

My emphasis in bold, as previous announcements have always indicated that this order of buses, including those for the Sprint routes, would be hydrogen fuelled, so is there perhaps some 'rolling back' on the hydrogen ambition now?

If 300 new buses can be delivered by the end of next year, that would see off most of the older fleet. There could also be opportunity to 'shrink' the single-deck fleet size, I wonder if NX would be open to the possibility of selling off some 'mid-life' vehicles such as the Wright Eclipse 2 B7RLEs.

[Stu]

A lot of these 300 'deckers will replace Scanias. The order is now more than 600 vehicles (130 for Coventry, 170 added on announced at Conservative party conference and this 300 + Sprint vehicles) and a large number of Scanias are in the 600 oldest buses in the fleet.

Nothing against the Scania OmniLinks but this is music to my ears!

[Tony]

I don't suppose there's any indication yet on who will be supplying these? (ADL or Wrightbus?)


If 300 new buses can be delivered by the end of next year, that would see off most of the older fleet. There could also be opportunity to 'shrink' the single-deck fleet size, I wonder if NX would be open to the possibility of selling off some 'mid-life' vehicles such as the Wright Eclipse 2 B7RLEs.

I was told today it is a mix of ADL & Wrights.

It's 600, not 300 (including the 130 for Coventry) hence the statement about 40% of the fleet

[Coventrybususer95]

Going to be interesting to see what model's are chosen 

[Tony]

Going to be interesting to see what model's are chosen

I've put a mix of Wrights and ADL so not too much working out needed.

[Mike K]

I was told today it is a mix of ADL & Wrights.

It's 600, not 300 (including the 130 for Coventry) hence the statement about 40% of the fleet

Good to finally see the return of dual sourcing from 2 manufacturers again for large scale orders. Will also be good to see the return of Wrightbus vehicles in decent quantities. 

[danny]

This is outstanding would be nice too see maybe a step back to mecedes as the recent evaluation of the citaro seems to have gone down a treat... maybe for single deck routes such as the Bournville route (I wanna say the 27 but not from that side of town) and potentially the 4 series on the Blackheath to Walsall corridor. 

Can see a very interesting few months ahead.

[ellspurs]

I don't suppose there's any indication yet on who will be supplying these? (ADL or Wrightbus?)

Also in that press release I found the following paragraph interesting:My emphasis in bold, as previous announcements have always indicated that this order of buses, including those for the Sprint routes, would be hydrogen fuelled, so is there perhaps some 'rolling back' on the hydrogen ambition now?

If 300 new buses can be delivered by the end of next year, that would see off most of the older fleet. There could also be opportunity to 'shrink' the single-deck fleet size, I wonder if NX would be open to the possibility of selling off some 'mid-life' vehicles such as the Wright Eclipse 2 B7RLEs.

At the bottom of the article, it says a further 100 electric-or-hydrogen powered buses and 24 articulated buses are due by the end of 2024 through the ZEBRA funding. I don't think those are included in the above figures.

A further 124 electric or hydrogen powered buses, including 24 articulated vehicles for the Sprint route on the A34 and A45, will be delivered next year through the Zero-Emission Bus Regional Areas (ZEBRA) fund. This is in addition to the investment by private bus operators as they renew their fleets for the zero-emission future.

[Stu]

At the bottom of the article, it says a further 100 electric-or-hydrogen powered buses and 24 articulated buses are due by the end of 2024 through the ZEBRA funding. I don't think those are included in the above figures.

Yes, I know that, hence why I quoted that bit.

I was curious about the choice of "electric or hydrogen" wording, as previous announcements had intimated that particular order would have been all hydrogen vehicles.

Despite the 'pilot scheme' ending in September last year, NX still don't seem to be able to deploy all 20 hydrogen buses in service together, so I wouldn't be surprised if they ended up abandoning this 'project' if they felt that electric buses were the better long-term investment. It would of course mean handing those 20 vehicles back to Birmingham City Council and letting them figure out what to do with them.

[ellspurs]

Sorry, I managed to not see that part of your reply.

[Ronnoc]

This would probably see off all the remaining Geminis and ALX400s. Hopefully NX have also gone for Electroliners + Hydroliners.