Diamond Bus - Discussion

[Ash]

I've noticed 20851 has gone to Kidderminster as it was on the 3 today and back with black diamond the 4/4H/4M had two solo's on it. Hope the 4 is not going to revert back to having solo's on it on a regular basis.

[tank90]

Well it may have a message some one sent to them as well  ::)

Yeah good news about the E300s tho as they are a heavy dart at heart tho I think the livery may change again after everything is all blue.

[jc]

At least one ex Lothian decker in service this  morning at Redditch in Blue

[vinh1000]

Great news about the preston tridents being repainted for redditch and glad to see that they are reviewing options for new buses. This seems good news. It would be good however for these new buses to arrive fairly soon

seen one today V542 ESC

[jc]

V541ESC also running round Redditch, although had been taken to the depot by 10am

[winston]

Great news about the preston tridents being repainted for redditch and glad to see that they are reviewing options for new buses. This seems good news. It would be good however for these new buses to arrive fairly soon

As regards the ex Preston Tridents they are virtually the same age as the ex First Tridents they may/may not be replacing unless they initially will allow for the withdrawal of the one remaining N-reg Olympian & two K-reg Citybuses? 'Riewing options for new buses' doesn't necessarily equate to signing on the dotted line & committing to placing new vehicle orders, no one can dispute the investment levels put in to the Preston & Wessex fleets when required, but at present the West Midlands appears to be the poor relation, let's hope this changes. No one expects Rotala to bring a brand new fleet from day one, but they do need to start buying batches of new buses to upgrade certain corridors / routes on a continual basis annually. Although the MCV's were said to be poor quality product, the proceeds of the disposals could have been re-injected back in to the business to buy something more superior in essence we had 23 x MCV out from Black/Red Diamond whilst only 8 x Hybrid Versa in (those have always seemed to struggle to find permanent home), if I remember right wasn't this also around the time that Arriva appeared on the WM scene & Diamonds pvr was reduced due Centro tender losses & the closure of the Worcester operation. If the 25% cheaper refers to the Arriva win of Centro Tenders, that's just business, Arriva wanted to establish a presence in the WM tendering system & needed a sizeable win to justify the cost of setting up a new outstation, they achieved that & will no doubt make a loss on that operation, but due to the size of Arriva & its parent company backing they can easily afford to swallow this loss & obviously must have higher aspirations for the future......

Diamond are still taking a slating on their FB page in relation in the Redditch services, the Kidderminster ones seem to have bedded in much better with only ticketing issuing problems been reported. Most of the complaints seem to refer to 20 min gaps in services, late/none running, buses when they do turn up arriving packed. Judging by the recent advert for drivers in Redditch I suspect they are short which is now adding to the change of ownership problems

Well said maybe rotala need a Winston in charge?

Hardly Rich, I'm no expert..... It's just you get out of a business what you put in, whilst Rotala have been concentrating on improving driver & vehicle presentation I'm sure that their customers would benefit/would notice more if vehicles allocations were improved on the busier routes, no one wants to be shoehorned on to a Solo on busy routes like the 4/4H/4M & 301. I suspect that Tividale could also do with further 10.6M Darts & more full size heavy duty buses. It's all well & good updating the fleet with newer second-hand buses, but it's highly unlikely you'd ever be able to lay your hands on any sizeable batches, therefore you'll end up buying one's & two's of everything, all different lengths / different seating capacities & in some cases different drivelines. The more variations you have the less likely you are to have the parts in stock when a failure occurs, therefore vehicles will be sat around in the depot non revenue earning awaiting parts to be ordered/delivered

[Ash]

Great news about the preston tridents being repainted for redditch and glad to see that they are reviewing options for new buses. This seems good news. It would be good however for these new buses to arrive fairly soon

As regards the ex Preston Tridents they are virtually the same age as the ex First Tridents they may/may not be replacing unless they initially will allow for the withdrawal of the one remaining N-reg Olympian & two K-reg Citybuses? 'Riewing options for new buses' doesn't necessarily equate to signing on the dotted line & committing to placing new vehicle orders, no one can dispute the investment levels put in to the Preston & Wessex fleets when required, but at present the West Midlands appears to be the poor relation, let's hope this changes. No one expects Rotala to bring a brand new fleet from day one, but they do need to start buying batches of new buses to upgrade certain corridors / routes on a continual basis annually. Although the MCV's were said to be poor quality product, the proceeds of the disposals could have been re-injected back in to the business to buy something more superior in essence we had 23 x MCV out from Black/Red Diamond whilst only 8 x Hybrid Versa in (those have always seemed to struggle to find permanent home), if I remember right wasn't this also around the time that Arriva appeared on the WM scene & Diamonds pvr was reduced due Centro tender losses & the closure of the Worcester operation. If the 25% cheaper refers to the Arriva win of Centro Tenders, that's just business, Arriva wanted to establish a presence in the WM tendering system & needed a sizeable win to justify the cost of setting up a new outstation, they achieved that & will no doubt make a loss on that operation, but due to the size of Arriva & its parent company backing they can easily afford to swallow this loss & obviously must have higher aspirations for the future......

Diamond are still taking a slating on their FB page in relation in the Redditch services, the Kidderminster ones seem to have bedded in much better with only ticketing issuing problems been reported. Most of the complaints seem to refer to 20 min gaps in services, late/none running, buses when they do turn up arriving packed. Judging by the recent advert for drivers in Redditch I suspect they are short which is now adding to the change of ownership problems

Well said maybe rotala need a Winston in charge?

Hardly Rich, I'm no expert..... It's just you get out of a business what you put in, whilst Rotala have been concentrating on improving driver & vehicle presentation I'm sure that their customers would benefit/would notice more if vehicles allocations were improved on the busier routes, no one wants to be shoehorned on to a Solo on busy routes like the 4/4H/4M & 301. I suspect that Tividale could also do with further 10.6M Darts & more full size heavy duty buses. It's all well & good updating the fleet with newer second-hand buses, but it's highly unlikely you'd ever be able to lay your hands on any sizeable batches, therefore you'll end up buying one's & two's of everything, all different lengths / different seating capacities & in some cases different drivelines. The more variations you have the less likely you are to have the parts in stock when a failure occurs, therefore vehicles will be sat around in the depot non revenue earning awaiting parts to be ordered/delivered

I agree totally to this but I think you can get away with the solo's/mpd's on the 4 compared to the 301 because of the 6 minute frequency but then when the 4 interworks with the 4H/4M you get the problem as often especially the 4H needs a far bigger bus than a solo/mpd between West Bromwich and Hayley Green. The 301 is very busy service for diamond minimum cadets for this service. All diamond commercial service should be full sized single deckers  leaving the tendered services to the solo's and mpd's and looking at the fleet do diamond even have enough full size single decker buses for the daily commercial PVR.

[winston]

Great news about the preston tridents being repainted for redditch and glad to see that they are reviewing options for new buses. This seems good news. It would be good however for these new buses to arrive fairly soon

As regards the ex Preston Tridents they are virtually the same age as the ex First Tridents they may/may not be replacing unless they initially will allow for the withdrawal of the one remaining N-reg Olympian & two K-reg Citybuses? 'Riewing options for new buses' doesn't necessarily equate to signing on the dotted line & committing to placing new vehicle orders, no one can dispute the investment levels put in to the Preston & Wessex fleets when required, but at present the West Midlands appears to be the poor relation, let's hope this changes. No one expects Rotala to bring a brand new fleet from day one, but they do need to start buying batches of new buses to upgrade certain corridors / routes on a continual basis annually. Although the MCV's were said to be poor quality product, the proceeds of the disposals could have been re-injected back in to the business to buy something more superior in essence we had 23 x MCV out from Black/Red Diamond whilst only 8 x Hybrid Versa in (those have always seemed to struggle to find permanent home), if I remember right wasn't this also around the time that Arriva appeared on the WM scene & Diamonds pvr was reduced due Centro tender losses & the closure of the Worcester operation. If the 25% cheaper refers to the Arriva win of Centro Tenders, that's just business, Arriva wanted to establish a presence in the WM tendering system & needed a sizeable win to justify the cost of setting up a new outstation, they achieved that & will no doubt make a loss on that operation, but due to the size of Arriva & its parent company backing they can easily afford to swallow this loss & obviously must have higher aspirations for the future......

Diamond are still taking a slating on their FB page in relation in the Redditch services, the Kidderminster ones seem to have bedded in much better with only ticketing issuing problems been reported. Most of the complaints seem to refer to 20 min gaps in services, late/none running, buses when they do turn up arriving packed. Judging by the recent advert for drivers in Redditch I suspect they are short which is now adding to the change of ownership problems

Well said maybe rotala need a Winston in charge?

Hardly Rich, I'm no expert..... It's just you get out of a business what you put in, whilst Rotala have been concentrating on improving driver & vehicle presentation I'm sure that their customers would benefit/would notice more if vehicles allocations were improved on the busier routes, no one wants to be shoehorned on to a Solo on busy routes like the 4/4H/4M & 301. I suspect that Tividale could also do with further 10.6M Darts & more full size heavy duty buses. It's all well & good updating the fleet with newer second-hand buses, but it's highly unlikely you'd ever be able to lay your hands on any sizeable batches, therefore you'll end up buying one's & two's of everything, all different lengths / different seating capacities & in some cases different drivelines. The more variations you have the less likely you are to have the parts in stock when a failure occurs, therefore vehicles will be sat around in the depot non revenue earning awaiting parts to be ordered/delivered

I agree totally to this but I think you can get away with the solo's/mpd's on the 4 compared to the 301 because of the 6 minute frequency but then when the 4 interworks with the 4H/4M you get the problem as often especially the 4H needs a far bigger bus than a solo/mpd between West Bromwich and Hayley Green. The 301 is very busy service for diamond minimum cadets for this service. All diamond commercial service should be full sized single deckers  leaving the tendered services to the solo's and mpd's and looking at the fleet do diamond even have enough full size single decker buses for the daily commercial PVR.

Most if not all of the newer single deckers Tividale have received in recent months have been MPD's & Solo's

[Ash]

Great news about the preston tridents being repainted for redditch and glad to see that they are reviewing options for new buses. This seems good news. It would be good however for these new buses to arrive fairly soon

As regards the ex Preston Tridents they are virtually the same age as the ex First Tridents they may/may not be replacing unless they initially will allow for the withdrawal of the one remaining N-reg Olympian & two K-reg Citybuses? 'Riewing options for new buses' doesn't necessarily equate to signing on the dotted line & committing to placing new vehicle orders, no one can dispute the investment levels put in to the Preston & Wessex fleets when required, but at present the West Midlands appears to be the poor relation, let's hope this changes. No one expects Rotala to bring a brand new fleet from day one, but they do need to start buying batches of new buses to upgrade certain corridors / routes on a continual basis annually. Although the MCV's were said to be poor quality product, the proceeds of the disposals could have been re-injected back in to the business to buy something more superior in essence we had 23 x MCV out from Black/Red Diamond whilst only 8 x Hybrid Versa in (those have always seemed to struggle to find permanent home), if I remember right wasn't this also around the time that Arriva appeared on the WM scene & Diamonds pvr was reduced due Centro tender losses & the closure of the Worcester operation. If the 25% cheaper refers to the Arriva win of Centro Tenders, that's just business, Arriva wanted to establish a presence in the WM tendering system & needed a sizeable win to justify the cost of setting up a new outstation, they achieved that & will no doubt make a loss on that operation, but due to the size of Arriva & its parent company backing they can easily afford to swallow this loss & obviously must have higher aspirations for the future......

Diamond are still taking a slating on their FB page in relation in the Redditch services, the Kidderminster ones seem to have bedded in much better with only ticketing issuing problems been reported. Most of the complaints seem to refer to 20 min gaps in services, late/none running, buses when they do turn up arriving packed. Judging by the recent advert for drivers in Redditch I suspect they are short which is now adding to the change of ownership problems

Well said maybe rotala need a Winston in charge?

Hardly Rich, I'm no expert..... It's just you get out of a business what you put in, whilst Rotala have been concentrating on improving driver & vehicle presentation I'm sure that their customers would benefit/would notice more if vehicles allocations were improved on the busier routes, no one wants to be shoehorned on to a Solo on busy routes like the 4/4H/4M & 301. I suspect that Tividale could also do with further 10.6M Darts & more full size heavy duty buses. It's all well & good updating the fleet with newer second-hand buses, but it's highly unlikely you'd ever be able to lay your hands on any sizeable batches, therefore you'll end up buying one's & two's of everything, all different lengths / different seating capacities & in some cases different drivelines. The more variations you have the less likely you are to have the parts in stock when a failure occurs, therefore vehicles will be sat around in the depot non revenue earning awaiting parts to be ordered/delivered

I agree totally to this but I think you can get away with the solo's/mpd's on the 4 compared to the 301 because of the 6 minute frequency but then when the 4 interworks with the 4H/4M you get the problem as often especially the 4H needs a far bigger bus than a solo/mpd between West Bromwich and Hayley Green. The 301 is very busy service for diamond minimum cadets for this service. All diamond commercial service should be full sized single deckers  leaving the tendered services to the solo's and mpd's and looking at the fleet do diamond even have enough full size single decker buses for the daily commercial PVR.

Most if not all of the newer single deckers Tividale have received in recent months have been MPD's & Solo's

Apart from the enviro200, mcv evolution and 4 full size darts from your bus of which at least 1 seems to be at Kidderminster and I have only ever saw 20849/51 in service. The rest like you mentioned are MPD's and solo's.

[Ash]

Had a ride on 30801 on the 82 today and it seriously seemed to lack any power the fans were making a loud noise and certainly didn't sound like a typical MAN engine but also when climbing any incline the bus was nearly coming to a complete standstill I thought I was on a dart.

[winston]

Diamond are now withdrawing off the 4 / 4H & 4M on evenings & Sundays from 28th April

[bwsau cymru]

Diamond are now withdrawing off the 4 / 4H & 4M on evenings & Sundays from 28th April

its a great shame I think personally, ive used the diamond service on the 4 loads, but when the timetable was changed when it changed to the 4 I haven't used it due to the timetable. why on earth run a commercial service in competition 5/10 mins behind your competition, stupid tbh. I think diamonds problem at the moment has to be the management at tivadale, they are going to be assigning solo's to the 4 etc.....

but at the same time the route is dead at night so I can understand!

[jc]

20850 in service in Redditch tonight.

B7RLE on an all day 143 board ...

[Ash]

Diamond are now withdrawing off the 4 / 4H & 4M on evenings & Sundays from 28th April

its a great shame I think personally, ive used the diamond service on the 4 loads, but when the timetable was changed when it changed to the 4 I haven't used it due to the timetable. why on earth run a commercial service in competition 5/10 mins behind your competition, stupid tbh. I think diamonds problem at the moment has to be the management at tivadale, they are going to be assigning solo's to the 4 etc.....

but at the same time the route is dead at night so I can understand!

Danny I couldn't agree more I could see this coming a mile off and have stated it would happen before. When it was the 404E between Walsall and West Bromwich on a sunday buses used to be well used, i used to catch the 10am departure from the delves on a sunday and by the time we got to West Bromwich the mcv evolution was full every seat taken they have spoiled it made it every 30 minutes run it 10 minutes behind NXWM what do they expect to happen, bring the 4 back between Walsall and West Bromwich operate it every 15 minutes on a sunday and it will work no issue it did for a couple of years before the change. At night it struggles but again 10 minutes behind NXWM.  They way it's going if i was rotala I would throw the towel in with diamond as they just don't know how to compete with NXWM. So in my view fair play NXWM and this is the start or addition to the decline of diamond in my opinion which saddens me.

[Lukeee]

The way things are going, Diamond may just stick to Redditch and Kiddiminster work.