Questions for the NXWM Operations Director

[PM]

Hi simon:

Do you know or could you tell us all if/when and into what livery will 2153 be painted.

thanks.

A batch of red seats appeared at Miller Street today, so I suspect it may have got to Walsall

Are they re-moquetteing these seats then into the "proper" NX style-aren't they a different type of seat on this bus, more similar to what the diamond batch of eclipse 2s have?

[pb2012]

Hi simon:

Do you know or could you tell us all if/when and into what livery will 2153 be painted.

thanks.

A batch of red seats appeared at Miller Street today, so I suspect it may have got to Walsall

Thanks tony was wondering what was going to happen to 2153, will have keep an eye out to see what livery it reappears in.

[winston]

Hi simon:

Do you know or could you tell us all if/when and into what livery will 2153 be painted.

thanks.

A batch of red seats appeared at Miller Street today, so I suspect it may have got to Walsall

Are they re-moquetteing these seats then into the "proper" NX style-aren't they a different type of seat on this bus, more similar to what the diamond batch of eclipse 2s have?

2153 will be the same as Diamond's as they all came from Volvo dealer stock. No point changing the plastic seats for the sake of it

[driver]

with the merryhill bus improvement scheme, any ideas what the new routes will be? Also are the other merryhill dudley and stourbridge area services going to be reviewed along side?

[winston]

Simon,

re: New buses for 2013

With the 30 x Hybrids (WN & Dundee), 25 x B7RLE & 34 E400, if only another 26 E400's are due before the end of the year, the total quantity will fall short of the 130+ new buses promised in Jan this year

http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/local-news/new-fleet-of-buses-lined-up-640938

Winston,

Not really my area but I expect next years order to be Euro 5.

I appreciate that vehicle procurement isn't your responsibility, but looking at the EU implementation dates for the Euro 6, it suggests that all new buses registered from 1st Jan 2014 have to have a Euro 6 certified engine, how would NX be able to continue to buy Euro 5?

[Driver03]

Hi Simon,

Just the one question from me ( at the moment ;) )

Can we have a bus named after Tony, for his incredible dedication to the job and for his work out side of the company (aka this website) ?

Many thanks!

[wmacb13]

Hi Simon,

Thanks for the opportunity for us enthusiasts to put comments / questions to Senior Management in NXWM.

Firstly, a personal opinion that the new brighter red being used for repaints is excellent and looks very clean and smart. I can appreciate why the livery is simple as it makes repairs much easier, but I echo the call from a previous posting to ensure garages affecting repairs to match the paint and not to have a 'patchwork quilt' effect.

Just two questions as I take the point of not wishing to bombard you.

1.Has the font and positioning of fleet numbering finally been settled now? All new deliveries it has been noted have a different font and are positioned differently to existing vehicles. Will all repaints be adopting the new font / positioning of numbers?

2.The 16 had route branded buses new in February 2002; these followed the route when Hockley closed in 2005 to WB and to PB when it moved again in May 2006. Time moved on and an abortive attempt to convert to Single Decker Omnilink resulted in 2 buses being briefly branded. Now there is just a mis-mash (it would appear) of anything that is going, but usually 12 year old B7 ALX400's or 10 year old Gemini's, although the latter following repaint are now a lot smarter. Are there any plans to upgrade the route to compete with the Diamond offering of Hybrid buses? Just new branded buses would give the route a boost.

Alan

[PM]

Hi Simon,

Thanks for the opportunity for us enthusiasts to put comments / questions to Senior Management in NXWM.

Firstly, a personal opinion that the new brighter red being used for repaints is excellent and looks very clean and smart. I can appreciate why the livery is simple as it makes repairs much easier, but I echo the call from a previous posting to ensure garages affecting repairs to match the paint and not to have a 'patchwork quilt' effect.

Just two questions as I take the point of not wishing to bombard you.

1.Has the font and positioning of fleet numbering finally been settled now? All new deliveries it has been noted have a different font and are positioned differently to existing vehicles. Will all repaints be adopting the new font / positioning of numbers?

2.The 16 had route branded buses new in February 2002; these followed the route when Hockley closed in 2005 to WB and to PB when it moved again in May 2006. Time moved on and an abortive attempt to convert to Single Decker Omnilink resulted in 2 buses being briefly branded. Now there is just a mis-mash (it would appear) of anything that is going, but usually 12 year old B7 ALX400's or 10 year old Gemini's, although the latter following repaint are now a lot smarter. Are there any plans to upgrade the route to compete with the Diamond offering of Hybrid buses? Just new branded buses would give the route a boost.

Alan

Diamond aren't offering hybrids to be fair. NX are compteting with T reg warrington darts and R RAU trent barton darts, as of yesterday AE10CSF, X63.AKW ex petes dart, a solo, and an mpd i think and the day before it temporarily included buses from wessex and heathrow which was unusual-they were on the 50 yesterday, dont know about today. Hybrids havent been on the 16 for a while now, with the greater commitments to the signature network

[winston]

Hi Simon,

Just the one question from me ( at the moment ;) )

Can we have a bus named after Tony, for his incredible dedication to the job and for his work out side of the company (aka this website) ?

Many thanks!

Driver 03,

I couldn't agree more, Tony is an old school dedicated company man & devotes a lot of his spare time for the good of the company & us enthusiasts alike....

[danny]

3rd that, would be nice to see a bus rumbling arround the streets in honour of Tony :)

[Greg1978]

Hey Simon!

I know you'll be busy replying to all the questions before this, but I just thought I'd ask if there are any plans to improve or upgrade East Birmingham's services in the near future? i.e. new buses, improved frequencies, new routes etc.? I only ask because it seems a lot of the focus lately has been on North Birmingham, Walsall and Wolverhampton and it seems they've had their fill of brand new buses if I'm honest. You can't go up the Birchfield Road without 90% of buses being an Enviro400, and if you go into East Birmingham it just seems to be decade-old Tridents, similarly aged ALX400s on the 94, and the odd unrefurbished Omnilink dotted about. I know the Coventry Road has just received new Enviros for 2 of it's routes but the point remains, you go anywhere in East Birmingham and the only routes you'll see with brand spanking new buses are the 71/72, and maybe the 94 if an Enviro creeps out of North Birmingham. Even the 97, which I thought would become a high profile route now being the only one to run 24 hours and connecting many areas to the airport, is using, albeit branded, old Tridents. It seems that since Lea Hall closed down, the standards and upkeep of East Birmingham's routes have been neglected.
I just thought maybe some investment in the future is needed to bring East Birmingham up to the standards that Walsall, Wolverhampton and North Birmingham (especially Pheasey) are now enjoying.

Kind Regards :)

Hi JB,

I will use this reply to answer all the posts about East Birmingham.

I don't think that we view East Birmingham as being neglected.  The 71/72 have had new buses and the Coventry Road Enviro's are in place now as well.  The buses on the 97 have all been refurbished as well.  The 17 and 55 have also benefited recently from having been converted to all Scania recently, some of which are being repainted at the moment.

We are planning on upgrading the 94 for early 2014 but this will be through cascades of newer buses from other routes rather than brand new.

New to this interesting reading.

It is good something is being done with the 94 at last. I am just curious. "Why is th 94 not entitled to new buses?", especially when it sounds like they will be getting the scraps from the Sutton routes which were upgraded about 5 years ago.

Doesn't exactly sound fair.  94 has not had new branded buses since about 2002.

This is just a view but seems to be a correlation between lack of interest in this corridor and the increasing numbers using the Claribels service.

Would be interested in your views, many thanks. As you can tell I feel strongly about this.  I also know a few people that agree with me.  :)

[Stu]

Hello again Simon, many thanks for answering my previous question!

I have just one more question to ask, with regards to the Outer Circle 11A/C service, how important is this service to National Express?

As well as being a very popular local bus service, it has become a very famous route, not just in Birmingham, or England/Britain as a whole, but is known throughout Europe. As a flagship service, are there any plans in the pipeline to upgrade the service with new buses in the near future, as well as to promote and/or market the route as a local tourist attraction?

In 2016, the service will have been operated for 90 years, along pretty much the same route, having survived numerous network reviews. By this time it would be great for the service to be using state-of-the-art buses, equipped with information screens providing information about the numerous places the service visits, not just for the benefit of the regular passengers, but for those trying the service from a tourist perspective.

As much as I enjoy travelling on the refurbished Plaxton Presidents which are currently being mostly used on the service, mainly due to them not being permitted on more frequent routes into the City Centre due to emission rulings, they are actually older than the vehicles that originally upgraded the service back in 2004 to a Showcase route.

[NX OD]

Thanks for the reply Simon :) I would be extremely greatful if something does happen as Mon-Sat it does start quite early (5AM from Ashmore Park) so as i suggested that if it could possibly start an hour earlier at 07:50 from Ashmore Park.

Also another question (Highlighted by My friend matt who is on holiday atm and is a forum member so may ask you some questions but on his behalf). He is an very very regular user of the 9 and he thinks that the sunday service frequency should be increased from 20 minutes to say 15 minutes. I also now use the 9 on a regular basis and agree that it is still very busy on sundays  and could do with a slight increase.

Also another route me and matt were discussing were the frequency of the 140/241.

Especially on a sunday the 140/241 are hourly and do need to be increased to half hourly namely the 140 which a couple of times on a sunday when we have caught the 140 to Birmingham the bus has been packed with standees only and one occasion passengers turned away.

I possibly suggest a half hourly service on the 140/241 on sundays. Also another option we discussed was keep the hourly frequency but use E400's instead of B7RLE's on Sundays.

Hi,

Yes we will have a look.

[NX OD]

with the merryhill bus improvement scheme, any ideas what the new routes will be? Also are the other merryhill dudley and stourbridge area services going to be reviewed along side?

The Brierley Hill Better Bus Area Fund covers a number of initiatives to improve bus services in the Brierley Hill and Merry Hill areas.  New buses on the 222 are part of this and have already been delivered.  There are some bus priority measures and a new bus station plus other things.

I am not sure there will be any new routes or any other reviews of anything in any scale.

[NX OD]

Simon,

re: New buses for 2013

With the 30 x Hybrids (WN & Dundee), 25 x B7RLE & 34 E400, if only another 26 E400's are due before the end of the year, the total quantity will fall short of the 130+ new buses promised in Jan this year

http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/local-news/new-fleet-of-buses-lined-up-640938

Winston,

Not really my area but I expect next years order to be Euro 5.

I appreciate that vehicle procurement isn't your responsibility, but looking at the EU implementation dates for the Euro 6, it suggests that all new buses registered from 1st Jan 2014 have to have a Euro 6 certified engine, how would NX be able to continue to buy Euro 5?

We will have made the 130 but don't have my numbers to hand as back home.

It may be that we have Euro 6 or it may be that you can still order Euro 5 as long as you order before Jan 2014 but  I don't really know - you might be correct.