Bendies.

[Eric Shaw]

Sad to see the Bendies go from the 67, but if they can be replaced by the same number of deckers on the same schedule they did not make commercial sense. Why carry about an extra 4 tons of bus all day? In London on the 436 26 Bendies were replaced by 32 Enviro 400's, and on the 453 23 Bendies were replaced by 34 Enviro 400's. I took the information from Visions [The London Bus Guides].
NXWM have successfully operated express routes to Perry Barr and along the Coventry Road for some time now and are upgrading them with Platinum buses. This is surely the way ahead and not "Sprint" which does the opposite and puts the faster buses on the shorter routes. If Bendies have not worked on the 67 why reintroduce them. I can miss the 59 in the City Centre and take the next 900 or 957 and be able to catch up the 59 by the Swan. Why not let the operators work out the routes instead of Councils or Quangos, who know nothing about how to run a bus service.

[GeminiFan1991]

I have to ask, why was 67 the only route to get bendies ?!

[Alex]

I have to ask, why was 67 the only route to get bendies ?!

Bendis were tested on the 51, 62 (One made it on to there at some point), 71 and 451 (One Coventry Citaro was tested on there around 2004).

6011 on the 62: https://www.flickr.com/photos/john-s-91/7528028322/in/photolist-nvsV8w-ndZ3Qp-dTdzGc-r78mU4-cGVjmC-cte7xL-nvdeZi-neepsB-neiKSD-nGGmtP-dZc1KX-dZc1hx-dTjcCh-b5Mmzg

(All credit to @John for the shot of 6011)

[Trident 4609]

Bendis were tested on the 51, 62 (One made it on to there at some point), 71 and 451 (One Coventry Citaro was tested on there around 2004).

This info coming from photos Alex and myself have seen on Flickr. There is a picture somewhere of a Marc 0405GN Bend I on the 62.

[GeminiFan1991]

Oh ok, so (Seems obvious as well) it's a matter of whether the bus can physically make the route owing to its length over a double decker

[Trident 4609]

Oh ok, so (Seems obvious as well) it's a matter of whether the bus can physically make the route owing to its length over a double decker

The 51 was tried and tested but Walsall Town Centre posed an issue

[GeminiFan1991]

I was quite sad to see the Scania Artics go as I've never photographed them and never will now  :'(

I would have liked to seen more artics in Birmingham, the Mercedez are quite good, NXWM should have bought some off London operators after they were abolished from London

[Gareth]

Why should they have bought some ex London bendies? Even more buses to have reliability issues and take up valuable garage space.

[GeminiFan1991]

I wasn't aware of the unreliability issues, I was just stating it so we could have a more diverse fleet

[the trainbasher]

Would it be worth using the scania bendys for Sprint?

[Stuharris 6360]

I wasn't aware of the unreliability issues, I was just stating it so we could have a more diverse fleet

That is why they are withdrawn from PB, they couldn't keep enough of them on the road to run the 67 and in the end it just comes down to money. You can't keep spending money getting them to work for them to breakdown within a short time of re-entering service.

Plus they are limited to the routes they can operate. I would say for example that the 9 would be ok except for the fact that they wouldn't be able to serve Halesowen bus station on the journey ex City because the turn would be to tight!

[the trainbasher]

@Stuharris 6360 easy way for the 9 is just to do a loop round the one way system in Halesowen

[Stuharris 6360]

@Stuharris 6360 easy way for the 9 is just to do a loop round the one way system in Halesowen

@the trainbasher True, but then you would get stops served by 9s going in both directions, #confusing.

[Kevin]

Re tight corners.
Bendi's have no problem on that front. If I'm not mistaken their wheelbase is shorter than full size singles, plus they're bendiy ffs, they ain't fixed.

The 51 was tried and tested but Walsall Town Centre posed an issue

I do believe it was actually Walsall Council that said no to them, nothing to do with the town centre itself (as explained above). That's why they were kept on a route wholly within the city boundaries

[Westy]

Typical Walsall Council.