Pensnett Garage

[winston]

Very kind! Sometimes I do wonder with the amount of WN services that spend most of their time in PE land and what with PE now operating a sizeable Decker contingent, potentially some services could move back to PE, especially the 257, which yes I know interworks with the 256 that does reach Wolverhampton, but having these nearly 2 hour round trip routes together can cause delays to both routes, especially through K'ford and Wordsley

Isn't PE already at capacity though?

I believe so, the garage would need to be expanded on to the land occupied by the reserve fleet to take on more routes / a bigger allocation

[nitromatt1]

Does all admin work at Pensnett still take place in portacabins?

[winston]

Does all admin work at Pensnett still take place in portacabins?

The main admin block is on the end of the engineering block, there is a portacabin located the opposite end which looks to be an office, another located down the edge of the yard which is a office for training. I think the remainder are stores rather than offices

[BN]

Does all admin work at Pensnett still take place in portacabins?

The main admin block is on the end of the ngineering block, there is a portacabin located the opposite end which looks to be an office, another located down the edge of the yard which is a office for training. I think the remainder are stores rather than offices

The admin office is upstairs on the right.

[wilmotm (Matt Wilmot)]

Well why can't they just clear the yard? I've never seen the reason behind NXWM desire to keep such a large 'reserve' fleet, I.e. Scrap yard, will any of the buses parked at MS or PE ever see service again? Its 99% unlikely, especially with new orders confirmed for the next 5 years from ADL so why don't they just clear them out!

[Gareth]

I wonder if the long time storage of withdrawn vehicles is all to do with company accounts. The longer the bus sits around  then the older it becomes and therefore a lower book value. Scrapping a bus with a lower book value will look better on profit and loss accounts. Better P&L accounts = happy shareholders.

[winston]

Well why can't they just clear the yard? I've never seen the reason behind NXWM desire to keep such a large 'reserve' fleet, I.e. Scrap yard, will any of the buses parked at MS or PE ever see service again? Its 99% unlikely, especially with new orders confirmed for the next 5 years from ADL so why don't they just clear them out!

In WMT days they used to keep a large reserve fleet to act as a deterrent to other bus group/new entrants from setting up competing routes in the West Midlands.

These days, I think only a small number of the reserve fleet would be considered to ever make a short term return to service in the event of an increased requirement / collapse of another company etc. I suspect the majority of the reserve fleet are just stored depreciating / used for spare until they reach a low enough value that they can be scrapped with showing as a loss on the accounts. Unfortunately TWM choose 1st generation low floor bus types that never proved popular with other operators, therefore there is little/no demand for them to be sold on to other operator for further service.

[Mike K]

Well why can't they just clear the yard? I've never seen the reason behind NXWM desire to keep such a large 'reserve' fleet, I.e. Scrap yard, will any of the buses parked at MS or PE ever see service again? Its 99% unlikely, especially with new orders confirmed for the next 5 years from ADL so why don't they just clear them out!

But is there a pressing need and a cost effective business case for moving additional routes and vehicles to Pensnett at the moment? Not so familiar with the Black Country garages, but what opportunities would increasing PE's capacity provide?

[winston]

Well why can't they just clear the yard? I've never seen the reason behind NXWM desire to keep such a large 'reserve' fleet, I.e. Scrap yard, will any of the buses parked at MS or PE ever see service again? Its 99% unlikely, especially with new orders confirmed for the next 5 years from ADL so why don't they just clear them out!

But is there a pressing need and a cost effective business case for moving additional routes and vehicles to Pensnett at the moment? Not so familiar with the Black Country garages, but what opportunities would increasing PE's capacity provide?

Not really at present. There doesn't seem to be any prospect of any new Black Country area routes being introduced or any significant frequency increases of existing services to warrant an allocation increase. The only real business case at present for expanding Pensnett, would be to free up capacity at the Birmingham based garages though routes swaps with WB, with Pensnett taking over some of WB's routes that terminate in Dudley. Or another option may be to expand Pensnett to allow the WB outstation to be closed down & the land sold?

I can't imagine there is much merit in transferring the 255/6/7 from WN to PN to save a bit of dead mileage what with the costs involved to expand PN. WN already has spare garage capacity as it is

[the trainbasher]

I don't get why PE don't do the 289E on Sundays, seeing as they do it the rest of the week?

[Sh4318]

I don't get why PE don't do the 289E on Sundays, seeing as they do it the rest of the week?

Dead mileage, one bus would have to travel from Pensnett to West Bromwich to run the service all day, and then travel back. Makes sense West Bromwich operating it on Sundays when the bus station is so close to the garage

[the trainbasher]

I don't get why PE don't do the 289E on Sundays, seeing as they do it the rest of the week?

Dead mileage, one bus would have to travel from Pensnett to West Bromwich to run the service all day, and then travel back. Makes sense West Bromwich operating it on Sundays when the bus station is so close to the garage

Looking at the timetable, it starts/finishes not at WB but at Rowley Regis Hospital

http://nxbus.co.uk/files/NXWestMids/current_timetables/B289_09Jun13.pdf

[Sh4318]

@the trainbasher oh ok, I wasn't aware of that. Still, running a bus from West Bromwich garage to Rowley Regis Hospital must be a much quicker journey than running a Pensnett bus to Rowley Regis Hospital. I'm sure PE would run it on Sundays, if the 53 ran on Sundays.

[nitromatt1]

2084 on 141
2099 on 244

[Trident 4609]

I don't get why PE don't do the 289E on Sundays, seeing as they do it the rest of the week?

When the 52/289 operate Mon-Sat iirc driver changeovers take place at MH? As the 53 isn't operated by NX on Sundays, i presume WB operate it so driver changeovers can take place at West Bromwich Bus Station