NX 2013 Bus Orders

[winston]

I agree Winston but don't see how any cascaded Tridents will help get rid of the 38 B6LE and a lot of the Mercs as they operate routes where a Trident just won't be viable in terms of passenger usage or won't fit due to tight roads, parked cars and bridges, the only real viable routes that currently operate using Mercs and B6's that I can see accomodating Tridents would be some of PE's Stourbridge routes

Yes, but would PE accept Tridents?

If the Spectras are to go from WN, then perhaps the ten best should be selected and sent to PE to allow the 246 to become 100% DD operated.

Stu,

If PE aren't going to accept Tridents, I can't see them accepting Spectra's as we all know they are not the most reliable & would eat in to PE's engineering budget

[PM]

Whats the PVR of the 900/957?

Just thinking though a good solution would be to standardise PB-ie some older enviros to PE replacing mercs, refurbed b7tls to west brom and centrals displaced tridents could always go to wolves replacing single deckers and increasing capacity over there or to yardley wood helping them to shift a few presidents and standardise the fleet a bit more. Presidents can go across to west brom and be used on routes like the 48 or up to dundee. Omnilinks would help walsall to clear out some older stock and perhaps upgrade a couple of routes. They seem to be destined for either YW/WA/PB all of which have omnilinks and b10ls which are the oldest long single deckers still in the fleet.

[winston]

I agree Winston but don't see how any cascaded Tridents will help get rid of the 38 B6LE and a lot of the Mercs as they operate routes where a Trident just won't be viable in terms of passenger usage or won't fit due to tight roads, parked cars and bridges, the only real viable routes that currently operate using Mercs and B6's that I can see accomodating Tridents would be some of PE's Stourbridge routes

I didn't neccessarily mean replacing via direct transfers but some could be. Any double deckers released from E400 deliveries may be cascaded through a number of NXWM garages / vehicle movements, both PE & WA have gone from having allocations of around 50 x B6LE now down to single figures with PE being the only garage of the two to receive new midis. Double deckers are very similar in terms of length to a B6LE @ 10.6M long and are only marginally wider, they and much shorter than 12M Mercs though. The difference in costs of running a double decker against a running full size single decker I doubt would be that great.....

I would think NX may have to buy another batch of E200's to oust the remaining B6LE that serve tight roads on housing estates etc That said, the 243/244 utilize most of PE's B6LE, but both routes can take full size single deckers & double deckers.

[winston]

Whats the PVR of the 900/957?

Just thinking though a good solution would be to standardise PB-ie some older enviros to PE replacing mercs, refurbed b7tls to west brom and centrals displaced tridents could always go to wolves replacing single deckers and increasing capacity over there or to yardley wood helping them to shift a few presidents and standardise the fleet a bit more. Presidents can go across to west brom and be used on routes like the 48 or up to dundee. Omnilinks would help walsall to clear out some older stock and perhaps upgrade a couple of routes. They seem to be destined for either YW/WA/PB all of which have omnilinks and b10ls which are the oldest long single deckers still in the fleet.

Peter123,

I'd guess the combined Pvr may be around 16 ish (10 x 900 & 6 x 957)?

Even if any older PB E400's became available for transfer, I think other Central B'ham routes would be higher priority than PE having them to release Mercs for withdrawal. I think the best PE could hope for is early Tridents or Presidents over the next few years

[PM]

Whats the PVR of the 900/957?

Just thinking though a good solution would be to standardise PB-ie some older enviros to PE replacing mercs, refurbed b7tls to west brom and centrals displaced tridents could always go to wolves replacing single deckers and increasing capacity over there or to yardley wood helping them to shift a few presidents and standardise the fleet a bit more. Presidents can go across to west brom and be used on routes like the 48 or up to dundee. Omnilinks would help walsall to clear out some older stock and perhaps upgrade a couple of routes. They seem to be destined for either YW/WA/PB all of which have omnilinks and b10ls which are the oldest long single deckers still in the fleet.

Peter123,

I'd guess the combined Pvr may be around 16 ish (10 x 900 & 6 x 957)?

Even if any older PB E400's became available for transfer, I think other Central B'ham routes would be higher priority than PE having them to release Mercs for withdrawal. I think the best PE could hope for is early Tridents or Presidents over the next few years

Thanks didnt know the PVR-which isnt massive

[winston]

Whats the PVR of the 900/957?

Just thinking though a good solution would be to standardise PB-ie some older enviros to PE replacing mercs, refurbed b7tls to west brom and centrals displaced tridents could always go to wolves replacing single deckers and increasing capacity over there or to yardley wood helping them to shift a few presidents and standardise the fleet a bit more. Presidents can go across to west brom and be used on routes like the 48 or up to dundee. Omnilinks would help walsall to clear out some older stock and perhaps upgrade a couple of routes. They seem to be destined for either YW/WA/PB all of which have omnilinks and b10ls which are the oldest long single deckers still in the fleet.

Peter123,

I'd guess the combined Pvr may be around 16 ish (10 x 900 & 6 x 957)?

Even if any older PB E400's became available for transfer, I think other Central B'ham routes would be higher priority than PE having them to release Mercs for withdrawal. I think the best PE could hope for is early Tridents or Presidents over the next few years

Thanks didnt know the PVR-which isnt massive

Peter, don't take that as gospel, it was my best guess only.    uniquicity is your man for working out Pvrs  ;)

[PM]

Whats the PVR of the 900/957?

Just thinking though a good solution would be to standardise PB-ie some older enviros to PE replacing mercs, refurbed b7tls to west brom and centrals displaced tridents could always go to wolves replacing single deckers and increasing capacity over there or to yardley wood helping them to shift a few presidents and standardise the fleet a bit more. Presidents can go across to west brom and be used on routes like the 48 or up to dundee. Omnilinks would help walsall to clear out some older stock and perhaps upgrade a couple of routes. They seem to be destined for either YW/WA/PB all of which have omnilinks and b10ls which are the oldest long single deckers still in the fleet.

Peter123,

I'd guess the combined Pvr may be around 16 ish (10 x 900 & 6 x 957)?

Even if any older PB E400's became available for transfer, I think other Central B'ham routes would be higher priority than PE having them to release Mercs for withdrawal. I think the best PE could hope for is early Tridents or Presidents over the next few years

Thanks didnt know the PVR-which isnt massive

Peter, don't take that as gospel, it was my best guess only.    uniquicity is your man for working out Pvrs  ;)

No worries gives a decent idea

[winston]

I agree Winston but don't see how any cascaded Tridents will help get rid of the 38 B6LE and a lot of the Mercs as they operate routes where a Trident just won't be viable in terms of passenger usage or won't fit due to tight roads, parked cars and bridges, the only real viable routes that currently operate using Mercs and B6's that I can see accomodating Tridents would be some of PE's Stourbridge routes

I didn't neccessarily mean replacing via direct transfers but some could be. Any double deckers released from E400 deliveries may be cascaded through a number of NXWM garages / vehicle movements, both PE & WA have gone from having allocations of around 50 x B6LE now down to single figures with PE being the only garage of the two to receive new midis. Double deckers are very similar in terms of length to a B6LE @ 10.6M long and are only marginally wider, they and much shorter than 12M Mercs though. The difference in costs of running a double decker against a running full size single decker I doubt would be that great.....

I would think NX may have to buy another batch of E200's to oust the remaining B6LE that serve tight roads on housing estates etc That said, the 243/244 utilize most of PE's B6LE, but both routes can take full size single deckers & double deckers.

Additionally, there is nothing to say that some 56 plate B7RLE from WA couldn't be transferred to PE to replace Mercs or even a batch of Omnilinks from somewhere else, same applies with WB garage. Those older single deckers could be released by transferring in double deckers that have been released by new vehicles on to busy single decker routes and cascaded the single deckers from those routes elsewhere to replace older non DDA compliant stock.

Using PE as an example, the 120, 140 & 241 could be converted to double deckers, Tridents or B7TL/ ALX400 or Gemini to comply with Min Euro 3 in B'ham City Centre (those would ideally need to be refurbished though with using them to replacie nearly new single deckers), with the current B7RLE moving on to quieter PE single decker routes. Mercs on the 246 & X96 could be replaced directly with double deckers, and the loads carried can justify there allocation

[uniquicity]

Only had a quick glance but I also make the PVR 16, but with 9 on the 900 and 7 on the 957. Willing to be proved wrong though, Coventry Road isn't my territory.

[winston]

Only had a quick glance but I also make the PVRs 16, but with 9 on the 900 and 7 on the 957. Willing to be proved wrong though, Coventry Road isn't my territory.

Cheers Pete  ;)

I wasn't far off at all then...

[winston]

According to a post on Flickr, the 900 and 957 are being upgraded to Enviro400 along with the Sutton Routes at Perry Barr.

If those are the routes that NXWM intend to upgrade with E400's:

I'm thinking of the batch of 45 x E400's still due:

16 + 2 spares = 18 for 900/957 @ BC
20 + 2 spares = 22 for Sutton Lines @ PB

Possibily leaving around 5 unallocated that could be used to top up the allocation at another garage than already operates the type?

[Sayeed]

Probably the remaining 5 E400's either goes to WA or YW addition fleet for route 50  :-\

[tank90]

Or Cov to help reduce even more Mercs that might need to be withdrawn.

[monkeyjoe]

It's interesting Sutton Lines getting new buses, but why??? I mean its only approx 6 years ago they had new buses. What makes this line so much more higher profile than more frequent routes like th 16s 97s 94???? Moan over.

[NXWM Spectra]

I think the 15 more buses will be Enviro200, and after my previous post, I thought they would be for WN, Dundee, or more for BC, WB and PE.
Now, having looked at the fleetlists and other posts around here, I deducted Dundee because they are getting 2 second hand Solos, and looking at B6LE allocations, I think they must be for WN. They currently operate 11 B6LE and 1 Excel (which presumably is going to be replaced by another B6LE soon).

2 spares
26/A, 28, 62/A PVR=5/6?
2 on 25
4 on 11
2 on 27/A
=15/16 buses

And yes, I know that WN has had loads of new buses already, but there's no Midibuses other than B6LE around to cascade to WN and 15 sounds like a good number.