Not sure, there are at least two painted but had no MOT at end of last week. They could be in process of being refurbished inside of course. Think all the work is being done at Langley Mill, and I guess keeping the working fleet on the road takes priority.
Yes, most strange 815 has come out, yet 820/821 and 824 haven't. Maybe they only appear when Rishi Sunak visits. Short of buses? Overhauled standing on the depot. Buses SORN and expired MOT. Makes you wonder. Meanwhile Notts and Derby just get on with it
There's only 2/3 of the Yutongs out today, and many seem to be coming off service during the day? Maybe some teething issues or are they having larger problems with them.
The 1/1a is the only route that regularly gets the E300s. Not totally clear why, it does need the capacity boost over an E200 but it can't be clearances as it does occasionally see gold deckers.
To answer my own question, 832 still has 11/12 branding on the sides, although the number are rather wonky on the offside.
Fleet number 459 on 142 service I think
Just paint them all red and cream and no-one will notice. Too many people turned away from buses now.Don't think this would have happened before...
Nottingham vehicle 135 (i4 branded) was in service on the 6.1 this evening! Glad to see someone seeing sense! With new vehicles maybe we can see a new dawn for the company going back to how it was...
The Nottingham Enviro appears to have gone back.
There are 6 Yutongs off today- such a shame and I wonder what the problem is.
I have absolutely no idea. Maybe they fear competition from a half decent company. Neither Trentbarton or Kinchbus seem to be able to deliver a full service. Ah well, at least Solos 471 and 492 are helping out on the Mickleover.
By then I reckon a majority of Trent Barton buses could be Enviro 200 MMCs.
I’m currently on 207 on the 39 - aircon seems to be out with all the hopper windows open instead. Having said that, it’s a better temperature than the one I was on last week which aircon seemed to be heating the bus up with the temp display proudly displaying 20 degrees inside and 13 outside. 207 is saying 15 degrees inside for comparison.
The heating up is probably intentional, as it's a heat pump system that can run in reverse to warm the interior. At least in the UK climate, this should avoid the need for auxiliary fossil fuel heaters on EV buses as some have overseas. It's probably the only reason these buses have aircon at all, as NCT have never specified it before and have issued press releases on various hot days in the past to apologise for interior temperatues but point out the high cost for something that's only needed occasionally.
It was Optare Solo 349 on the Sky Blue 47 heading towards Nottingham on Mapperley Plains. As far as I'm aware it's not being investigated by police and I would imagine its was the engine catching fire.
Thanks for that. Going by the photo on the link, rather think that will be a write-off... I assume the Solos are planned to be replaced by EVs anyway, sometime fairly soon.
On NCT's Website fleet list it has 349 removed so they have probably decided it is, most tend to be a write-off after a fire anyway
Of course it's not going to be repaired, it looks pretty totalled to me. I would think such an incident would have to be quite minor for the vehicle to see the road again. For instance Arriva's 4765 had a small fire last year, but it's still kicking today.
yeah depends on the cost too
Yeah I think aircon comes as standard on the Yutongs as it’s their only heating. It was the afternoon peak so it probably was quite comfortable on its return journey into town, but it was a bit stuffy when it was full and standing on my journey. At least there won’t be any reports or threads of the buses not having heating I suppose.
True, but by that point Arriva had already descended to the level of cannibalising buses to obtain spare engines and whatnot.
It will be interesting to see how they do on a really cold winter day. Heating on diesel or gas buses is effectively free due to the amount of waste heat from the engine, but the UK climate tends to need more heating than cooling so this is probably when the heat pump is most tested.
Will they ever go cashless because I rarely see people using cash now on these, it’s good with NCT as it reduces dwell time at the bus stop. And with the way TB timetables are I wonder!
It is interesting you say about Trentbarton going cashless. When they replaced the Mango card with the app, it seemed as more people (not very frequent passengers) just went back to cash. For many, it did not matter which bus they caught ot they were never likely to max out. I have friends who have ditched the Mango app, and some who now pay for a Zigzag in cash, rather than card. Maybe they think they will get overcharged (and people do think that). Last time I actually caught a TB bus, it seemed to take forever...but that said, I caught a Stagecoach X17 from Matlock to Chesterfield and even where there was just one passenger to get on, it took sooooooo long. On a different matter, Notts and Derby are now operating former Trentbarton Solo 474. It all seems rather strange, given Trentbarton don't have enough buses to run all their services as it is (no sign of any 6.2 services today). Might be a case of services that make a loss, mysteriously break down. Potential passengers just use other modes, or claim for a taxi. I heard the other day that refunds had exceeded £160k in a year .
I literally just noticed this, I checked and it doesn't appear to have MOT (not like that would stop it), but it might not of updated yet on the government website, but it does have tax so it might be out? I am thinking it might just be the ticket machine though
The manager of Notts and Derby told me he was expecting 471 and 474.
