Qwerty133
Established Member
The first of a batch of 24 electric Streetdecks was delivered back in September with publicity at the time suggesting an October introduction into service. 3 months later than this there is still no progress with the buses being introduced and even driver training now appears to be on hold with the buses not having been seen for several weeks after a period in which it was in and out of the city centre several times a day. Whilst there are rumours of infrastructure and electricity supply issues these really should have been examined before ordering electric vehicles and certainly should have been noticed long before mid September when it was thought that everything would be in place for introduction into service the following month.
Compounding factors with regards to vehicle availability leading to regular cancellations is the ongoing transfer of 2014 Enviro 400s in return for significantly older and less reliable examples from Merseyside, despite the older examples still having several months of permitted use in Merseyside. This should have allowed the cascades to be put on hold until the electrics were in service and other unreliable vehicles had been withdrawn from service (in particular the 2006 Geminis have been widely accepted to be life expired and in need of urgent replacement for over a year now).
Compounding factors with regards to vehicle availability leading to regular cancellations is the ongoing transfer of 2014 Enviro 400s in return for significantly older and less reliable examples from Merseyside, despite the older examples still having several months of permitted use in Merseyside. This should have allowed the cascades to be put on hold until the electrics were in service and other unreliable vehicles had been withdrawn from service (in particular the 2006 Geminis have been widely accepted to be life expired and in need of urgent replacement for over a year now).
Down South, Enfield Garage are experiencing the same thing with their new Electroliners, apparently not able to fully charge them without drawing too much from the Grid. So the 13 plate DB300s that were supposed to replace them, carry on on the 307. Ditto with their new Switch Metrocities, which are electric but you see E200 MMCs on the route more than ever. Hopefully it is some sort of infrastructure / power issue on which they must wait on UKPN (UK Power Networks) to resolve, so it means partial charging and shorter ranges. Not sure what costs the local recovery / breakdown contractors have, but perhaps Leicester have factored that in (recovering a dead bus from far away will cost more than keeping older DB250 buses going, which are more reliable)... Electric buses aren't good in cold weather with batteries either.
