The Merseybus Neoplans had a short service life
The UKs first low floor bus the N4014 lived a very limited service life with Merseytravel/Merseybus. So much so that there’s very little evidence or documents of it in service! I’m lead to believe with the arrival of the N4016’s which would have been around a year later, the bus was sold to an operator in Ireland and it later became a classroom.
The shorter N4009’s lived a very limited service life and spent a large portion of their lifetime off the road. They were very rare batch of 3 that made sourcing parts quite difficult, and were of an awkward small size for such a heavyweight fuel consuming bus which made them impractical for most routes, and the ones they were purchased for were withdrawn or contracts that were tendered to new operators
Comparatively the N4016’s faired fairly well!
The UKs first low floor bus the N4014 lived a very limited service life with Merseytravel/Merseybus. So much so that there’s very little evidence or documents of it in service! I’m lead to believe with the arrival of the N4016’s which would have been around a year later, the bus was sold to an operator in Ireland and it later became a classroom.
The shorter N4009’s lived a very limited service life and spent a large portion of their lifetime off the road. They were very rare batch of 3 that made sourcing parts quite difficult, and were of an awkward small size for such a heavyweight fuel consuming bus which made them impractical for most routes, and the ones they were purchased for were withdrawn or contracts that were tendered to new operators
Comparatively the N4016’s faired fairly well!