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[cms206]

My normal chariot is off for annual test for the next few days so I'm on this for most of the week.

Not that I'm complaining...

[Eyersey1234]

On 9/1/2020 at 7:32 PM, martc said:

I had to look-up the electric bus - it's a BYD ADL Enviro400EV. The batteries and motive power are Chinese, the body and interior fittings are British. This picture on the ADL website is intriguing. It's obviously in a London livery, but it was registered with an East Yorkshire number (YX) and the background looks very much like Scarborough, which begs the question - are they made at Plaxton's works?

I believe some of them are made at Scarborough. A lot of buses get factory registered these days, it's something to do with the registration process being easier for the manufacturers to do than the operator. 

[Eyersey1234]

31 minutes ago, cms206 said:

My normal chariot is off for annual test for the next few days so I'm on this for most of the week.

Not that I'm complaining...

What sort of bus is that @cms206? 

[cms206]

As 83C says, these are Alexander Belfast Q-type bodied B10Ms. We imported probably two thirds of this batch of fifty but we only have a handful now; DAZ 1503 and DAZ 1522 under canabalisation, and DAZ 1515/16/31/33/42/47 in service.

The Timeline ones were all Mk3s from memory, ours are 285bhp Mk4s with 5-speed autos so they go quite well for what is effectively a service bus.

[Eyersey1234]

I thought it looked like an Alexander body but wasn't sure if it was a Tiger chassis or B10M

[Eyersey1234]

We used Scanias on National Express work in the mid 90s and they were dreadful, they spent more time off the road than on it, but the ones we have now are fine. 

[willswitchengage]

Who is paying for buses to be run right now? The railways have been re-nationalised in all but name. Are the bus companies getting extra subsidies or just haemorrhaging money?

[Eyersey1234]

58 minutes ago, willswitchengage said:

Who is paying for buses to be run right now? The railways have been re-nationalised in all but name. Are the bus companies getting extra subsidies or just haemorrhaging money?

The government has been subsidising the industry since March. Immediately after lockdown our passenger numbers fell overnight to less than 10% of normal levels, I believe they are now at about 50%. If they hadn't subsidised them the industry would probably have ran out of money by now to be honest 

[Eyersey1234]

My chariot for the day. Unusual in having both old and new East Riding/Hull registrations on the same plate. 

[busmansholiday]

As we are on page 100, have a Stagecoach South West bus in their 100 years of Devon General livery (OK, it was last year, but it's still in use and I pictured this on my way into 'spoons which just behind the Dart barely half hour ago).

As for registration plates; ADL buses built at the old Alexander plant at Falkirk are generally registered with plates starting with S, those built at Plaxtons in Scarborough have registrations starting with Y. 

[Eyersey1234]

26 minutes ago, busmansholiday said:

As we are on page 100, have a Stagecoach South West bus in their 100 years of Devon General livery (OK, it was last year, but it's still in use and I pictured this on my way into 'spoons which just behind the Dart barely half hour ago).

As for registration plates; ADL buses built at the old Alexander plant at Falkirk are generally registered with plates starting with S, those built at Plaxtons in Scarborough have registrations starting with Y. 

All our MMCs were Scarborough built and buses tend to get factory registrations as its apparently easier for the manufacturer to register them than the operators 

[willswitchengage]

I thought Scarborough built single decks and Falkirk doubles? Born out of the Pointer being broadly the more successful SD and the ALX400 the more successful DD. I wonder if one will close in favour of the other, it already seems odd that the ADL chassis have to be shipped up from their factory in Guildford which must have hyper-expensive running costs.

London's stupid Boris buses still have NI plates for some reason, all other English Wrights I've seen are registered more locally.

[Eyersey1234]

2 minutes ago, willswitchengage said:

I thought Scarborough built single decks and Falkirk doubles? Born out of the Pointer being broadly the more successful SD and the ALX400 the more successful DD. I wonder if one will close in favour of the other, it already seems odd that the ADL chassis have to be shipped up from their factory in Guildford which must have hyper-expensive running costs.

London's stupid Boris buses still have NI plates for some reason, all other English Wrights I've seen are registered more locally.

They have built double deckers at Scarborough for several years. There is talk of the Guildford plant closing though

[Eyersey1234]

Optares also tend to get Yorkshire registrations, that is when Optare bother to build them. Some operators have been waiting over 2 years for buses that still haven't been built. 

[busmansholiday]

23 hours ago, willswitchengage said:

London's stupid Boris buses still have NI plates for some reason, all other English Wrights I've seen are registered more locally.

The first Borismasters were London registered. Then Wrights did a deal with the authorities in NI and got the full allocation of 1 to something like 800 (and re-registered the first lot) of a local reg and then a different starting letter for the last lot.

Scarborough has been building a lot of milk floats for London not least because they can get them South on a full charge. 

Wrights were generally Scottish reg until they went tits. Then the operators that got the completed ones (Diamond) registered them locally.

Mercs tend to be registered starting with B as there main place is in Coventry. Scania's tend to be Y reg as their place is at Worksop, so Sheffield.

[Richard_FM]

6 hours ago, busmansholiday said:

The first Borismasters were London registered. Then Wrights did a deal with the authorities in NI and got the full allocation of 1 to something like 800 (and re-registered the first lot) of a local reg and then a different starting letter for the last lot.

I think they did this to get registrations with the letters LTZ. 

Many Routemasters had registrations with VLT, some of which are now owned by fans.  I remember my Dad pointing this out when we saw one on a drive.

[LightBulbFun]

22 minutes ago, Richard_FM said:

I think they did this to get registrations with the letters LTZ. 

Many Routemasters had registrations with VLT, some of which are now owned by fans.  I remember my Dad pointing this out when we saw one on a drive.

SLT VLT WLT CLT DYE ALD-B ALM-B CUV-C JJD-D NML-E SMK-F (only ones not listed here are the Northern general and BEA RM's and RM1000 which got 100BXL and FRM1 KGY4D)

a lot of the suffix-less ones got robbed from their RMs and ended up on other buses and sometimes cars sadly (they where mostly robbed by fleet operators rather then private individuals, so mostly ended up on other buses) 

personal humorous favourite of mine is the fact that RM1666 happened to be in the DYE range so got the registration 666DYE  (sadly has been robbed from the bus)

[Mr Pastry]

50 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

SLT VLT WLT CLT DYE 

On the early RMs I think the registration no. matched the fleet no. on most of them? Not sure how they organised that, but ISTR RM 664, which I saw when new, was WLT 664.

[LightBulbFun]

11 minutes ago, Mr Pastry said:

On the early RMs I think the registration no. matched the fleet no. on most of them? Not sure how they organised that, but ISTR RM 664, which I saw when new, was WLT 664.

on pretty much every London Transport RM not just the early ones, the registration matched the fleet number, (within the confines of the registration system of course), the last Routemaster made RML2760 is SMK760F for example  

 

 (which is one of the reasons I hate the robbery of plates on RMs especially, as the number plates where not just randomly issued, but actually part of the bus and its identity) plate robbery was/is also very annoying as it made IDing the Routemaster that drove past impossible then and there 

[Richard_FM]

11 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

on pretty much every London Transport RM not just the early ones, the registration matched the fleet number, (within the confines of the registration system of course), the last Routemaster made RML2760 is SMK760F for example  

 

 (which is one of the reasons I hate the robbery of plates on RMs especially, as the number plates where not just randomly issued, but actually part of the bus and its identity) plate robbery was/is also very annoying as it made IDing the Routemaster that drove past impossible then and there 

Here's another bus with a Routemaster registration.

[Richard_FM]

A couple of bus-centric street scenes:

[LightBulbFun]

1 minute ago, Richard_FM said:

Here's another bus with a Routemaster registration.

Yeah, I remember I once walking around west ham bus garage with the nice manager as you do

(this was before I crippled myself and used to ride the Routemasters on Route 15 regularly and go back to the garage at the end of the day with the crew  )

and I must of pulled quite the face going by the reactions around me when I spotted an Enviro 200 they had wearing the number plate "VLT14" (especially as I knew RM14 was/is a survivor) it must have worked because VLT14 is back on the RM it belongs to  

[Inspector Morose]

15 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

on pretty much every London Transport RM not just the early ones, the registration matched the fleet number, (within the confines of the registration system of course), the last Routemaster made RML2760 is SMK760F for example  

Ahem.

[LightBulbFun]

19 minutes ago, Inspector Morose said:

Ahem.

I thought you dont do Routemasters, so what where you doing at RM60?  (or have you just borrowed someone else picture? )  

but yeah as you post, the 4 Prototypes (RMC/CRL4 SLT59 not present at the time due to still being under its front end rebuild at the time IIRC?) registrations did not match the fleet numbers, but they did go up together (did not forget them just forgot to put it in my notes at the end in the post above LOL)

 

as a side note make me wonder what the longest someones reserved a registration for? they obviously must have reserved the 4 registrations long before the last prototypes where made (according to the DVLA RM1 was registered in Jan 56 with RML3 the last prototype to be registered was not done so until Jan 58)

obviously would have to be something from the pre suffix days (or a NI reg) that would not get "voided" every time the suffix/prefix changes

 

[cms206]

4 hours ago, Richard_FM said:

Here's another bus with a Routemaster registration.

Best use I've seen of a Routemaster so far, plate raping to put on a Dartline.

10/10, would like to drive frequently.

[Inspector Morose]

55 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

as a side note make me wonder what the longest someones reserved a registration for? they obviously must have reserved the 4 registrations long before the last prototypes where made (according to the DVLA RM1 was registered in Jan 56 with RML3 the last prototype to be registered was not done so until Jan 58)

SLT 56 was not RM1 s first registration. It was going to be registered in the RT series (along with the other prototypes) but it was pointed out a brand new bus with an 'OLD' registration wouldn't look that great. I have a feeling it was going to be OLD862 with the others following on fro that. 

[willswitchengage]

5 hours ago, Richard_FM said:

Here's another bus with a Routemaster registration.

Why choose VLT? TfL has more recently used three letter identifiers that made some sense, I can't remember exactly but VLWnnn would mean Volvo Long wheelbase Wright, or something.

[LightBulbFun]

6 minutes ago, Inspector Morose said:

SLT 56 was not RM1 s first registration. It was going to be registered in the RT series (along with the other prototypes) but it was pointed out a brand new bus with an 'OLD' registration wouldn't look that great. I have a feeling it was going to be OLD862 with the others following on fro that. 

Yeah I remember hearing about that many years ago and was thinking about it just now, quite amusing  was RM1 actually registered under that registration tho? Im honestly unsure, I always thought the prototypes ran around on trade plates before being given their SLT registrations

 

3 minutes ago, willswitchengage said:

Why choose VLT? TfL has more recently used three letter identifiers that made some sense, I can't remember exactly but VLWnnn would mean Volvo Long wheelbase Wright, or something.

just because its a Routemaster registration and also hides the age of the bus, its nothing to do with the bus itself (its not its fleet name or anything such)

[cms206]

2 minutes ago, willswitchengage said:

Why choose VLT? TfL has more recently used three letter identifiers that made some sense, I can't remember exactly but VLWnnn would mean Volvo Long wheelbase Wright, or something.

It was a way of reusing plates; the Dart was DT32, originally G32 TGW.

[Inspector Morose]

3 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

Yeah I remember hearing about that but it was many years ago was quite amusing  was RM1 actually registered under that registration tho? Im honestly unsure, ...

No, none ever ran with their RT series registrations although they were allocated and technically registered with them before they were completed.