Bus Shite

[Yoss]

On 3/4/2023 at 10:24 AM, willswitchengage said:

https://www.alexander-dennis.com/media/news/2021/april/bvg-confirms-order-to-take-berlin-s-adl-enviro500-double-deck-fleet-to-200/

Anybody who has been to Berlin will recognise that it is one of the few cities outside the UK and the colonies that uses double decker buses, mainly MAN tri-axles. Anyway, looks like ADL has finally made some sales over there - British built buses in Germany, albeit with Merc not Cummins engines - presumably Cummins doesn't sell a big Euro6 engine here anymore.

Those MANs are quite smart. The few I've been on seem very well screwed together. I've no idea who makes the bodies or if they are integral. Obviously they are quite a lot lower than even a low height decker over here but once your sat down they're fine.. 

 

Obviously a great way to see the city, they even have windscreen wipers upstairs. 

 

 

We even went on one in the dark. 

 

[Leyland Worldmaster]

Oooh yeah... 

https://youtu.be/elrVq3DsSc8

[willswitchengage]

I believe those MEN are integral, the rear staircase is funky too and cleverly designed around the corner mounted longitudinal flat D20 engine.

East Lancs tried to make a MAN DD over here based on a smaller 6-litre chassis but believe it wasn't a sales success, think it originally was with Stagecoaches. Looked smart imho.

[Remspoor]

I got a suggestion via YT for this.

Was it via this thread? I did a search back to last summer using the term Southampton and could not find anything related.

Bus Wars (Facing South, 1987). A documentary on the bus wars in Southampton and  the Isle of Wight.

 

[Leyland Worldmaster]

22 hours ago, willswitchengage said:

I believe those MEN are integral, the rear staircase is funky too and cleverly designed around the corner mounted longitudinal flat D20 engine.

East Lancs tried to make a MAN DD over here based on a smaller 6-litre chassis but believe it wasn't a sales success, think it originally was with Stagecoaches. Looked smart imho.

One of the less ugly ELC bodies. I wonder how long that MAN lasted in service. 

ELC wasn't a manufacturer of quality products. We had some Scania Omnidekka Buses and they were quick and the brakes excellent. 

Within weeks of delivery, ominous signs suggested all was not well. Crazing and cracking started to appear around the GRP Staircase Mouldings as well as the GRP Moulding around the Rear Window. They leaked badly around the windscreen too. 

They would flex noticeably on rough roads. This may be due to the Underframe lacking a Perimeter Frame- a feature that the contemporary Trident and Volvo B7TL- as well as the previous Leyland\Volvo Olympian of course did possess. 

I was told of a Warranty Meeting where Managers from ELC and Scania had to be physically separated! 

Body Drop was caused by the Body Bearers towards the rear of the vehicle. I saw one where the Upper Deck structure was resting on the fucking Intercooler! 

Don't get me started on the Omnitown. That's the worst vehicle I've ever driven. 

 

Edited March 8, 2023 by Leyland Worldmaster
Penguins.

[Asimo]

 

[willswitchengage]

1 hour ago, Leyland Worldmaster said:

One of the less ugly ELC bodies. I wonder how long that MAN lasted in service. 

I want to say I once read it had a very limited life, additionally because MAN's UK products have been pretty shoddy. Interestingly though MAN are massive in Europe and seem to last forever.

[Leyland Worldmaster]

https://youtu.be/XvHRunZAYY4

Fake Volvo Olympian filmed driving around... Fishwicks Lynx makes a fleeting appearance. 

 

[cms206]

On 3/7/2023 at 11:53 AM, willswitchengage said:

I believe those MEN are integral, the rear staircase is funky too and cleverly designed around the corner mounted longitudinal flat D20 engine.

East Lancs tried to make a MAN DD over here based on a smaller 6-litre chassis but believe it wasn't a sales success, think it originally was with Stagecoaches. Looked smart imho.

I've driven that, 2013 IIRC. Drove really well actually, though if memory serves the price of rear tyres was eyewatering - 455/50R22.5s weren't that common back then.

It was a demonatrator but originally operated for Reading.

[Yoss]

Actually popped in to town on a weekday for the first time since First left yesterday. I'd been in on a Sunday but Bluestar have enough blue buses to cover the Sunday service. 

So this was what I found. Obviously I knew what was going to be there as I'd found them on the Bluestar bus tracker but it's the first time I've seen them in the flesh. 

 

These are odd looking buggers, I don't even know what they are. I know Bournemouth had some too. 

 

Some of these Volvos are right screamers. About half of them seem to have a loud cooling fan on permanently which gets faster, and so louder, with engine speed. The other half don't and are as quiet as anything else but noisy ones I can hear all over Shirley when I'm out on delivery. I've even heard them from my garden which hasn't happened since the Atlanteans left in 2005. For this reason I rather like them. Every time I hear one it reminds me of the Atlanteans. 

 

The old inspectors hut has been stripped of its First branding. 

When I came in the other Sunday it was still all stickered up. Don't know who stripped it as First themselves have already buggered off. Did Bluestar really want to remove the name from the city. I did wonder if they were getting it ready to paint blue though they don't appear to be using it. 

[CreepingJesus]

Your mystery bus is an Optare Versa; we've got a fair few round here, cos rural routes, and I'm pretty sure some of them are of that WX60xxx reg series too. Others are SV60xxx with coach seats, air con etc., from the rural inter town express routes up north.

[Zelandeth]

3 hours ago, CreepingJesus said:

Your mystery bus is an Optare Versa; we've got a fair few round here, cos rural routes, and I'm pretty sure some of them are of that WX60xxx reg series too. Others are SV60xxx with coach seats, air con etc., from the rural inter town express routes up north.

Here's a pair of them - including one of the SV60 bunch at only a couple of days into service from new in Aberdeen.

[CreepingJesus]

Some of them are the 12 plates as well, but it's been the (correct me if I'm wrong here) 'Bluebird' vinyls removed. I've a feeling your airport ones now do the 747 service from Halbeath to Edinburgh, because they needed the big luggage racks, but not the seating capacity in the wee sma' hours of a 24h operation.

[SunnySouth]

The constant loud fans on Volvo deckers is quite a common issue; they use a 'viscous coupling' setup or similar, whereby the fan starts spinning (loudly) when some gubbins reaches a certain temperature, as opposed to an electric jobby with a sensor. The gubbins fails, leaving the fan roaring all the bloody time! Replacements are available of course, but that page seems to be missing from most bus operators' parts manuals...

[SunnySouth]

On 3/8/2023 at 10:35 AM, Leyland Worldmaster said:

 .....

ELC wasn't a manufacturer of quality products. We had some Scania Omnidekka Buses and they were quick and the brakes excellent. 

Within weeks of delivery, ominous signs suggested all was not well. Crazing and cracking started to appear around the GRP Staircase Mouldings as well as the GRP Moulding around the Rear Window. They leaked badly around the windscreen too. 

They would flex noticeably on rough roads. This may be due to the Underframe lacking a Perimeter Frame- a feature that the contemporary Trident and Volvo B7TL- as well as the previous Leyland\Volvo Olympian of course did possess. 

Body Drop was caused by the Body Bearers towards the rear of the vehicle. I saw one where the Upper Deck structure was resting on the fucking Intercooler! 

.....

 

First flirted briefly with the Omnicity in the mid 2000s, they had I think two or three batches of rigid single deckers in different places, and a batch of bendies. Not ELC bodied, but Scania's own offering (built by a different firm in Poland or somewhere, I seem to remember). Neither the body nor the chasiss were much good, really. Initial impressions were that the cab was nice, with a cumfy heated seat, decent heating controls and a commanding driving position, and they went well. But f'ck me the ride was appalling, the suspension was terrible! All sorts of stupid superfluous alarms and locks were fitted in a constant attempt to hamper progress, the lot of ours had to go back for the emergency doors to be replaced as they didn't fit properly and routinely disabled the bus. Wheelchair ramps would do the same, requiring a burst of acceleration to release the locked parking brake and causing the thing to go lurching off down the road. They had a switch in the engine bay to allow fitters to start them from the back, which also had an 'off' position meaning you couldn't start it from anywhere. Ingeniously, said switch was perfectly located to get knocked into the 'off' position by the flimsy, rattling engine cover as you bounced along, meaning that whenever you next switched it off the bastard thing wouldn't start again - and drivers were banned from opening the engine cover, so even if you knew what it was you couldn't enact a ten second fix to sort it out (drivers *definitely never did this). Most of them eventually had angle iron plates crudely riveted to the back seats where they met the floor, to hide the fact that they were going banana shaped.

Portsmouth's membership of the low emission bollox club saw them off last year. 

[Yoss]

So I found this in Brno. 

Says its a Solaris which my brain is telling me is a Polish company but I may have imagined that. 

But the sticker in the back window says it is still Škoda power. 

Bit spartan and random inside. 

 

But by god do they shift. I mean like no bus I've ever been in, and much quicker than the trams. It's a Sunday night so there was no traffic, honestly it was like a fairground ride. 

When I got to Kralovo Pole station there was a proper Škoda trolley waiting but it was going even further out of town and it was getting dark so I bottled it. 

I did get a Škoda electric hauled train back in to town though. Can't go wrong here. 

 

Edit: just noticed the trolleybuses don't have registrations, just fleet numbers. 

[martc]

Talking of trolley buses, here's some NuT action... and some ace incidental chod.

[martc]

It's 1934 and lucky No13 has to negotiate the floods in Helsinki.

[RoadworkUK]

On 3/12/2023 at 8:05 PM, Yoss said:

 

Edit: just noticed the trolleybuses don't have registrations, just fleet numbers. 

Similar to some of the trolleys in Riga, which are bi-mode. I was quite impressed when it came to the edge of the catenery network, dropped its pantograph and sped off on diesel.

[Yoss]

So first of all I had about 40 minutes in Jihlava at lunchtime and as I walked up to the town from the station I was delighted to see trolleybus wires. 

This is another Solaris like the ones I saw in Brno. 

And this one looks ultra modern so I'm not sure but it still had a powered by Škoda sticker on the back window. 

 

Then back to Brno and I headed for Kralovo Pole to have a go on the trolley route that I saw Sunday evening that goes right out to the edge of the city. The one I saw Sunday was a proper older Škoda but when I got there another Solaris turned up. 

Well they are every ten minutes so I thought I'd wait for the next one but that was a Solaris too so I gave up and got on. The route is great, through some woods, stops at the zoo (the zoo was actually a big transport interchange with normal buses and an express tram route that runs on dedicated track most of the way back in to the city) and then carries on for another ten minutes or so through a huge complex of communist era flats. But they were all really well kept, had balconies and were surrounded with lots of trees. I could never live in a flat with my hobbies but you could do far worse than these. 

A Google map of the route. 

Luckily when I got to the terminus there was a Škoda at the front of the queue of buses coming back so that worked out well. 

Can't help thinking the clean straight lines look so much better than all this modern stuff with swoopy bits all over the place. The interior was much more traditional too. 

 

I got off here to go and find a model shop. 

After which I saw another Solaris whilst walking down to the tram stop. 

 

I know I keep saying this but this is what we should all be riding on. They absolutely fly along. I know there are a few electric buses around now but they must be carting three tons of batteries around with them if they're going to last all day and if you hooned around in them like the trolleybus drivers seem to in Brno I think you'd halve the range. I know you'd have to spend a bit on infrastructure but it's not like having to lay tram lines is it. I realise no private bus company could ever invest in the wires it would have to be a local council thing. Which is why it will never happen. But it should. 

[High Jetter]

2 hours ago, martc said:

Talking of trolley buses, here's some NuT action... and some ace incidental chod.

 

Compleat? Archaic spelling or hidden meaning?

[Yoss]

5 hours ago, High Jetter said:

Compleat? Archaic spelling or hidden meaning?

I don't know but they are still going so they must be doing something right. 

Though they may have downsized a bit. 

[jon.k]

9 hours ago, High Jetter said:

Compleat? Archaic spelling or hidden meaning?

I think it's a pun on  The Compleat Angler by Izaak Walton (a strangely popular 17th Century book about fishing).

[CreepingJesus]

It is an archaic spelling, but it's also a tailoring pun. Compleat! 

Enjoying the write ups @Yoss, it's a country on my bucket list for the CZ motorbikes connection, but I don't doubt I'd be doing the same as you are! Compleatly agree that trolleybuses and trams are long overdue a return here.

[Metal Guru]

1 hour ago, CreepingJesus said:

It is an archaic spelling, but it's also a tailoring pun. Compleat! 

Enjoying the write ups @Yoss, it's a country on my bucket list for the CZ motorbikes connection, but I don't doubt I'd be doing the same as you are! Compleatly agree that trolleybuses and trams are long overdue a return here.

I can see a case for trolley buses but trams mixed with traffic is a stupid idea especially if you’re trying to encourage cycling.. Surely trams cost a lot more than trolley buses both for installation and vehicles too. 
However, I suspect than many cities will hold off doing either , hoping battery technology will improve quickly enough to make battery powered buses viable.

[High Jetter]

1 hour ago, CreepingJesus said:

It is an archaic spelling, but it's also a tailoring pun. Compleat! 

Neat, didn't spot that. Sew good!

[CreepingJesus]

1 hour ago, Metal Guru said:

I can see a case for trolley buses but trams mixed with traffic is a stupid idea especially if you’re trying to encourage cycling.. Surely trams cost a lot more than trolley buses both for installation and vehicles too. 
However, I suspect than many cities will hold off doing either , hoping battery technology will improve quickly enough to make battery powered buses viable.

As a cyclist, I completely agree, trolleybuses make much better sense on city streets cos submerged tramlines are a bit iffy for anything with small/narrow wheels. See also pushchairs, wheelchairs etc., which need considered. I'd think trams make better sense as a light rail kinda concept, which given how much of cities is 'out of town' has its' merits. Airports are a good example, it only really needs to go there and back. 

But as you say, that works to the favour of battery buses too. Ember run Yutong battery coaches from Dundee to Edinburgh Airport which I assume is viable: it makes a run, stands down to charge, makes another run, charges, and so on. Might even try it myself for the hell of it sometime!

Of course, you can just mix it all up and see what happens...

 

[martc]

14 hours ago, Yoss said:

And this one looks ultra modern so I'm not sure but it still had a powered by Škoda sticker on the back window. 

 

That's a Skoda 32Tr. It is still in production; to keep down production costs there's a fair bit of the SOR NS12 bus in it.

https://www.skodagroup.com/reference/trolleybus-32tr

[Yoss]

27 minutes ago, martc said:

That's a Skoda 32Tr. It is still in production; to keep down production costs there's a fair bit of the SOR NS12 bus in it.

https://www.skodagroup.com/reference/trolleybus-32tr

Cheers, the bus to the airport was some sort of SOR. I'm not familiar with them at all. 

[martc]

London Bridge, way back when, and this year.