Bus Shite

[Felly Magic]

I feel sorry for the fitters at Arriva in Yorks, the fleet is such a mixed bag of utter shite. Volvo B7TL's with both Voith & ZF, Plaxton and ALX, Optare Tampons with MAN engines(doublefucksticks) DAF ELCB, B9TL/ELCB, Wright DAF in single & double deck, the B5 milkfloats, B7RLE/Wrights Darts in Pointer2 Flavour and Enviro 200, and they also have some E400 Tridents thrown into the mix as well. Arriva seem to have a severely confusing policy when it comes to renewal of the fleet. And even at Selby now they have some Soslows for York tendered services.

[Felly Magic]

The ultra narrow and short Solo 710 they did had comedy handling, but went like a stabbed rat. Used to drive 16 seater ones modded 3 wheelchairs

[Inspector Morose]

It's great for me. I go around coach shows and think; we'll get one of those in 20 years or so when they're fucked. It's a bit like Autoshite buses but without the inconvenience of things like passengers.

 

Just got my next job through. National apprenticeship scheme in high Wycombe. One president Dennis trident ex Lothian on Monday till Wednesday.

 

Great. Out with the coach from very AM till quite PM on Sunday with the bird club in lea valley. Gah, sleep is for whimps. (Yes, tachometer rules apply to both so I'm not going to do anything stupid)

[Noel Tidybeard]

of all the twm stuff i think the omnicity deckers are the finest looking esp as they've had a recent repaint

[rml2345]

Omnileaks are quite handsome but the body quality is a bit pants. 
East Lancs Omnidekkas make them look like Rolls-Royces by comparison. The ones at First Edinburgh Scotland East Midland Scotland SMT or whatever they're calling themselves this week are all utterly fucked before their tenth birthdays due to chassis cracking and poor quality of the bodies. 

[Luckythirteen]

This any good to you?

 

 

Reg - A38DTV, and according to the driver, it is that old. On duty for a school trip to Tesco (yes that Tesco with the riots.)

[Inspector Morose]

Good, sturdy old tub. Nowt wrong with that..

[cms206]

That A38 DTV fair gets about, it was doing Glasgow-Dundee for First Scotrail not that long ago!

[meshking]

I love that Vanhool coachwork. I used to travel London to Bristol every weekend as a teenager and tried out pretty much all of Nat Express fleet. The Setra and Vanhool coaches were great.

[Grundig]

I love that Vanhool coachwork. I used to travel London to Bristol every weekend as a teenager and tried out pretty much all of Nat Express fleet. The Setra and Vanhool coaches were great.

 

I always liked the look of the Neoplans - esp the tri-axle Cityliners

 

[Inspector Morose]

That's a starliner. Much love of Neoplan from here too. Nobody else can do "theatre" in design like they can. Hopeless rot boxes though. For a very short time they even came with Gardner engines too!

[Felly Magic]

The Gardner 6 LYT, a seriously monster 6 pot of around 14 litres I believe. Tracky had some with Plaxton Paramount 4000 bodywork

[oman5]

The Gardner 6 LYT, a seriously monster 6 pot of around 14 litres I believe. Tracky had some with Plaxton Paramount 4000 bodywork

Actually a 16 litre. Torque monster.

[RichL]

I love that Vanhool coachwork. I used to travel London to Bristol every weekend as a teenager and tried out pretty much all of Nat Express fleet. The Setra and Vanhool coaches were great.

 

+1 For VanHool.

 

I went on a school trip to Northern France in a VH bodied coach when I was 15. It is to this day the best bus I've ever been on.

 

That was 1996, I think it was fairly new, possibly with a Volvo engine? The air con was superb, I remember stepping off it into what felt like a wall of heat.

[Felly Magic]

The Vanhool bodied T8 series, with a B10M chassis, the perfect coach in my view. Tough as nails running gear, with a similarly tough body. Used to drive ex Shearings J reg examples regularly, and they were still in pretty good shape, with very little rot on them. The much newer Premieres, ahem well.....the fleetname summed up the bodywork... 2000 perforations.....

[Inspector Morose]

Some of their modern stuff is pretty nifty, like this prototype Trolleybus.

[rml2345]

That's brilliant. It's like a Power Ranger with trolley poles.

[wuvvum]

This any good to you?

 

 

Reg - A38DTV, and according to the driver, it is that old. On duty for a school trip to Tesco (yes that Tesco with the riots.)

Hmm.  According to my calculations, that is now over 30 years old and thus driveable on a car licence.  Interesting...

[Inspector Morose]

It was at Euro bus expo a few years back in Belgium. Had a good shufty around it (I was there looking after the Altro coach as part of its stand). We are so behind the times in this country regarding the standard of public transport.

[Justin Case]

I always liked the look of the Neoplans - esp the tri-axle Cityliners

 

We are quite regular travellers with Parrys, in fact wife and daughter went to London for the day only  last week in one of their new Neoplans, which look remarkably like the ten year old version, so still futuristic. Their verdict: not as comfy as the Van Hool Aristrons which they also have in their fleet.

 

My favourites are the bulbous Bova Futura integrals, which only changed from the original 1983 design a couple of years ago,  ; we went all over Scotland in one learlier this year and it would have been hard to beat it for long distance comfort   Get a £99 Irish registration, stick it on an old one, and make your fortune with Autoshite Luxury Tours, no-one will know the difference:)

[dollywobbler]

Ultimate coach shite for me just has to be the Bova Futura. Still one heck of a design for the early 1980s. So good they've pretty much just kept it going, getting slightly uglier every time they facelift it.

 

EDIT - given the post above, this is now a bit scary!

[cms206]

Ultimate coach shite for me just has to be the Bova Futura. Still one heck of a design for the early 1980s. So good they've pretty much just kept it going, getting slightly uglier every time they facelift it.

They rot like a 1970s Lancia. My boss had one Bova - a Europa - and has subsequently resolutely refused to even operate one on loan. I don't even think it got fleetnames.

 

Popular as fook round here as schoolbuses though as you can get 75 seats in a 12.2m Futura and they do something daft like 19mpg.

[Inspector Morose]

Futuras are an excellent one man band coach. Looks modern, cheap to buy, cheap to run and passengers like them. I think they're great. Wouldn't have one myself as I can't stand the driving position.

 

Edit for CMS: yup, they do rot like a fiat in a salt bath though!

[cms206]

Futuras are an excellent one man band coach. Looks modern, cheap to buy, cheap to run and passengers like them. I think they're great. Wouldn't have one myself as I can't stand the driving position.

Driven a couple of Futura 2s and loved them to bits, didn't like the Futura 1 as they're horrendously ugly (original '83 models excepted - the afterburner tail lights are awesome), the middles fall out and you feel like you're driving a fishbowl. And not a nice GM Fishbowl, a round thing you'd keep fish in.

[Inspector Morose]

Don't do modern. If you can't put a paper disk in it, I'm not interested.

[Justin Case]

Ultimate coach shite for me just has to be the Bova Futura. Still one heck of a design for the early 1980s. So good they've pretty much just kept it going, getting slightly uglier every time they facelift it.

 

EDIT - given the post above, this is now a bit scary!

 This gets even more scary, the Scotland trip was with Johnsons  

[Noel Tidybeard]

i come from an era where the coolest bus in the world is a P reg volvo ailsa

[dollywobbler]

I guessed they must have a rot problem - you just don't see early ones anymore. I booked a test drive of a coach with Johnsons about 14 years ago. I was so hoping for a Futura! Had to make do with a Plaxton-bodied Volvo - thus making it the first Volvo I ever drove.

[Inspector Morose]

On which screams perchance? The holy grail of the SVM a Scottish built Volvo.

[cms206]

On which screams perchance? The holy grail of the SVM a Scottish built Volvo.

Irvine built Volvo B10Ms are apparantly not very good... that said the Ailsa was brilliant.

 

As an aside, the Volvo Olympian (which also was made of a corrodium/dissolvium alloy) was technically not a Volvo, but more of an Irvine Sheet Metal Fabrications Olympian. They were only etch primed and parked outside until taken to the bodybuilders.