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First Aberdeen

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Jordan Adam

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Is there any further news about more Aberdeen bendis moving to Bath? Thanks.

All 6 that were planned to move are now there, with 10167/68/69 confirmed as in service with temporary Unibus branding.

I understand for many its a sore spot.

Many of stagies or firsts downsides from there vehicles are there maintenance levels, just under 2 years service at firsts ex-cumbernauld depot, a short spurt at parkhead, nearly 5 years at stagies cowdenbeath/dunfermline and 1.5yrs at lothian.

Without a dout lothian’s engineering team are second to none, had a few service drives of there Voith/B9’s and B7’s and they were practically faultless, albeit glasgows ZF/B9s when I drove them at 2 years old were quiet and smooth, if anything Cumbernauld had there trans set for town work, not express stuff, it made them particularly sluggish, yet they were reliable at that age., drivers used to clamber for one on the backshift as opposed to the older tridents.

Stagies 200MMCs at dunfermline, had them producing faults even under there 2 year warranty, I remember vividly 26013 had a faulty radiator warning light for low water, it turned out that it never got sorted inside the warranty because dunfermline didnt have enough reliable buses to operate a sufficient service if it were taken off the road.

It litterally drove me insane the amount of 200/300 and 400s that had emission system issues leading to derates, on both euro 4 and 5 ISB engines, I once asked an engineer at dunfermline what the emission light issue ment, they said the the adblue dosing unit has common blockage problems(which I assume consulting with cummins may have helped), I particularly had an underlying feeling it was simply clogged DPF units, many a time at lothian do they have there buses going through parked regeneration yet not once had I ever seen stagecoach bother about it, I’ve also experienced recent one of first glasgow 400’s with a similar feeling of derate.

In most but not all depots I assume that individual teams/management are doing better at what they do with the budgets that are set by directors etc.

First Aberdeen's maintenance seems to be on par to be fair. The only bus types there's any real issues with are the Streetlites (No comment) and the fuel injector issues on the B9TLs. As i say the fuel injector issues are common across all B9s with the D9B engine. It's not too bad on the Geminis here, but certainly with the 4 Olympus and the B9R Panthers on the 35 and Royal Deeside corridors it's proving to be a massive reliability constraint with daily breakdowns. That said Stagecoach North Scotland maintenance generally speaking is not something to speak highly of...

The Enviro300s are quite interesting, Glasgow's are on very different work to ours. Aberdeen's E300s are solid reliable motors easily the smoothest running buses i've ever been on. Finally the E200s here have not had any issues (65 plates).

The Artics are quite reliable too, they only issues they ever have is running out of coolant on the hotter days (less of an issue now the Euro 2 variants are gone) and the air tank failure, not much can be done about this really, it is avoidable, but often the drivers are not aware it's going on until the jacknife break comes on and the buses refuses to move until both tanks are equal again.
 

Gingerbus1991

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30 Jul 2018
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All 6 that were planned to move are now there, with 10167/68/69 confirmed as in service with temporary Unibus branding.



First Aberdeen's maintenance seems to be on par to be fair. The only bus types there's any real issues with are the Streetlites (No comment) and the fuel injector issues on the B9TLs. As i say the fuel injector issues are common across all B9s with the D9B engine. It's not too bad on the Geminis here, but certainly with the 4 Olympus and the B9R Panthers on the 35 and Royal Deeside corridors it's proving to be a massive reliability constraint with daily breakdowns. That said Stagecoach North Scotland maintenance generally speaking is not something to speak highly of...

The Enviro300s are quite interesting, Glasgow's are on very different work to ours. Aberdeen's E300s are solid reliable motors easily the smoothest running buses i've ever been on. Finally the E200s here have not had any issues (65 plates).

The Artics are quite reliable too, they only issues they ever have is running out of coolant on the hotter days (less of an issue now the Euro 2 variants are gone) and the air tank failure, not much can be done about this really, it is avoidable, but often the drivers are not aware it's going on until the jacknife break comes on and the buses refuses to move until both tanks are equal again.
Then again, as you mention panthers, The B9R elites that were on stagies x7 did a short time as dunfermline to replace some of the scania 6x2s on the x55’s, I remember them having really clattery engines by that time although they were humped on the x7, The ishift on these wasnt all the best either but the B136x2 and newer B11R4x2 elites on the x60 st andrews <> leven do seem to be an improvement, the ishift does seem to have different ratios to better effect these days since the b12’s and b9’s were introduced, i’d personally like a shot of lothiancoaches new b11r panthers to sample the ZF gearbox.

Glasgows 300’s still are decent to be fair, but the interiors are starting to look grubby.

I actually cant criticise streetlites, never driven one, while I don’t actually think dunfermlines 200mmc’s were all that bad on the move either, my biggest critisism of those was there sluggishness of the mark despite them being 6-cylinder engined, especially at halbeath P&R roundabout, the voith trans was almost always confused by changing terrain, something I think is well documented by drivers, its almost as if it were hunting for gears that it didnt have.
 

Jordan Adam

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Are the Hydrogen VanHools decent.

When they work yes, but the reliability of them is a major draw back. Lately they've been using them as little as possible.
The lease to First/Stagecoach ends in December and as far as i know Stagecoach will not be extending their lease, thus returning the vehicles to the council.

The technology has advanced quite a bit in recent years, and the recent trials of the Streetdeck went smooth without any hitch, unlike the trials of the VanHools which saw a number of breakdowns!
 

Gingerbus1991

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When they work yes, but the reliability of them is a major draw back. Lately they've been using them as little as possible.
The lease to First/Stagecoach ends in December and as far as i know Stagecoach will not be extending their lease, thus returning the vehicles to the council.

The technology has advanced quite a bit in recent years, and the recent trials of the Streetdeck went smooth without any hitch, unlike the trials of the VanHools which saw a number of breakdowns!
Heres hoping
 

Jordan Adam

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Quite an interesting article in the P&J today regarding council run bus services.

Aberdeen City Council ‘hamstrung’ in Grampian buses plan

A long-awaited new transport bill leaves councils “hamstrung” to run their own bus companies – Aberdeen’s roads spokesman has said.

The Aberdeen Labour group pledged to reintroduce Grampian Buses back to the city ahead of local elections last year.

They want to run a council-operated service similar to Edinburgh’s Lothian Buses claiming it will be cheaper for commuters and more efficient than the current private operators.

A new draft transport bill has been put out for consultation by the Scottish Government.

Council transport spokesman Ross Grant has written to the government saying that they did not think it went “far enough” in its current form.

Mr Grant said that the draft bill would only allow councils to run services where there was no private operator already in place.

He added that if a council service proved successful then a private firm could take it on without consultation from the council.

He said: “It is no secret that our position as a council is that we would like to run services.

“We were hopeful that the transport bill would include all options for councils including the Lothian buses model used by Edinburgh for some time.

“Unfortunately the draft bill as proposed does not allow this and in our response we have reiterated our position.

“What is proposed is that we can control services where none currently exist. We could be left in a position where the council does all the heavy lifting of setting up as service just for it to be taken over by a private operator.

“The bill as proposed leaves councils completely hamstrung in my opinion – it is the worst of all worlds.”

In June, talks between the council and operator First Bus took place – with the local authority manoeuvring for a bid to run the city’s buses in the future.

It is understood that if the council took over First Aberdeen it would run all the services and take over the bus depot on King Street.

First Bus took over Aberdeen services in 1989 and senior First figures poured cold water on the idea of a sale, saying they were “not interested”.

The full bill is expected to be debated next year.

A Transport Scotland spokeswoman said: “The Transport Bill will support councils to meet local needs and circumstances for bus provision through a variety of means, including statutory partnerships, local franchising and new powers for local transport authorities, in certain circumstances, to run their own bus services.

“Full consideration will be given to all of the evidence provided on the Bill during its passage through the parliamentary process.”


https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/aberdeen/1580989/council-hamstrung-in-grampian-buses-plan

To be fair even if ACC did have the option to start up their own bus services i highly doubt the TC would grant them a PSV License.
 

overthewater

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A number of changes have appeaered for 12th nov.. Is this part of the new by pass opening?
 

Blackpudding

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Mercedes-Benz Vario 56006 and 56009 are currently untaxed. They should have been re-taxed by today and would normally be taxed well in advance of the 1st of the month. Please can anyone confirm if they have been stood down?
 

Jordan Adam

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Mercedes-Benz Vario 56006 and 56009 are currently untaxed. They should have been re-taxed by today and would normally be taxed well in advance of the 1st of the month. Please can anyone confirm if they have been stood down?

I'm unsure what the current status for the Mercs is, but they're not in the list of vehicles due for refurbishment so i suspect they'll be leaving the fleet soon if they've not been re-taxed, either that or the DVLA are slow in updating.

A number of new and nearly new coaches are away to join the fleet. Currently confirmed are 3 Panthers, 2 Elites and a Sunsundegui bodied B9R. Possibly some Temsa's too. Refurbishments will be for the Levante's, B7Rs and 20021, these will be done by Simpson's of Rosehearty. 20353, 23021 and 23305 will be leaving the fleet as they've started to leak badly.
 
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Volvodart

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One of the duties done by the minibuses is now done by a coach. I think they only have one minibus duty now. 56501 is pretty unreliable and often out of service. I wonder if the one spare for it will be enough though?
 

Jordan Adam

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One of the duties done by the minibuses is now done by a coach. I think they only have one minibus duty now. 56501 is pretty unreliable and often out of service. I wonder if the one spare for it will be enough though?

56501 is a decent vehicle, but it's suffering from the engine overheating. It's normally on the Garthdee to ISA (via South Deeside) run.
 

Blackpudding

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Thanks for the response Jordan. I didn't realise that Aberdeen were due additional coaches. I'm sure I read, at some point, that the coach hire side was being wound down. What's changed?
 

Strathclyder

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B10BLE 62169 has been converted to a driver trainer and is back in the Aberdeen fleet.
As has 62163 (was moved back up to Aberdeen the day after these images were taken). 62164 was still at Caledonia as of Thursday (abeit converted/repainted & awaiting application of decals/vinyls), while 62177 has yet to be either converted or repainted (164 is in front of 177 in the second image, for those wondering).
 

Jordan Adam

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As has 62163 (was moved back up to Aberdeen the day after these images were taken). 62164 was still at Caledonia as of Thursday (abeit converted/repainted & awaiting application of decals/vinyls), while 62177 has yet to be either converted or repainted (164 is in front of 177 in the second image, for those wondering).

Many thanks for sharing, still no sign of 62179 strangely! It left with 62164 and went to Larbert, but it's not been seen since!

I suspect 62163/69 will replace Scania 61230 which has picked up a engine defect (preserved 62228 covering for it just now) along with the B10M N535SJF that's on loan currently.

I'm unsure if Aberdeen will see 62164/77 return as they really don't need 4 trainers, perhaps they're destined for Scotland East?
 

Strathclyder

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I'm unsure if Aberdeen will see 62164/77 return as they really don't need 4 trainers, perhaps they're destined for Scotland East?
Maybe so, with us getting 61230 in exchange after repairs are effected, given that FiG has now settled on the Wright Eclipse Solar/Scania L94UB combination for it's training fleet (the number of the older Axcess Floline-bodied L94s has dropped off quite a bit recently).
 

Jordan Adam

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Sunsundegui bodied Volvo B9R BF63 HEV has now arrived at King Street Depot. It will be given the fleet number 20812.

This is the first of about 6 vehicles due for First Aberdeen Coach Hire to replace older stock. It was painted white at Caledonia and should gain full vinyls in due course.
 

Jordan Adam

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In a move associated with this, 23305 has now been re-registered back to its original registration YN54NXX from PSU628.

You beat me to it! I was just about to post that. Grr :P

I'm unsure if they'll sell the 3 coaches on or just scrap them, i'd suspect they'll be for scrap seeing as they leak.
 

Blackpudding

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You beat me to it! I was just about to post that. Grr :P

I'm unsure if they'll sell the 3 coaches on or just scrap them, i'd suspect they'll be for scrap seeing as they leak.

Ha! I also notice that Volvo B7R 20353 (WA05UNF) was not re-taxed at the start of this month according to the DVLA. It's not on your list for disposal so any info gleaned would be appreciated.
 

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