TfGM-website, timetable updates and general news concerning TfGM bus stations.

Josie · 30 Aug 2018

Paul Sidorczuk said:
Stagecoach have just printed a 4pp A5 size leaflet which covers the changes to their timetables from Sunday 2nd September in which on pp3 it states:-

SERVICE 147....West Didsbury to Piccadilly rail station.
New route via Oxford Road serving Central Manchester Hospitals and Universities. Buses will run up to every 10 minutes Monday to Friday.

New 147 timetable: https://assets.ctfassets.net/nv7y93...4137a51035d08539993/18-1126_Bus_Times_147.pdf

It's identical to the old 140 that ran in Finglands days, except the 140 was half-hourly. It's considerably less useful than either the 141 or the existing 147 that it replaces, though, serving neither Birley nor the hospital Boulevard/Upper Brook Street.

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Xenophon PCDGS · 30 Aug 2018

Josie said:
New 147 timetable: https://assets.ctfassets.net/nv7y93...4137a51035d08539993/18-1126_Bus_Times_147.pdf

It's identical to the old 140 that ran in Finglands days, except the 140 was half-hourly. It's considerably less useful than either the 141 or the existing 147 that it replaces, though, serving neither Birley nor the hospital Boulevard/Upper Brook Street.

I think that the 141 service that you refer to will be replaced by the new 147 service.

Josie · 31 Aug 2018

Paul Sidorczuk said:
I think that the 141 service that you refer to will be replaced by the new 147 service.

Yes, that's what I mean - the 'new' 147 replaces both the 141 and the 'old' 147, but only goes to one of their three unique destinations (Sackville Street, but not Birley or the Boulevard). The part of the 141 it does cover (Booth Street to West Didsbury) is already served by buses 43 and 143, and I can't see that this adds anything - if anything it's a reduction.

WatcherZero · 1 Sep 2018

TfGM have put in their own £12m bid to the Dft for electric buses. They are proposing
10 double deckers for the Vantage route in the Vantage spec, 5 will allow existing First EURO VI buses to be cascaded and 5 to increase the size of the Vantage fleet to 30.
13 for the Metroshuttle route, the 17 they already own (including 3 electric buses) will be cascaded onto other subsidised services.
41 to replace the Iveco yellow buses they own that were upgraded to low emission engines between 2013-2015 as they are now approaching 15 years old, if TfGM find more money they will continue to replace more of the newer buses in their 87 strong yellow bus fleet.

10 ADL/BDY Enviro 400 EV 10.8m double deckers (Vantage Spec which costs an additional £45k on top of the £460k base price)
13 ADL/BDY Enviro 200 EV 10.8m single deckers
41 ADL/BDY Enviro 200 EV 12m single deckers

158756 · 1 Sep 2018

WatcherZero said:
TfGM have put in their own £12m bid to the Dft for electric buses. They are proposing
10 double deckers for the Vantage route in the Vantage spec, 5 will allow existing First EURO VI buses to be cascaded and 5 to increase the size of the Vantage fleet to 30.
13 for the Metroshuttle route, the 17 they already own (including 3 electric buses) will be cascaded onto other subsidised services.
41 to replace the Iveco yellow buses they own that were upgraded to low emission engines between 2013-2015 as they are now approaching 15 years old, if TfGM find more money they will continue to replace more of the newer buses in their 87 strong yellow bus fleet.

10 ADL/BDY Enviro 400 EV 10.8m double deckers (Vantage Spec which costs an additional £45k on top of the £460k base price)
13 ADL/BDY Enviro 200 EV 10.8m single deckers
41 ADL/BDY Enviro 200 EV 12m single deckers

Do the TfGM school buses get used on other routes during the day? It seems a waste to spend a large chunk of very limited funding on buses sitting in a depot most of the time.

Alexbus12 · 1 Sep 2018

158756 said:
Do the TfGM school buses get used on other routes during the day? It seems a waste to spend a large chunk of very limited funding on buses sitting in a depot most of the time.

Nope.

Kahuna47 · 1 Sep 2018

158756 said:
Do the TfGM school buses get used on other routes during the day? It seems a waste to spend a large chunk of very limited funding on buses sitting in a depot most of the time.

Depends on the operator. A lot of the smaller firms use them for private hire for kids (swimming baths, class trips etc), the big guys just leave them in the depot.

You'll probably never see one in normal passenger service tbh.
Cheers,
K

Alexbus12 · 1 Sep 2018

Kahuna47 said:
Depends on the operator. A lot of the smaller firms use them for private hire for kids (swimming baths, class trips etc), the big guys just leave them in the depot.

You'll probably never see one in normal passenger service tbh.
Cheers,
K

I believe tfgm specifies that they can only be used on private hire within GM for the kids swimming etc

Robertj21a · 1 Sep 2018

WatcherZero said:
TfGM have put in their own £12m bid to the Dft for electric buses. They are proposing
10 double deckers for the Vantage route in the Vantage spec, 5 will allow existing First EURO VI buses to be cascaded and 5 to increase the size of the Vantage fleet to 30.
13 for the Metroshuttle route, the 17 they already own (including 3 electric buses) will be cascaded onto other subsidised services.
41 to replace the Iveco yellow buses they own that were upgraded to low emission engines between 2013-2015 as they are now approaching 15 years old, if TfGM find more money they will continue to replace more of the newer buses in their 87 strong yellow bus fleet.

10 ADL/BDY Enviro 400 EV 10.8m double deckers (Vantage Spec which costs an additional £45k on top of the £460k base price)
13 ADL/BDY Enviro 200 EV 10.8m single deckers
41 ADL/BDY Enviro 200 EV 12m single deckers

Not sure about BDY - is it just a typo for BYD ?

WatcherZero · 1 Sep 2018

Probably just code for Body.

Bungle965 · 7 Sep 2018

Pictures have been released of the new Optare Versa's which are intended for the 464 route under construction by Alex Hornby's twitter page.

Some amazing buses are being built right here in the north as part of our £3m investment for our customers and colleagues @Rossobus #the464

https://twitter.com/alextransdev/status/1037771427850723328

Sam

pemma · 8 Sep 2018

^ I was under the impression Optare were phasing out Versas, with 35 seater Solos and various sized Metrocities being offered as alternative options.

Bungle965 · 8 Sep 2018

jcollins said:
^ I was under the impression Optare were phasing out Versas, with 35 seater Solos and various sized Metrocities being offered as alternative options.

I had heard similar.
Is there anyone else who has recently ordered Versas?
Sam

Stan Drews · 8 Sep 2018

Bungle965 said:
I had heard similar.
Is there anyone else who has recently ordered Versas?
Sam

I understand they’ll build to order, if the order is of sufficient quantity, and Transdev is clearly an important customer at the moment.

pemma · 8 Sep 2018

Reportedly the 130 Macclesfield-Manchester is to be truncated at Parrs Wood from 28th December.

Blackpudding · 28 Sep 2018

Details of forthcoming major changes to the TfGM network at the end of October for those interested:
https://www.greatermanchester-ca.go...forthcoming_changes_to_the_bus_network_part_a

Scotrail88 · 28 Sep 2018

Start of First retreat??
42 coming off and giving in to Stagecoach

pdsalford · 28 Sep 2018

Equally likely to be a reaction to the strikes last winter.

Blackpudding · 1 Oct 2018

Scotrail88 said:
Start of First retreat??
42 coming off and giving in to Stagecoach

In my view more the end game of a self inflicted poor business plan. Allegedly Finglands never made money for EYMS but First Manchester must have thought they could and somehow convinced Mr Fearnley of the same. The logic was probably that the Wilmslow Road corridor is full of students (and Stagecoach buses) and therefore a good opportunity to expand into South Manchester. They threw new buses at it and transferred the 53 service from Queens Road to Rusholme possibly to make the financial numbers work. At its height Rusholme garaged circa 55 vehicles, many new, which at the end of October will be down to circa 20 vehicles. It's been a steady slow decline with the removal of school service buses, a thinning out of the headways of the 41, 42 and 53 and Stagecoach not even having to lift a finger. A 20min headway on the 42 is never going to compete with Stagecoach especially as they operate a Magic Bus (low fare) operation as just part of the competition. As pdsalford says a strike last winter didn't help the situation. The authorisation does not yet allow them to squeeze the vehicles into Queens Road although I suspect they could transfer staff without the need for redundancy on the basis that it is within a reasonable travelling distance. The next move is, I would think, dependent on whether First have retained the city centre Metroshuttle contract which operates from Queens Road. If they loose that and we must hear about that any day then it could be all over for Rusholme.

Scotrail88 · 1 Oct 2018

Do we have any indications of the MetroShuttle contract and who has won it.
Remember that if even retained by First it will be a reduced PVR so might give room to close Rusholme?

goldisgood · 1 Oct 2018

Scotrail88 said:
Do we have any indications of the MetroShuttle contract and who has won it.
Remember that if even retained by First it will be a reduced PVR so might give room to close Rusholme?

My thoughts exactly. The last I heard was that one of the buses was at Stagecoach's Rock Ferry garage for a refurb.

Blackpudding · 1 Oct 2018

Scotrail88 said:
Do we have any indications of the MetroShuttle contract and who has won it.
Remember that if even retained by First it will be a reduced PVR so might give room to close Rusholme?

No indication yet who has won the newly named 'Free bus: around the city'. It doesn't exactly roll of the tongue, unlike Metroshuttle, but does include the word 'free' in an attempt, I assume, to stem passenger loss over the last couple of years. The authorisation on the licence would give enough space to subsume Rusholme into Queens but that doesn't mean it will happen although it should.

Blackpudding · 1 Oct 2018

goldisgood said:
My thoughts exactly. The last I heard was that one of the buses was at Stagecoach's Rock Ferry garage for a refurb.

Optare Solo 59001 and a number of others have been for painting, no refurbishment yet, and have returned in a plain silver livery as here which is not my photo by the way:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/selmerorselnec/44051216844/in/dateposted/

pemma · 2 Oct 2018

Blackpudding said:
No indication yet who has won the newly named 'Free bus: around the city'. It doesn't exactly roll of the tongue, unlike Metroshuttle, but does include the word 'free' in an attempt, I assume, to stem passenger loss over the last couple of years. The authorisation on the licence would give enough space to subsume Rusholme into Queens but that doesn't mean it will happen although it should.

Perhaps someone thought Metroshuttle made it sound like it was operated by the same operator as Metrolink?

Alexbus12 · 2 Oct 2018

jcollins said:
Perhaps someone thought Metroshuttle made it sound like it was operated by the same operator as Metrolink?

But why have Bolton and Stockports routes branded as Metroshuttle also?

WatcherZero · 2 Oct 2018

Main reason is Tourists think you have to pay like with trams. The bus service marketing is being repositioned from a commuter to a tourist focus.

pdsalford · 3 Oct 2018

I suspect they'll rename the other Metroshuttles to Freebus if the name sticks.

pemma · 5 Oct 2018

Stagecoach have lost the 303, 312, 329, 372, 373 and 382 contracts to MCT, while MCT has lost the 63 contract to First.

gnolife · 5 Oct 2018

jcollins said:
Stagecoach have lost the 303, 312, 329, 372, 373 and 382 contracts to MCT, while MCT has lost the 63 contract to First.

I'm sure that they won't miss operating the 303 and 373 routes

Volvodart · 11 Oct 2018

There appears to be the new "Metroshuttle" timetables in the forthcoming timetables section of the First Manchester website.

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