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Bus Manufacturer News & Discussion

F Great Eastern

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The Olympus was on production over 4 financial years and sold 264 units for an average of 66 per year.

The Omnidekka was in production over 9 financial years and sold 578 units for an average of 64 per year.

Those figures are highly misleading and not comparing like with like. You cannot compare the sales of the Olympus on all the different chassis types it was built on, with the Omnidekka that was only been built on the Scania chassis. A more fair comparison would be Scania chassis Olympus vs Omnidekkas.

The simple fact is that if a predecessor outlasts it's successor, then the successor really cannot be seen to be a successful product. If the Scania based Olympus was such a good product then the Omnidekka sales should have fell off a cliff in favour of the Olympus, but that really did not happen and instead people passed over the Olympus and asked for more of what they know and liked.

Whilst the Omnidekka was on sale for 9 years, for the second half of those years they were only building them for a handful of customers and turned many away. Some of which went for the Olympus whilst others went to ADL, Wright, amongst others that Optare is still feeling the pinch of today as independents and smaller operators were unhappy that Optare refused to build them an Omnidekka in small or single examples but would build them an Olympus that they didn't want or would still build Omnidekkas for bigger operators.

If both of the Omnidekka and the Olympus were on the open market for the period of time that you talked about as rivals then you'd have a point with your production figures, but the fact that a sales environment that was manufactured by Darwen / Optare to heavily discourage Omnidekka sales in favour of the Olympus, the Olympus still couldn't beat an older design, tells you everything you need to know. The idea was for the Olympus to kill off the Myllenium and Omnidekka line but it was never able to do that.

That's before we even mention the Esteem.
 
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Jordan Adam

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Those figures are highly misleading and not comparing like with like. You cannot compare the sales of the Olympus on all the different chassis types it was built on, with the Omnidekka that was only been built on the Scania chassis. A more fair comparison would be Scania chassis Olympus vs Omnidekkas.

I wouldn't call them misleading, yes they may be unfair since the Omnidekka was only sold on one chassis (Scania). However those are the sales of those models and from a year on year basis they sold equally as much units regardless of how you look at it.

I somewhat agree with the rest of what you say. However by Optare standards the Olympus done okay.
 

Mikey C

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Wasn't the Olympus in London spec overweight?

I recall that whereas the low height Omnidekka (which I hated) got some sales in London, the Polish built Scania "integral" then seemed to take this market from East Lancs/Darwen
 

aswilliamsuk

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@Mikey C the nine examples for London United that had leather seats (and a generally higher spec) were - examples for other operators were fine IIRC.

Also going back to one of the other points, the only reason the OmniDekka remained in production as long as did was because Nottingham City Transport insisted on ordering those rather than Olympus bodied Scanias for standardisation purposes. The last OmniDekkas for any other operator, as far as I can tell, were 671-88 for Brighton & Hove in Aug/Sep/Oct-07.
 

F Great Eastern

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Also going back to one of the other points, the only reason the OmniDekka remained in production as long as did was because Nottingham City Transport insisted on ordering those rather than Olympus bodied Scanias for standardisation purposes. The last OmniDekkas for any other operator, as far as I can tell, were 671-88 for Brighton & Hove in Aug/Sep/Oct-07.

Certainly were others that were produced after 2007, saw a 2010 one going around Essex with coach seats and a seemingly high spec in it in a yellow livery recently.
 

aswilliamsuk

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Certainly were others that were produced after 2007, saw a 2010 one going around Essex with coach seats and a seemingly high spec in it in a yellow livery recently.
All the later ones for independents were Olympus bodied, not Omnidekkas - both Stephensons and NIBS in Essex (now in common ownership, of course) were taking the latter from 2008 onwards.
 

F Great Eastern

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All the later ones for independents were Olympus bodied, not Omnidekkas - both Stephensons and NIBS in Essex (now in common ownership, of course) were taking the latter from 2008 onwards.

Nope, I certainly saw a 2010 Omnidekka in a yellow livery with coach seats in Essex.
 

aswilliamsuk

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Which is weird, as the only 2010 Scanias with Omnidekka bodies (i.e. Scania front dash) were delivered to Nottingham. All other 2010 Scanias had Olympus bodies (i.e. the EL/Optare front dash and raked upper deck front), and there were only six of those - one to Courtney, one to Green Triangle, two to DeCourcey and two to Ipswich. Nottingham had 18 Omnidekkas during 2010, which haven't yet - to my knowledge, anyway, but I'm a little behind - been sold on yet. NIBS also had one late in 2009, but that too was an Olympus (https://www.flickr.com/search/?q=EU59BFK)
 

Jordan Adam

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Which is weird, as the only 2010 Scanias with Omnidekka bodies (i.e. Scania front dash) were delivered to Nottingham. All other 2010 Scanias had Olympus bodies (i.e. the EL/Optare front dash and raked upper deck front), and there were only six of those - one to Courtney, one to Green Triangle, two to DeCourcey and two to Ipswich. Nottingham had 18 Omnidekkas during 2010, which haven't yet - to my knowledge, anyway, but I'm a little behind - been sold on yet. NIBS also had one late in 2009, but that too was an Olympus (https://www.flickr.com/search/?q=EU59BFK)

The last Omnidekka was YT61FFV. NCT bought them year on year in pretty large batches right up to 61 plate. Post-2008 they were the only operator still buying them which leads me to think they may of possibly had a maintenance deal with East Lancs / Optare to deliver a certain amount of Omnidekka's over a certain period of time.
 

cnjb8

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Which is weird, as the only 2010 Scanias with Omnidekka bodies (i.e. Scania front dash) were delivered to Nottingham. All other 2010 Scanias had Olympus bodies (i.e. the EL/Optare front dash and raked upper deck front), and there were only six of those - one to Courtney, one to Green Triangle, two to DeCourcey and two to Ipswich. Nottingham had 18 Omnidekkas during 2010, which haven't yet - to my knowledge, anyway, but I'm a little behind - been sold on yet. NIBS also had one late in 2009, but that too was an Olympus (https://www.flickr.com/search/?q=EU59BFK)
Ncts plan is getting rid of pre 2010 deckers. 3 quarters of these have gone and the 10 plates have been rebranded for 34.
 

F Great Eastern

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Probably SBC Leisure's YT10 WKZ, pictured on their website alongside an Olympus...
https://sbcleisure.com/our-fleet/
...and new to Beestons of Hadleigh, apparently.

Would make sense why Optare built one for Beestons, seeing as they have 17 others according to this
http://ipswichbusblog.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_1.html

That being said it's surprising that it's already departed whilst much older ones have hung on, is the quality of the older ones far better or something?
 

cnjb8

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There are currently a lot of Scanias for sale at Ensign. Proving popular as only a few have been scrapped.
 

cnjb8

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I also noticed GNE have ordered a 6 cylinder streetdeck. Does this mean it will go faster?
 

awsnews

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Would make sense why Optare built one for Beestons, seeing as they have 17 others according to this
http://ipswichbusblog.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_1.html

That being said it's surprising that it's already departed whilst much older ones have hung on, is the quality of the older ones far better or something?
It appears they have kept the older N94 types whilst disposing of all the newer N2xx variants, of all body combinations
 

MotCO

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It's a lot less risky to buy an MCV body on an established Volvo chassis than it is to buy an Optare integral. By not bodying other chassis, Optare threw away a lot of the business that East Lancs used to get bodying Volvos etc

But Wright seem to be doing all right with their StreetDeck, which I believe is not built on a recognised chassis.
 

F Great Eastern

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Rumour in Ireland suggests that a large number of Gemini 3's have been withdrawn from service following delivery this year after it was found that the vehicles were built several inches too small on the lower deck which means that the doors cannot close properly on a regular basis as they are too tall for the bodywork.

This is said to effect around 30 vehicles delivered to Dublin Bus, just over 20 delivered to Bus Eireann and 5 delivered to Go-Ahead as well as numerous undelivered examples for the first two operators.

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/iri....php?f=73&t=14625&p=105550&hilit=Roof#p105550

If this is true then this will be a major blow to Wright.
 
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Bungle965

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Rumour in Ireland suggests that a large number of Gemini 3's have been withdrawn from service following delivery this year after it was found that the vehicles were built several inches too small on the lower deck which means that the doors cannot close properly on a regular basis as they are too tall for the bodywork.

This is said to effect around 30 vehicles delivered to Dublin Bus, just over 20 delivered to Bus Eireann and 5 delivered to Go-Ahead Ireland as well as numerous undelivered examples for the first two operators.

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/iri....php?f=73&t=14625&p=105550&hilit=Roof#p105550

If this is true then this will be a major blow to Wright.
Dear me, if this is true then it truly shows how far Wright has fallen in terms of bodybuilding.
Sam
 

GaryMcEwan

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Apart from the very last E300s that got fitted with Euro 6, did ADL fit any to the original E400, or did they did only get fitted to the MMC?
 
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Apart from the very last E300s that got fitted with Euro 6, did ADL fit any to the original E400, or did they did only get fitted to the MMC?

Stagecoach North East have a 2012 build, number 10000, this being a Euro 6 prototype for Stagecoach I believe - see my photo below
Arriva London have 2015 builds, numbers T301-331 used on routes 160, 229, 492
There may be more but those are the only I know of/can remember

BB0D6204-B11E-4073-9D27-B96AA18688A2.jpeg
 

KendalKing

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I’ve travelled on urban city buses abroad (most recently in Spain) where the seats are plastic seats with the tiniest of padded inserts. You wouldn’t get that here.
You can't have travelled on a Stagecoach Enviro 400 then!, the seats are rock hard.
 

MotCO

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Dear me, if this is true then it truly shows how far Wright has fallen in terms of bodybuilding.
Sam

What exactly is the problem? Is it that the inswinging doors hit the lower ceiling due to flexing when there is passenger weight upstairs? Are there central doors - could these be changed to plug doors which don't swing inwards? Can't do this with front doors though!
 

NewcastleOne

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Stagecoach North East have a 2012 build, number 10000, this being a Euro 6 prototype for Stagecoach I believe - see my photo below
Arriva London have 2015 builds, numbers T301-331 used on routes 160, 229, 492
There may be more but those are the only I know of/can remember

View attachment 66035
Stagecoach’s Euro 6 Original E400s are in 100xx Series.
 

F Great Eastern

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What exactly is the problem? Is it that the inswinging doors hit the lower ceiling due to flexing when there is passenger weight upstairs? Are there central doors - could these be changed to plug doors which don't swing inwards?

They are already plug doors in the middle the problems have meant the plug doors have had trouble going back into the doorway when they close because there isn't enough space. It hasn't been openly stated if this happens all the time or in certain circumstances and there has also been issues with front leaf doors apparently.

Something has went badly wrong because they are part of a batch of a large batch that have been ordered and the initial ones did not have the problems but the later ones have done.
 

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