Trainman40083
Established Member
I am glad I did not imagine it. Recalled a batch of Enviro 400s coming to Midland Classic, so converted.
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Arriva to close Aylesbury and High Wycombe depots
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joieman
Member
Theoretically they could put an emergency exit in the nearside. Single-door Optare/Switch Metrodeckers have their emergency exit in this location.
Goldfish62
Veteran Member
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The offside rear is the usual location to retrofit an emergency exit.
greenline712
Member
I think that might apply to newer buses, when an offside emergency door is required. If we're talking about older buses, then Construction and Use Regulations applying to the year of build would appertain. Happy to be corrected about this, though . . .
TheGrandWazoo
Veteran Member
The LX06 e400s of Go South West are examples you’ll be familiar with. Conversation to single door and gained an offside emergency exit.
Goldfish62
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Yes indeed. I think it's quite straightforward, but of course it costs to do.
Mgameing123
Member
Can someone answer?
TheGrandWazoo
Veteran Member
Er…maybe that’s just it? The bits they want, they’re already running services over.
Red Rose are taking on Arriva 328 in Watford so perhaps they’ve enough going on?
Goldfish62
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Indeed. I don't believe they've ever stated that they'll be doing a mass takeover like Carousel. Being an SME with limited resources they wouldn't be in a position to either.
TheGrandWazoo
Veteran Member
They don’t need to. Arriva are ceding the Thame and Wycombe services from Aylesbury (where Redline already operate), having already vacated the local routes. Arriva will continue to run in from Hemel and MK.
Outside of that, Red Rose are taking on the 328 so I’m not sure what @Mgameing123 is expecting to hear?
Agreed. I think Red Rose might need to add one or two buses to the Wycombe service to take in diverting some journeys via Naphill and the school needs, but that's all. Maybe even add some deckers if demand warrants once Arriva have gone.
Mgameing123
Member
I really don't know to be honest.
Is Arriva also dying in Hertfordshire now?
Trainman40083
Established Member
Sorry. I'm not local to the operating area in question. Are there many (or any) routes where no other operator is taking over? By that, I mean where Arriva and another operator run a route "together", so effectively the other operator just gets extra passengers by doing nothing
TheGrandWazoo
Veteran Member
Just look at the allocation at Hemel these days. They’ve been dying there for a while.
357 went 18 months ago, now 328. That’s 8 vehicles worth out of a depot with an allocation that will be c.45?
That’s what we’re saying at Aylesbury. “Red” are getting Thame and Wycombe by doing very little except a few diversions like Naphill as they were already competing with Arriva.
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Neither the 357 nor 328 were particularly good routes though - the former taking a scenic way between Harpenden and St Albans before heading to Borehamwood.
On the credit side, Arriva have taken on the 721 Luton - Hemel and 725 Stevenage - Rickmansworth - don't know if they're operating those solely from Luton / Stevenage or whether Hemel has some turns on those ?
AlastairFraser
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A lot of the fleet was life-expired, so I would think a lot would be heading to the scrapyard.
True, one of the depots also has a fleet of 12 plate Citaros which one would assume have plenty of life left in them.
TheGrandWazoo
Veteran Member
721 is Luton, 725 Stevenage.
The 328/357 may not have been the strongest routes. How profitable they were, we won’t know but those 8 vehicles were soaking up fixed depot overhead.
Again, it would interesting to know the allocations for Hemel and non-TfL work of Garston from 2009, and how it compares with today.
I think we're still in the "rumours abound" stage at the moment, not least because there are a good 2 months until the closures occur - and we all know how much can change in that time.
Assuming the routes running into Aylesbury that aren't already run from elsewhere (What actually runs from Aylesbury, other than the X7/X8/X9 - previously 280/300?) don't take vehicles with them to their new depots, there will still be some vehicles left that are anything other than "life expired".
From the unofficial rumours I've heard, almost every engineer in the Southern region is clamouring for a handful of vehicles, however old, to replace things even older! (Don't forget Gillingham still has a handful of -04- registered Volvo B7TLs on the books).
greenline712
Member
At Hemel the 20 (Holywell) and 322 (Rickmansworth) are both (3 buses per hour) pretty good routes now, with reasonable passenger numbers.
X5 (Aylesbury) also seems well-ish used; watch that get renumbered back to 500 soon!
I don't know about the Welwyn Garden City (302) route; I don't often see it, but on the Hatfield side of St Albans it seems to be OK.
Hemel town services are not good now, ripe for a proper minibus conversion with doubled frequencies oh, sorry; this is Arriva of course!
Arriva's 328 was a disaster, with insufficient run time, inadequate recovery time and driver changes at Abbots Langley that never happened on time. Not surprisingly, the passengers deserted in droves. Whether Red Rose can do better is an unknown; they're using white E200MMCs (29 seaters) at the outset.
In summary, Arriva Hemel Hempstead is probably OK for now. The fleet isn't too scroaty, but who knows?
X5 (Aylesbury) also seems well-ish used; watch that get renumbered back to 500 soon!
I don't know about the Welwyn Garden City (302) route; I don't often see it, but on the Hatfield side of St Albans it seems to be OK.
Hemel town services are not good now, ripe for a proper minibus conversion with doubled frequencies oh, sorry; this is Arriva of course!
Arriva's 328 was a disaster, with insufficient run time, inadequate recovery time and driver changes at Abbots Langley that never happened on time. Not surprisingly, the passengers deserted in droves. Whether Red Rose can do better is an unknown; they're using white E200MMCs (29 seaters) at the outset.
In summary, Arriva Hemel Hempstead is probably OK for now. The fleet isn't too scroaty, but who knows?
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joieman
Member
And a 51-plate, even!
sturfc
Member
All of the Wycombe based Arriva routes have been registered by Carousel which have included some enhancements on what is being run today with more being spoken about later in the year.
In terms of Aylesbury, there was only three route corridors left operated by the depot: the one to Hemel, which will switch garages, the route group to Oxford which was already in competition with Red Group and Oxford Bus are starting a service from Thame to Oxford every 30 minutes in July. That leaves the Aylesbury to Wycombe corridor again under competition with Red Group, who have announced they will cover the villages not currently served by their existing route. So at this moment looks like full coverage will remain post-Arriva.
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Mgameing123
Member
Some of the High Wycombe routes also run from Aylesbury.
Only the X9/X90 which are already dealt with. Redline will divert some journeys via the X9 route. Query whether this will now meet the demand, I think the good service and competition has enhanced demand for the routes.
Mgameing123
Member
Honestly do they really need to stop running X9/X90? Couldn't they use their Hemel Depot to operate their Aylesbury based routes. Then maybe hire some spots at Reading depot for 800/850 as those are the busiest of Arriva routes from my knowledge.
They've lost the battle on the X9/X90 to Redline so why keep battling on. Redline are more frequent, more reliable and quicker, fares are now irrelevant. They just need to reroute some journeys via Naphill to cover the X9 and perhaps add a handful of extra peak journeys. Equally they are struggling on the Oxford corridor with existing competition. Only on the Hemel-Aylesbury route do Arriva have it to themselves and they will keep this from Hemel.
Most of the Wycombe routes are busy and I think, if they were well run, they could make a profit. But there have been so many cancellations over the last few months, it is not well run and clearly they have given up - whether that is locally or head office depriving them of the resources they need I don't know. Can't wait to see the back of them now.
You may wish to consider how the Watford area local routes are doing since the closure of Garston (Watford) depot/garage and moving those to Hemel Hempstead: there aren't any, and the estates still served are tacked onto the end of much longer routes. ("Sorry, your bus from Watford to the Hospital is delayed because of temporary traffic lights in Hemel Hempstead"). Aylesbury is even further away than Watford, and in any case there are no town services there either - it simply makes no operational sense to run a service from Hemel if it isn't performing well enough with a depot at both ends of the route. The Oxford service would be even worse, if the delay was on the way to the start of the route!
The Reading Buses depot will also only have finite space: their own fleet, and an small but apparent expansion of the Thames Travel/Oxford bus outstation there. How many spots would Arriva need to run the full 800/850 from there? If it's not performing well enough from an owned depot, why would it perform any better (financially and operationally) where space had to be paid for? By my calculations, at least 7 vehicles are needed for the 800/850, so assuming a spare, you'd need to rent 8 spaces and run an outstation (of where? Hemel? Google suggests both Reading and Oxford are 45 miles away from Hemel - that would be a nightmare for engineering support!) for that to work - as well as the buses being at the "wrong end" for the most likely traffic objective.
Your postings suggest you are keen to retain some sort of Arriva presence in the area, and whatever reason you have for that is yours and yours alone, but at the same time it always helps to consider some of the challenges to achieving that (or indeed, why the decision has been taken to withdraw) to understand why others here are more sceptical. I'd take a guess that all of those telling you why your thoughts won't work have had similar thoughts about some other occurrence at some point in their decades of enthusiasm or industry work - I know I have! - and then realised there really were reasons behind the decision.
DarloRich
Veteran Member
i know very little about buses - is this why double deckers have suddenly turned up on services 5/6 in Milton Keynes? I think they are the buses that used to run the MK > Aylesbury services?
greenline712
Member
X9 (Aylesbury-Wycombe) is 3 hours for a rounder .... I reckon it could be 2 hours 40 minutes [shown as 2:40], but no matter ... Hemel - Aylesbury is 40 minutes empty via the A41.
HH-AY-HW-AY is therefore 3:40. A legal driving spell is no more than 5:30, so a driver from HH could only do another half-rounder before needing a break, and that would be around 5:10 driving time.
Max daily driving time is 10:00 legally, but most garages will have a lower limit by Union agreement.
A Hemel driver could therefore cover only 2 rounders on X9 ... an AY driver can.probably cover 3 rounders.
That's why a driver on a route from a garage a long way away seldom makes sense. There are always exceptions, but not in this situation.
HH-AY-HW-AY is therefore 3:40. A legal driving spell is no more than 5:30, so a driver from HH could only do another half-rounder before needing a break, and that would be around 5:10 driving time.
Max daily driving time is 10:00 legally, but most garages will have a lower limit by Union agreement.
A Hemel driver could therefore cover only 2 rounders on X9 ... an AY driver can.probably cover 3 rounders.
That's why a driver on a route from a garage a long way away seldom makes sense. There are always exceptions, but not in this situation.
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