First Greater Glasgow

[Jordan Adam]

Does anyone know why the Ferrograph On Vehicle Display on first Glasgow buses are not in use. I remember years ago they kept updating where they were and approaching now they just stay static on "Ferrograph OVD".
Also noted the redundant TVs on some old eclipses were these ever in use and what did they show?

I recall years and years ago going on one of those Eclipse and it was displaying next stop announcements. So long ago that i can't remember what one or what route, but i think they also showed CCTV images at one point. Someone with more local knowledge might have a better answer than me though!

 

[Jordan Adam]

Of course there is something missing..

(Photo borrowed and slightly edited)

Perhaps not exactly what you had in mind, but i done a quick "What if" mock up :P.

Ignore the registration plate & fleet number, i'm too lazy to change them just now!

 

[JumpinTrainz]

Does anyone know why the Ferrograph On Vehicle Display on first Glasgow buses are not in use. I remember years ago they kept updating where they were and approaching now they just stay static on "Ferrograph OVD".
Also noted the redundant TVs on some old eclipses were these ever in use and what did they show?

I believe the B7Ls and B7RLEs were both fitted with TV screens. If I’m right around 2005/2006 the buses used to play Groove is in the Heart repeatedly!!! They played adverts for a bit too but they quickly faded out. I recall at one point they did next stop announcements and “bus stopping” when the bell was pressed at the bottom of the screen.

 

[JumpinTrainz]

Perhaps not exactly what you had in mind, but i done a quick "What if" mock up :P.

Spoiler: Photo

View attachment 57335

Now that is a livery!!!

 

[Jordan Adam]

Now that is a livery!!!

Not fully related to this but there's an Aberdeen version i made a few weeks back too.

Call me bias but i think it's an improvement on the standard 2 tone lilac. The new FSE 2 tone blue is nice.

 

[JumpinTrainz]

Not fully related to this but there's an Aberdeen version i made a few weeks back too.

Call me bias but i think it's an improvement on the standard 2 tone lilac. The new FSE 2 tone blue is nice.

I’m disappointed that Aberdeen aren’t getting their own local livery. I much prefer FSE’s livery. Not a huge fan of the Glasgow it’s too dark and unfinished looking. I think the green livery looks good too!

 

[Jordan Adam]

I’m disappointed that Aberdeen aren’t getting their own local livery. I much prefer FSE’s livery. Not a huge fan of the Glasgow it’s too dark and unfinished looking. I think the green livery looks good too!

The new 2 tone lilac livery is not awful, it's just bland.
If they went with something like those two mock ups i did it would be far more interesting bias and perhaps improve peoples perception on the buses them self.

The off white front ends would keep a bit of standardisation, while the two "local colours" on the rear give a much more personal touch. Route branding still fits on perfectly fine too, although i've only tried it out on the Aberdeen example!

 

[Gingerbus1991]

Perhaps not exactly what you had in mind, but i done a quick "What if" mock up :P.

Ignore the registration plate & fleet number, i'm too lazy to change them just now!

I’m disappointed that Aberdeen aren’t getting their own local livery. I much prefer FSE’s livery. Not a huge fan of the Glasgow it’s too dark and unfinished looking. I think the green livery looks good too!

I dout either Aberdeen City Council or SPT would be happy at the use of these colours!

Would First be able to use the Grampian or Strathclyde buses Names if they wanted too or does those names belong to the previous owners of Firsts subsideries? Ie. Aberdeen City Council/SPT.

 

[Scott mac]

Perhaps not exactly what you had in mind, but i done a quick "What if" mock up :P.

Ignore the registration plate & fleet number, i'm too lazy to change them just now!

Now that is a livery

 

[Bus Lightyear]

Perhaps not exactly what you had in mind, but i done a quick "What if" mock up :P.

Ignore the registration plate & fleet number, i'm too lazy to change them just now!

Those colours are similar to what was applied to Strathclyde's Buses coach fleet

https://www.flickr.com/photos/57727182@N08/42132818864/in/photolist-27c8Has-WfdZuL
https://www.flickr.com/photos/42318062@N07/4771458159/in/photolist-bm81ht-8gCYgZ

 

[Bus Lightyear]

Those Strathclyde and Grampian mock-ups you guys have posted are excellent

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

I dout either Aberdeen City Council or SPT would be happy at the use of these colours!

Would First be able to use the Grampian or Strathclyde buses Names if they wanted too or does those names belong to the previous owners of Firsts subsideries? Ie. Aberdeen City Council/SPT.

They purchased SB Holdings and the rights to the name. Grampian was GRT Holdings before merging to become First so they were the previous owner!!

Why would the councils object to those colours?

 

[Jordan Adam]

I dout either Aberdeen City Council or SPT would be happy at the use of these colours!

Why would the councils object to those colours?

This believe it or not is the exact reason why Aberdeen is no longer getting it's own livery (as originally planned), a few years back Aberdeen had a pair of heritage liveries and the council were quick to object to them. Aberdeen City Council are known for being rather petty when it comes to public transport, they're always fast to moan at First & Stagecoach, despite the fact they're often the primary issue! It's a shame as out of anything the heritage liveries were promoting the city in a good light!

Those Strathclyde and Grampian mock-ups you guys have posted are excellent

Those colours are similar to what was applied to Strathclyde's Buses coach fleet

https://www.flickr.com/photos/57727182@N08/42132818864/in/photolist-27c8Has-WfdZuL
https://www.flickr.com/photos/42318062@N07/4771458159/in/photolist-bm81ht-8gCYgZ

Cheers

I never noticed that, in all honesty when i done the livery i just based it off the Black/Orange standard livery combined with the "off white" First are using on the new repaints.

 

[KendalKing]

Those Strathclyde and Grampian mock-ups you guys have posted are excellent

Agreed

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

This believe it or not is the exact reason why Aberdeen is no longer getting it's own livery (as originally planned), a few years back Aberdeen had a pair of heritage liveries and the council were quick to object to them. Aberdeen City Council are known for being rather petty when it comes to public transport, they're always fast to moan at First & Stagecoach, despite the fact they're often the primary issue! It's a shame as out of anything the heritage liveries were promoting the city in a good light!

Yeah, but WHY were they objecting?

 

[Gingerbus1991]

Yeah, but WHY were they objecting?

Didnt know this, but personally I would think partly pettiness but given that Aberdeen CC have a history of being the sort who want bus services back in public ownership similar to Lothian/Edinburgh, I reckon they would want Grampian heritage livery reserved for the instance that reregulation or public ownership would ever be a thing.

The Scottish government are pushing with a new transport bill that would allow Local Authorities to operate there own services directly.

 

[Jordan Adam]

Yeah, but WHY were they objecting?

As Gingerbus1991 says, it's mainly pettiness. The council here have a history with this sort of thing.

Didnt know this, but personally I would think partly pettiness but given that Aberdeen CC have a history of being the sort who want bus services back in public ownership similar to Lothian/Edinburgh, I reckon they would want Grampian heritage livery reserved for the instance that reregulation or public ownership would ever be a thing.

The Scottish government are pushing with a new transport bill that would allow Local Authorities to operate there own services directly.

Normally i'd be quite optimistic towards Public transport going back to public ownership, but in the case of ACC i really do hope it never happens, the farce that would ensure is far worse than any wound that First or Stagecoach could or have ever caused. ACC can't organise a fridge, never mind a whole public transportation system! As i've mentioned elsewhere before it would be unlikely that the TC would even grant them a operating license in the first place!
Admittedly the Shire council while also faulty do seem to be far more competent, they're much better at working with bus operators and don't tend to go after such vanity sprees!

 

[alangla]

Does anyone know why the Ferrograph On Vehicle Display on first Glasgow buses are not in use. I remember years ago they kept updating where they were and approaching now they just stay static on "Ferrograph OVD".
Also noted the redundant TVs on some old eclipses were these ever in use and what did they show?

From what I remember, they were driven from Hard Disk Drives (probably an ordinary PC fitted somewhere in the bus) which were very quickly shaken to bits on the usual potholes. The giveaway was a black screen showing a couple of lines of text & HDD failure. The other music video that got constant play was The Mavericks- Dance The Night Away, basically there wasn’t a huge amount of content for First TV and the devices weren’t very solid. If you did it today you’d probably be using something like a Raspberry Pi with flash memory which probably would put up with the road conditions. You’d probably also link it to the onboard WiFi so you could stream content to it live. Overall a good idea but very badly implemented.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

As Gingerbus1991 says, it's mainly pettiness. The council here have a history with this sort of thing.



Normally i'd be quite optimistic towards Public transport going back to public ownership, but in the case of ACC i really do hope it never happens, the farce that would ensure is far worse than any wound that First or Stagecoach could or have ever caused. ACC can't organise a fridge, never mind a whole public transportation system! As i've mentioned elsewhere before it would be unlikely that the TC would even grant them a operating license in the first place!
Admittedly the Shire council while also faulty do seem to be far more competent, they're much better at working with bus operators and don't tend to go after such vanity sprees!

Sounds like no-one knows why Aberdeen council would object! Even if they do object, not sure they can really stop anyone from using a particular colour. That said, if they’ve a bee in their bonnet (for whatever reason), perhaps it’s easier for First not to antagonise them?

 

[sannox]

Does anyone know why the Ferrograph On Vehicle Display on first Glasgow buses are not in use. I remember years ago they kept updating where they were and approaching now they just stay static on "Ferrograph OVD".
Also noted the redundant TVs on some old eclipses were these ever in use and what did they show?

Suspect the internal stuff doesn't work with the new real time bus information. It worked up until the new on-street stuff was launched.

I can't remember what the TVs used to show. Think its about 15 years since I saw one on. Pretty sure it had adverts for Firstweeks etc and I want to say BBC news was shown but that might be McGill's 38s that showed that.

 

[Gingerbus1991]

Suspect the internal stuff doesn't work with the new real time bus information. It worked up until the new on-street stuff was launched.

I can't remember what the TVs used to show. Think its about 15 years since I saw one on. Pretty sure it had adverts for Firstweeks etc and I want to say BBC news was shown but that might be McGill's 38s that showed that.

Since its the First Glasgow topic, I feel as there has been several things missed on fiGs latest round of buses.

You would think that with dwindling pax numbers, year in, year out, stuff like a small TV and next stop announcement stuff would be the norm to at least try improving passengers numbers, not saying that it would really increase numbers but sort of keep the current ones more appeased if you like whilst traveling, 4G WiFi as well on city buses would be a faster bonus for passengers.

I always do seem to be a Lothian fan boy, but I'm simply respecting the level of investment and attention to detail they've put into there buses in the past fews years, there Airlink, Skylink and B5TLs found on the 22s or ECB B5s, have next stop announcements, coupled with info screens about flights etc, even though other ops have done this, you certainly feel as though lothian have done this with just a touch more inthuisiasm and poise than others.

Is it only us lot that notice the dead tech on buses or do passengers notice these thing too?

 

[Gingerbus1991]

Sounds like no-one knows why Aberdeen council would object! Even if they do object, not sure they can really stop anyone from using a particular colour. That said, if they’ve a bee in their bonnet (for whatever reason), perhaps it’s easier for First not to antagonise them?

As far as I'm led to believe local authorities still have many powers they can exercise relating to bus operations, perhaps restrictions on liveries is one of them.

I speak only for glasgow but if we did have a Glasgow CC/SPT owned "Strathclyde Buses" it would work, I think, strikingly well alongside the established SPT owned Subway, being able to buy an SPT City day ticket, at a low cost, glasgow certainly hasn't took to the Hopper Tickets that was once thought would be the case.

Yes! Not in all places would this work but there is also such a large waste of resourses atm on the paisley west corridor between the 38 and 9!
A decker operating every 7 minutes or so would be ideal on this route

 

[route101]

I believe the B7Ls and B7RLEs were both fitted with TV screens. If I’m right around 2005/2006 the buses used to play Groove is in the Heart repeatedly!!! They played adverts for a bit too but they quickly faded out. I recall at one point they did next stop announcements and “bus stopping” when the bell was pressed at the bottom of the screen.

Think it was just ads . Some eclipses still have the tvs but are off . For a long while the tv was off but the sound was still playing , for years after. Must of been around 2006 and 2007 .
The buses have not had the next stop thing for years . The bus stop ones were off too for a while .

 

[route101]

Of course there is something missing..

(Photo borrowed and slightly edited)

Find the livery bland ,too much white .

 

[VioletEclipse]

Find the livery bland ,too much white .

I agree, but then again I've never liked any First livery.

 

[route101]

Looking ahead at the year , what routes do we expect to have new buses , what routes will get the chop and what buses are next for retirement ?

 

[Scott mac]

Looking ahead at the year , what routes do we expect to have new buses , what routes will get the chop and what buses are next for retirement ?

New buses for the 500 60

 

[lastbus]

Looking ahead at the year , what routes do we expect to have new buses , what routes will get the chop and what buses are next for retirement ?

242 and 254 to get new buses in jan or feb this year

 

[laststop@96]

I would cut the 60 back to drumchapel roundabout like the n60 as the m60 runs 8 to 5 during the day monday to saturday and run the 60 day time only into clydebank on a sunday when the m60 does not run.

 

[route101]

New buses for the 500 60

Think the 500 is getting E400 citys . A bus you dont see in Scotland.