First South West (Kernow & Buses of Somerset)

[MB162435]

Isn't that the point of the semi-open tops, though, that they're an all weather bus? Pre Covid FK stated that the A1 would be open top all year.

I would of thought so, although not sure of the point of running them on the A1 all year, when you have plenty of decent closed tops available, and if next winter is anything like the previous one I can't see it being that popular

 

[E-Rail]

I would of thought so, although not sure of the point of running them on the A1 all year, when you have plenty of decent closed tops available, and if next winter is anything like the previous one I can't see it being that popular

You might be surprised. Remember it was Alex Carter that introduced all year round half tops between Bournemouth and Swanage, and they are extremely popular with tourists, even in the winter months.

 

[83G/84D]

E400MMC’s 33457, 33302 & 33458 now back in Camborne.

 

[MB162435]

You might be surprised. Remember it was Alex Carter that introduced all year round half tops between Bournemouth and Swanage, and they are extremely popular with tourists, even in the winter months.

I certainly hope it will take off, nobody should want a new business opportunity by a local operator to fail and Visit Cornwall is trying to lengthen the tourist season into as much of the Winter as possible, to try and salvage as much of the lost venue as they can so it might be a good Winter to try it out, and it's not like they've lost any investment in it if it fails

 

[Lizard1324]

Whats happening with the darts and solo sr left in cornwall I suppose some will work on the a17 but thats alot of sleeping buses.
DId see a dart and short solo sr in helston yesterday wearing school stickers, will this be the only use for these buses now.

 

[Busaholic]

Atlantic Coaster s/d with school stickers attached on Marazion By-Pass oos today at about the time the Helston School contract bus seen last week.

 

[83G/84D]

Whats happening with the darts and solo sr left in cornwall I suppose some will work on the a17 but thats alot of sleeping buses.
DId see a dart and short solo sr in helston yesterday wearing school stickers, will this be the only use for these buses now.

As discussed a week or two ago - mainly schools around Helston / Lizard. Some of the SR's are being used on remaining routes around St Austell.

An unidentified green E400MMC in Camborne.

 

[MB162435]

Whats happening with the darts and solo sr left in cornwall I suppose some will work on the a17 but thats alot of sleeping buses.
DId see a dart and short solo sr in helston yesterday wearing school stickers, will this be the only use for these buses now.

They likely to be also used on the commercial 35, L1 and 47 services if they return after Covid, which currently is way too early to say when or if they might come back

But currently they are quite useful on the early morning and late night services, lightly loaded school services especially on the late U1s as the late A17s seems to be just Mousehole Solos currently

But as I said, as for their long term future who knows?

 

[83G/84D]

There seems to be far less swapping of vehicles on the T1 & T2 during the day than there was a month or two ago. Virtually all services are deckers for social distancing but loadings still quite small.
Similarly the A17 seems to be mostly deckers apart from early mornings & late evenings. It will be interesting to see what happens when Truro college resumes and the full complement of E400MMC's return to service.

I would hope some sort of repainting programme for the Gemini's would start before too long.

 

[Goldfish62]

Seems to be a full house of open toppers on the A1/2/3 today, but a full house of closed tops on the A5!

 

[Goldfish62]

I would hope some sort of repainting programme for the Gemini's would start before too long.

Other areas of First having been churning out repaints for a few weeks now, so let's hope they resume the Gemini repaint programme here shortly.

 

[83G/84D]

Yes exactly, plus there is re-branding to U-Lines to carry out on the blue painted E400s' & E400MMC's. The Scania's will be repainted at some point as well, lot's to be done! With all that in mind I wonder what will happen to the remaining Trident's beyond the end of the summer?

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Other areas of First having been churning out repaints for a few weeks now, so let's hope they resume the Gemini repaint programme here shortly.

The workshop doing FWoE repaints didn't seem to take much of a break. 14 Bristol B9s got repainted in purple and a further dozen were repainted in lime green and had refurbished seat cushions, plus a few other vehicles repainted in Mendip or some other liveries.

 

[83G/84D]

Kernow repaints were done in the Bodmin area, I don't know if that still is the case.

 

[Goldfish62]

Yes exactly, plus there is re-branding to U-Lines to carry out on the blue painted E400s' & E400MMC's. The Scania's will be repainted at some point as well, lot's to be done! With all that in mind I wonder what will happen to the remaining Trident's beyond the end of the summer?

And there's all the Lizard branded buses which are now defunct! Even if the L1 reappears, which I very much doubt, that only needs one bus.

So lots to getting on with!

 

[MB162435]

And there's all the Lizard branded buses which are now defunct! Even if the L1 reappears, which I very much doubt, that only needs one bus.

So lots to getting on with!

I always thought it was brave of Kernow to create a brand and livery for a tendered service, especially if their relationship was that bad with the Council

It certainly improved the quality of the Lizard services and might of long term increased passenger numbers, but with a not so brilliant relationship with the Council it was certainly a gamble that I don't think really payed off

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

I always thought it was brave of Kernow to create a brand and livery for a tendered service, especially if their relationship was that bad with the Council

It certainly improved the quality of the Lizard services and might of long term increased passenger numbers, but with a not so brilliant relationship with the Council it was certainly a gamble that I don't think really payed off

I'm sure there was no complacency but perhaps FK were anticipating that they would be the most likely winner of the tenders (as indeed most of us did).

 

[MB162435]

I'm sure there was no complacency but perhaps FK were anticipating that they would be the most likely winner of the tenders (as indeed most of us did).

With tenders you can't afford to be complacent really, despite their size and success even Kernow can still be beaten in contract bids, I certainly expected Kernow to win due to the same reasons as I expect everyone else thought would make them victorious, although I thought at the time the relationship between the two was better then it was, had I knew wasn't good I might of thought differently

 

[Lizard1324]

Yes exactly, plus there is re-branding to U-Lines to carry out on the blue painted E400s' & E400MMC's. The Scania's will be repainted at some point as well, lot's to be done! With all that in mind I wonder what will happen to the remaining Trident's beyond the end of the summer?

What rebrand of the u lines?

And there's all the Lizard branded buses which are now defunct! Even if the L1 reappears, which I very much doubt, that only needs one bus.
So lots to getting on with!

The lizard tridents will likely stay in there liverys as there will be part of the college / school buses with the geminis and with 4 college routes and many more routes for schools on the lizard peninsula they will be needed also the livery is still fresh, but then again they could peel of the vinyls and apply kernow stickers i suppose

 

[baza585]

With tenders you can't afford to be complacent really, despite their size and success even Kernow can still be beaten in contract bids, I certainly expected Kernow to win due to the same reasons as I expect everyone else thought would make them victorious, although I thought at the time the relationship between the two was better then it was, had I knew wasn't good I might of thought differently

ISTR Go Ahead won the tender on quality grounds over FK who were cheaper. I just wonder how TfC are doing against those quality criteria, and how long it will be before COVID-19 can no longer be used as a get out excuse.

 

[83G/84D]

What rebrand of the u lines?

The lizard tridents will likely stay in there liverys as there will be part of the college / school buses with the geminis and with 4 college routes and many more routes for schools on the lizard peninsula they will be needed also the livery is still fresh, but then again they could peel of the vinyls and apply kernow stickers i suppose

Rebrand from the old markings to U lines was what I was referring to. The U lines brand was supposed to be applied to the rest of the blue deckers.

 

[MB162435]

ISTR Go Ahead won the tender on quality grounds over FK who were cheaper. I just wonder how TfC are doing against those quality criteria, and how long it will be before COVID-19 can no longer be used as a get out excuse.

Which to be fair is gonna be a while yet anyway, until the full fleet of new buses, did hear they are waiting for 30 odd to be delivered and until they introduce all their planned services we can't really say

Same applies to Kernow's '2020 Vision', until we see it in action and in full we can't really say if it is a success or a bit of a failure

 

[richw]

There seems to be far less swapping of vehicles on the T1 & T2 during the day than there was a month or two ago. Virtually all services are deckers for social distancing but loadings still quite small.
Similarly the A17 seems to be mostly deckers apart from early mornings & late evenings. It will be interesting to see what happens when Truro college resumes and the full complement of E400MMC's return to service.

I would hope some sort of repainting programme for the Gemini's would start before too long.

Marc posted on Twitter about the repaints Starting soon a couple of days ago. The Gemini’s in theory should be released from service by the return on the MMCs.
33304 was photod at Camborne this afternoon

 

[83G/84D]

Marc posted on Twitter about the repaints Starting soon a couple of days ago. The Gemini’s in theory should be released from service by the return on the MMCs.
33304 was photod at Camborne this afternoon

Yes saw 33304 this evening after it was moved from it's previous position earlier today.

 

[Lizard1324]

Marc posted on Twitter about the repaints Starting soon a couple of days ago. The Gemini’s in theory should be released from service by the return on the MMCs.
33304 was photod at Camborne this afternoon

Will be good to see buses being painted again, did they finish all the promotional paint jobs yet and are they still going through with the x line (I think it was x) they were talking about

 

[Goldfish62]

ISTR Go Ahead won the tender on quality grounds over FK who were cheaper.

That's assuming that FK put in a joint bid for all the lots as PCB did. There were multiple lots for the routes and PCB just happened to decide to submit a bit for all of them together.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Which to be fair is gonna be a while yet anyway, until the full fleet of new buses, did hear they are waiting for 30 odd to be delivered and until they introduce all their planned services we can't really say

Same applies to Kernow's '2020 Vision', until we see it in action and in full we can't really say if it is a success or a bit of a failure

The difference is that TfC is underpinned by a legal contract with penalties and breach limits etc.

2020 Vision is an internal FK initiative and they are only bound to their own hopes and expectations.

That's assuming that FK put in a joint bid for all the lots as PCB did. There were multiple lots for the routes and PCB just happened to decide to submit a bit for all of them together.

I think it was mentioned on here (@richw ?) that FK had only applied in their existing territory (i.e. not in East Cornwall) and that FK were cheaper but were beaten on quality grounds. We've discussed it before; we've both experienced the vagaries of public sector procurement and quality scoring....

 

[Goldfish62]

I think it was mentioned on here (@richw ?) that FK had only applied in their existing territory (i.e. not in East Cornwall) and that FK were cheaper but were beaten on quality grounds. We've discussed it before; we've both experienced the vagaries of public sector procurement and quality scoring....

And that's assuming that FK and PCB submitted package bids for identical combinations of routes, which seems unlikely.

It's actually high time CC published the detailed tender results as they're legally required to do.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

And that's assuming that FK and PCB submitted package bids for identical combinations of routes, which seems unlikely.

It's actually high time CC published the detailed tender results as they're legally required to do.

We know that FK didn't as they didn't put in for East Cornwall but the lots in the West should be identical

 

[MB162435]

The difference is that TfC is underpinned by a legal contract with penalties and breach limits etc.

2020 Vision is an internal FK initiative and they are only bound to their own hopes and expectations

Given that they have produced a full quality timetable book, shows that they won't be making any changes to the TfC timetable for the foreseeable future, otherwise it would be a complete waste of time and money, the same reasons why Kernow are keeping to leaflets for the time being so they probably are just keeping to what the council deems necessary

The 2020 Vision is certainly dead in the water for this year, but hopefully the post Covid world still allows it to be sustainable in full