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Lothian Buses and ECB Discussion

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Jordan Adam

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Likely the curse of the ADL/Plaxton interlocks. Bus goes round corner, ramp moves slightly, locks interlock and locks the handbrake. Common

Given it's on a roundabout and the rear doors are open that seems plausible. Looks like it got moving again within a few minutes too.

That won't please the "Lothian buses never break down" brigade...

But they don't, that Leopard is clearly a tatty 30 year old First vehicle with bad emissions! :D
 

OmniCity999

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Getting nice new bespoke vehicles is great. Until you realise that bespoke things are generally difficult to maintain due to low parts stockage and lack of knowledge.

Going to limit myself to not sharing a sense of humour on here as when I do it appears to be deleted. As I'm sure you'll all be glad to hear, im going to post less.
 
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Jordan Adam

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Getting nice new bespoke vehicles is great. Until you realise that bespoke things are generally difficult to maintain due to low parts stockage and lack of knowledge.

It still confuses me why they went with that specification, surly it would've been better to just have the usual lift/wheelchair space and keep 4-6 extra seats on the offside, would've made it far easier to convert them in to 70 seater school vehicles later in life.
 

OmniCity999

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It still confuses me why they went with that specification, surly it would've been better to just have the usual lift/wheelchair space and keep 4-6 extra seats on the offside, would've made it far easier to convert them in to 70 seater school vehicles later in life.
The design is as such that it is more like a service bus. If you had the typical hole in the side construction as per normal coaches with a wheelchair lift, service work can be rather awkward.

The leopards were cheaper than buying elites, which were designed for coach service work with a lift (see megabus or natex). Had there been a point in buying coaches for service, they would have got Elites. So they went for leopards with a new body design, to justify coaches and save money.
 

Weemidi135

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Likely the curse of the ADL/Plaxton interlocks. Bus goes round corner, ramp moves slightly, locks interlock and locks the handbrake. Common

bloody pain in the ass happened when we picked them up from longstone one day got to the roundabout at calder road and it locked on blocked the entry slip my arms hurt from directing the traffic round it wrong side of the roundabout getting buses round was interesting
 

GusB

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A note of caution - please (please, please!) do not start with the tit-for-tat Lothian vs First "banter". Even with good intentions and an intention to inject a bit of humour, this can unfortunately offend some and our reports inbox starts to fill up.

Please also do not discuss moderation decisions in the thread. If you feel that a post has been unfairly deleted, please either contact myself or @Bungle965, or one of the global moderation team if you're unhappy with a decision that either of us have made.

 

ScotRail158725

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807-809 now with Festival Travel, Inverkeithing. any idea whats sold/for sale and whats staying on?
 
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the same happened with the Ex Londoners, they came up and were snapped a lot in their first few days but since photos are few and far between
Welcome to check out my Flickr, that's all I seem to be driving lately (not that i'm complaning - they're lovely).

Out of interest, what are the differences between the different vehicle types used by Lothian from a driving/drivers perspective?
 

ScotRail158725

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Out of interest, what are the differences between the different vehicle types used by Lothian from a driving/drivers perspective?
not sure if this affects driving as im not a driver but the Ex London types use ZF gearboxes while the native ones use Voith, the Ex London ones are also slightly shorter but again not sure how much it affects driving but definitely would help with tight turns
 

Busman84

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Won’t be too much of a difference between the gearbox. I believe the ZF types would have been set to an Eco mode from new as this was the daft thing First wanted. However I would assume Lothian changed settings to normal (unless I am wrong) meaning far better acceleration.. So while the ZF has 6 gears it will still accelerate as good as the Voith but go up the gears quicker. Only thing the Voith might be better with is braking. I’ve always found Voiths better in general to ZFs in that department . Also found Voiths could be rather sharp at times.
 

Jordan Adam

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Won’t be too much of a difference between the gearbox. I believe the ZF types would have been set to an Eco mode from new as this was the daft thing First wanted. However I would assume Lothian changed settings to normal (unless I am wrong) meaning far better acceleration.. So while the ZF has 6 gears it will still accelerate as good as the Voith but go up the gears quicker. Only thing the Voith might be better with is braking. I’ve always found Voiths better in general to ZFs in that department . Also found Voiths could be rather sharp at times.

ZF's being set to Eco mode on a B9TL really isn't an issue. They're very capable buses so can achieve fast acceleration anyway. The gearbox being set to "eco mode from new as this was a daft thing First wanted" is not strictly true, it's just the usual set up. Over the years many of them particularly B7RLEs have actually been switched to "power" mode.

Suspect i've went a bit off topic.

Staying on topic the Ex-London Geminis have smaller fuel tanks.
 

Lothiangem22

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Few points from me of differences between bus types...

• drivers seat makes a big difference, with the hybrids having the most advanced seat.The higher backs and even having armrests makes a big difference to a 5 hour stint on a bus. All the Gemini’s and b7rle’s have much smaller seating with far less adjustment. It’s good to see the newer buses retaining driver comfort.

• brakes on new buses far more advanced, the b7rle’s brakes are a lot more challenging to get a smooth brake with, especially if you’re having to brake suddenly.

• I prefer the long wheel base buses to the ex London models, I’m not sure what it is but something feels strange about cornering in a shorter bus.

• gearboxes again as discussed are all different. Some of the ex London models want to shift up/down around the 20mph mark which is a bit annoying in town. On the flip side the hybrids can be a bit slow to change which can make the bus seem a bit “clunky” when going up a steep hill.

• finally from a view unrelated to driving, generally the newer the bus the better the passenger experience. Driving a bus with nice wooden floors, high back seating and next stop announcements makes a difference too!

I would suppose though different drivers and driving styles would have different preferences for the bus they are driving - for me it’s about a smooth and comfortable ride and the bus looking sharp inside and out.
 

Jordan Adam

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Few points from me of differences between bus types...

• drivers seat makes a big difference, with the hybrids having the most advanced seat.The higher backs and even having armrests makes a big difference to a 5 hour stint on a bus. All the Gemini’s and b7rle’s have much smaller seating with far less adjustment. It’s good to see the newer buses retaining driver comfort.

• brakes on new buses far more advanced, the b7rle’s brakes are a lot more challenging to get a smooth brake with, especially if you’re having to brake suddenly.

• I prefer the long wheel base buses to the ex London models, I’m not sure what it is but something feels strange about cornering in a shorter bus.

• gearboxes again as discussed are all different. Some of the ex London models want to shift up/down around the 20mph mark which is a bit annoying in town. On the flip side the hybrids can be a bit slow to change which can make the bus seem a bit “clunky” when going up a steep hill.

• finally from a view unrelated to driving, generally the newer the bus the better the passenger experience. Driving a bus with nice wooden floors, high back seating and next stop announcements makes a difference too!

I would suppose though different drivers and driving styles would have different preferences for the bus they are driving - for me it’s about a smooth and comfortable ride and the bus looking sharp inside and out.

Although i'm sure you're aware the floor isn't actually wood, it's just a vinyl texture :D

The brakes on the newer buses being more advance will be because the newer stuff (B5TL, B8L, B8R & B8RLE) are all ZF rather than Voith. Voith's are renown for being quite harsh when braking.
 

CN04NRJ

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Few points from me of differences between bus types...

• drivers seat makes a big difference, with the hybrids having the most advanced seat.The higher backs and even having armrests makes a big difference to a 5 hour stint on a bus. All the Gemini’s and b7rle’s have much smaller seating with far less adjustment. It’s good to see the newer buses retaining driver comfort.

• brakes on new buses far more advanced, the b7rle’s brakes are a lot more challenging to get a smooth brake with, especially if you’re having to brake suddenly.

• I prefer the long wheel base buses to the ex London models, I’m not sure what it is but something feels strange about cornering in a shorter bus.

• gearboxes again as discussed are all different. Some of the ex London models want to shift up/down around the 20mph mark which is a bit annoying in town. On the flip side the hybrids can be a bit slow to change which can make the bus seem a bit “clunky” when going up a steep hill.

• finally from a view unrelated to driving, generally the newer the bus the better the passenger experience. Driving a bus with nice wooden floors, high back seating and next stop announcements makes a difference too!

I would suppose though different drivers and driving styles would have different preferences for the bus they are driving - for me it’s about a smooth and comfortable ride and the bus looking sharp inside and out.

There's one or two of the London ones in 'eco' mode - they've got the same ZF ecolife gearboxes as the old shape Mercedes Citaros I drove in Cardiff. When they were new they were in 'power' mode and were quickly remapped into eco mode - I think it's 1016 that changes gears like those Mercs. It's in fourth by around 20mph and will try to climb any hill in the highest gear possible and won't change down unless it absolutely has to. The ADL E400 MMCs with ZFs there were in 'power' mode and drove similarly to the other B9s here in regards to gear changes although the Volvo engine has alot more grunt.

I'm used to driving short wheelbase deckers (East Lancs Scania N230UDs) and found it odd to drive the long B9TLS here at first - I had a bus swap a few weeks ago from 1022 to 857 and after 4 hours driving 1022 I found it quite jarring to go from a short wheelbase ZF to a long wheelbase Voith.

As for the single decks - I don't particularly like the driving position on the 7900s and they're starting to rattle quite a bit with age. In my opinion the gearbox on these really isn't suited to city work especially with winding hilly streets on a few of the routes the gearbox gets quite confused and will often try to use all of the gears resulting in incredibly slow acceleration.

Not sure why the gearbox works so much better in the B5LHs as they're much better than the single decks around the town even though they're essentially the same chassis - though I think both of these types work better out of the city (e.g 48/63 etc) purely because of the gearbox. I accept that they are designed for city work with the stop/start and pulling off in electric but in reality they function better on more rural work.

I've driven B12Bs with the same gearbox and found them even worse with long delays between each gear change, it's a shame the ADL E350H didn't take off as I drove a demonstrator of that in Cardiff and found it much smoother and pleasant to drive around the city.

Although they're probably not going back into service I really did like driving the B7RLEs - I've driven the Scania K230 on this body and I feel the Volvo version is far superior as I think the body feels like it was designed for the Volvo chassis and simply 'made to fit' for the Scania. Haven't driven the newer ones (171 and above) so can't comment on these but I preferred the 04/55 plates as they had the older Voith gearbox which I felt worked better.

Haven't driven a B7TL or XLB yet but I think my favourite modern bus I've driven is the early B9TLs here - the build quality of those early ones is second to none and the Voith gearboxes are perfect for city work around Edinburgh. I'd wanted to move here and work for Lothian for a very long time and as sad as it sounds I was really, really looking forward to driving one of the 826- batch of B9s and they were definitely worth the wait!
 

CN04NRJ

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Also - as for the later (2017 onwards) B5TLs.... the chassis is a pleasant drive (if a touch underpowered but the gearbox compensates a bit for that) and I won't comment on the bodywork :lol:
 

scosutsut

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Also - as for the later (2017 onwards) B5TLs.... the chassis is a pleasant drive (if a touch underpowered but the gearbox compensates a bit for that) and I won't comment on the bodywork :lol:
Sorry, we can't hear you over the rattling. Did you say something? :lol:
 

Jordan Adam

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it's a shame the ADL E350H didn't take off as I drove a demonstrator of that in Cardiff and found it much smoother and pleasant to drive around the city.

As someone who has to put up with 22 of the 27 built you'll be glad it didn't take off. They were nice when new but these days they just rattle and vibrate constantly. Not to mention a few have had issues where they'll randomly cut out for no reason.

Is there a date when FB will be taking over the No63 and No20 route?

No, I'd assume probably the 31st of August. I'm surprised there hasn't been a press release about it yet.

Also - as for the later (2017 onwards) B5TLs.... the chassis is a pleasant drive (if a touch underpowered but the gearbox compensates a bit for that) and I won't comment on the bodywork :lol:

I caught the 18 plates a number of times when only a few weeks old and they were easily the worst built buses i've seen (taking in to account they were brand new at the time).
 

FlybeDash8Q400

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I personally find the 17 plate B5TL’s worse from a passenger perspective than the 18 plate ones. They are both terrible build quality though.

1016 and 1050 are the ZF ones for me that always seem to get going quickly. 1019 on the other hand is really slow and makes a lot of noise while sitting idle.

Hopefully the buses start to return to their native depots soon. I for one will be quite frankly glad of not having to sit on a 17 plate, mind you the consequence of that is the 18 plates are back. Always better when a B9 turns up instead.
 

Auld reekie

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No, I'd assume probably the 31st of August. I'm surprised there hasn't been a press release about it yet.



I emailed FB over a week ago asking them but I’m still awaiting a reply.
 

CN04NRJ

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I personally find the 17 plate B5TL’s worse from a passenger perspective than the 18 plate ones. They are both terrible build quality though.

1016 and 1050 are the ZF ones for me that always seem to get going quickly. 1019 on the other hand is really slow and makes a lot of noise while sitting idle.

Hopefully the buses start to return to their native depots soon. I for one will be quite frankly glad of not having to sit on a 17 plate, mind you the consequence of that is the 18 plates are back. Always better when a B9 turns up instead.

No thanks! I'm quite happy having all the B9TLs on the 2/36 and sometimes the 20 :lol:

And yes, those 17/18 B5TLs are abysmal - you can actually see the ceiling flexing when someone is walking upstairs.

Also in regards to Jordan Adam's comment about the ADL E350Hs up there sometimes cutting out - that seems to be an issue with the 13 plate 7900Hs too though I won't go into detail as I don't want to sound critical. It was also an issue with the 61 plate E400H ADL sent as a warranty cover vehicle to Cardiff Bus back in 2018 - to the point they simply stopped using it. Maybe it's common amongst older hybrids of all types?
 

route101

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No thanks! I'm quite happy having all the B9TLs on the 2/36 and sometimes the 20 :lol:

And yes, those 17/18 B5TLs are abysmal - you can actually see the ceiling flexing when someone is walking upstairs.

Also in regards to Jordan Adam's comment about the ADL E350Hs up there sometimes cutting out - that seems to be an issue with the 13 plate 7900Hs too though I won't go into detail as I don't want to sound critical. It was also an issue with the 61 plate E400H ADL sent as a warranty cover vehicle to Cardiff Bus back in 2018 - to the point they simply stopped using it. Maybe it's common amongst older hybrids of all types?

First Glasgow have hybrid e400s too , though i think there in storage now.
 
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Although i'm sure you're aware the floor isn't actually wood, it's just a vinyl texture :D

The brakes on the newer buses being more advance will be because the newer stuff (B5TL, B8L, B8R & B8RLE) are all ZF rather than Voith. Voith's are renown for being quite harsh when braking.
There's one or two of the London ones in 'eco' mode - they've got the same ZF ecolife gearboxes as the old shape Mercedes Citaros I drove in Cardiff. When they were new they were in 'power' mode and were quickly remapped into eco mode - I think it's 1016 that changes gears like those Mercs. It's in fourth by around 20mph and will try to climb any hill in the highest gear possible and won't change down unless it absolutely has to. The ADL E400 MMCs with ZFs there were in 'power' mode and drove similarly to the other B9s here in regards to gear changes although the Volvo engine has alot more grunt.

I'm used to driving short wheelbase deckers (East Lancs Scania N230UDs) and found it odd to drive the long B9TLS here at first - I had a bus swap a few weeks ago from 1022 to 857 and after 4 hours driving 1022 I found it quite jarring to go from a short wheelbase ZF to a long wheelbase Voith.

As for the single decks - I don't particularly like the driving position on the 7900s and they're starting to rattle quite a bit with age. In my opinion the gearbox on these really isn't suited to city work especially with winding hilly streets on a few of the routes the gearbox gets quite confused and will often try to use all of the gears resulting in incredibly slow acceleration.

Not sure why the gearbox works so much better in the B5LHs as they're much better than the single decks around the town even though they're essentially the same chassis - though I think both of these types work better out of the city (e.g 48/63 etc) purely because of the gearbox. I accept that they are designed for city work with the stop/start and pulling off in electric but in reality they function better on more rural work.

I've driven B12Bs with the same gearbox and found them even worse with long delays between each gear change, it's a shame the ADL E350H didn't take off as I drove a demonstrator of that in Cardiff and found it much smoother and pleasant to drive around the city.

Although they're probably not going back into service I really did like driving the B7RLEs - I've driven the Scania K230 on this body and I feel the Volvo version is far superior as I think the body feels like it was designed for the Volvo chassis and simply 'made to fit' for the Scania. Haven't driven the newer ones (171 and above) so can't comment on these but I preferred the 04/55 plates as they had the older Voith gearbox which I felt worked better.

Haven't driven a B7TL or XLB yet but I think my favourite modern bus I've driven is the early B9TLs here - the build quality of those early ones is second to none and the Voith gearboxes are perfect for city work around Edinburgh. I'd wanted to move here and work for Lothian for a very long time and as sad as it sounds I was really, really looking forward to driving one of the 826- batch of B9s and they were definitely worth the wait!
I personally find the 17 plate B5TL’s worse from a passenger perspective than the 18 plate ones. They are both terrible build quality though.

1016 and 1050 are the ZF ones for me that always seem to get going quickly. 1019 on the other hand is really slow and makes a lot of noise while sitting idle.

Hopefully the buses start to return to their native depots soon. I for one will be quite frankly glad of not having to sit on a 17 plate, mind you the consequence of that is the 18 plates are back. Always better when a B9 turns up instead.
Is there a difference mechanically in how the two gearboxes work?
I was on a Gemini 1 (B7) recently and I noticed that, from idle, the engine had to increase revs for a couple of seconds before the bus started accelerating, whereas I remember on the Gemini 3 (B5) the bus accelerates as soon as the engine revs (with no delay); is this to do with the gearbox or something else?
 

Blindtraveler

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Nowhere near enough to a Pacer :(
the 70900 is a truly terrible product, not so much from a technological point of view although I believe the early batch have been troublesome one stage or another but the seats are uncomfortable and as pointed out earlier they rattle of Britain. The middle e the 17 and 18 plate b5 are no better and possibly worse but I've done less mileage on them than the 7900


I'm still not sure what I think performance wise about the XLB, they certainly seem to have the ability to go up hills when needed but they are rather large and not suitable for all routes in the city when double deck replacements are needed for the early batch of B9
can't be all that far away now although perhaps a little longer given the losses incurred by the company during the pandemic.
 

Blindtraveler

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Nowhere near enough to a Pacer :(
Also I wasn't aware the 63 and 20 were changing hands, I have to say hey pretty vias usage in the early part of this year of the 63 demonstrated a lot of late running and other reliability problems so this could be interesting. Who has got it?
 

DunsBus

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Also I wasn't aware the 63 and 20 were changing hands, I have to say hey pretty vias usage in the early part of this year of the 63 demonstrated a lot of late running and other reliability problems so this could be interesting. Who has got it?

First.
 
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