New Diamond Division

[Surreyman]

I am a bit out of touch with Heathrow operations these days, they made lots of noises not that long ago about green transportation, not sure if this was a big PR exercise or whether they followed through?
Hallmark are obviously a major player at least Landside.
Transdev seem to have taken over the Menzies operation, I assume they operate both landside and Airside?
Still some confusion about National express operations at LHR, obviously Hotel Hoppa went to Hallmark, Sipson Road officially closed, *except it seems it is still in use, registered as an OPs centre by a number of companies and local registered address by Transdev, it is referred to as 'Heathrow Coach centre' suggesting multiple users?
The BA car park shuttle operation now comes under N/exp' subsidiary Kings Ferry with a depot/outstation in the Cranford/Heston area.
Certainly a lot of coach companies have operations in and around the greater Heathrow area as well as bus/minibus shuttles for various car-hire and car parking companies.
I haven't flown out of LHR for a while but they will have various airside passenger and crew transfer buses, not sure who operates what.
Guildford is a bit short of suitable sites for bus depots, I think I have probably visited every industrial/ estate Business park within a 30 mile radius over the years!
Safeguard managed a move to Jacobs Well recently, the Arriva site does have the advantage of being a central location.
When Stagecoach took over the Surrey University routes and 'electrified' the P & R services I seem to remember that there was some talk of maybe providing electric vehicles in future.
Guildford of course still has an ongoing bus war, with Arriva & Safeguard competing directly to the Royal Surrey hospital and Stagecoach indirectly, the Hospital is now probably the busiest route in the area and Arriva and Safeguard compete also to Bellfields.

 

[Flange Squeal]

Guildford of course still has an ongoing bus war, with Arriva & Safeguard competing directly to the Royal Surrey hospital and Stagecoach indirectly, the Hospital is now probably the busiest route in the area and Arriva and Safeguard compete also to Bellfields.

The Arriva/Safeguard war died down a bit in October 2019 when Arriva withdrew their competing Park Barn route B, as well as - more surprisingly - their established commercial route 3 operation to Bellfields. They do still operate the Sunday service to Bellfields, but this is a council contract rather than part of the original competition. Absolutely right about the hospital Mon-Sat though with Arriva's A, although in these days of COVID, Safeguard are currently the more frequent for much of the day weekdays and all day Saturdays at the moment. I guess that was a less significant part of the 'war' though, as Arriva already ran over that way with the 26/27, only moving to The Chase when "kicked out" of the Uni. I guess it also made sense to retain a link to the hospital for their customers who may be travelling into town and changing buses, rather than direct them to another operator between two points they already ran over anyway. On the Arriva/Stagecoach front, the C to Stoughton is still registered but I don't think it has operated since the original lockdown 11 months ago, not even over the Summer. Will be interesting to see if it does ever return.

Who operates what at Heathrow is indeed hard to keep track of. Pretty sure Hallmark have a few odds and sods though, including a long-term contract for a staff shuttle for DHL. I think one of their main things there came from the acquisition of the Heathrow operations of OFJ from TGM/Arriva, this being transfers for airline crew to/from hotels and other airports, as well as passengers and crew following flight diversions.

Ensignbus are now advertising Hotel Hoppa Enviros for sale. Image below shows an advert by Ensign in the trade press for 2008 Enviro 200s with Cummins 6cyl engines, air-con, Hanover LEDs, PSVAR, airport spec with racking and 22 seats. Looks like SN08 AEG in its FedEx advertising livery in the accompanying photo.

 

[Surreyman]

I noted firstbus 20809 YN62GXS on the RA2 today, Euro 5 so not for much longer!
The RA2 has puzzled me for a long time (It runs past the end of my road and pre Covid I often used to see it parked on the stand in front of Guildford Stn)
I always look hard and chuckle as I have never seen more than 3 people on this service and that was true on the only occasion I ever used it. I nickname it "the Fresh Air Express'
Ok, to be fair there must be times when there might be 6 or even 7.
I discovered fairly recently that Heathrow had been providing a small subsidy to the route, along with several others.
It seems to survive because Southwest Rail is a First owned company and they obviously set store by having a 'Heathrow connection' to link in with their trains (The service is advertised on the trains and I think you can buy a through combined ticket).
The service has continued to run most of the time through Covid carrying even greater quantities of fresh air, even when other services were reduced/cut back (It did come off for a brief while I think).
Maybe the few travellers fares just about cover Driver and fuel costs and that keeps the bean counters happy, I can only guess that all the fixed costs are merged/buried in with all the other routes.
Now they have diverted it via Woking station to try & pick up the business done by the currently suspended Nat Exp' 925.

 

[Stan Drews]

The old NatEx (Heathrow Coach Centre) Depot on Sipson Road is now the home of Transdev’s CCH subsidiary. They move there a couple of years ago, from their nearby Harmondsworth Road base. However, some other operators have rented parking space there, as it’s a reasonably sized base.
The new Transdev Airport Services company shares the same official address as CCH, although it operates out of the former Menzies Aviation depot on Electra Avenue (for the Landside contracts) and the former Omniserve Airside depot near T4 (for the Airside contracts). Both the latter depots are owned by Heathrow Airport Limited and effectively come with the contracts.
The new contracts began just as the pandemic decimated the airline industry, so I don’t know what impact that has had on the plans for new buses. I believe the plan was to move to a fully electric fleet, but not seen any confirmation anywhere of what type(s) were ordered.

 

[Flange Squeal]

I noted firstbus 20809 YN62GXS on the RA2 today, Euro 5 so not for much longer!
The RA2 has puzzled me for a long time (It runs past the end of my road and pre Covid I often used to see it parked on the stand in front of Guildford Stn)
I always look hard and chuckle as I have never seen more than 3 people on this service and that was true on the only occasion I ever used it. I nickname it "the Fresh Air Express'
Ok, to be fair there must be times when there might be 6 or even 7.
I discovered fairly recently that Heathrow had been providing a small subsidy to the route, along with several others.
It seems to survive because Southwest Rail is a First owned company and they obviously set store by having a 'Heathrow connection' to link in with their trains (The service is advertised on the trains and I think you can buy a through combined ticket).
The service has continued to run most of the time through Covid carrying even greater quantities of fresh air, even when other services were reduced/cut back (It did come off for a brief while I think).
Maybe the few travellers fares just about cover Driver and fuel costs and that keeps the bean counters happy, I can only guess that all the fixed costs are merged/buried in with all the other routes.
Now they have diverted it via Woking station to try & pick up the business done by the currently suspended Nat Exp' 925.

I believe funding for the RA2 was part of Heathrow's expansion plan, which put particular focus on bus and coach routes to the south which would enter the central zone through a new southern access tunnel. It was certainly branded as a "partnership" with the airport when launched. There was a consultation held in 2018. In terms of bus routes, several new routes were specifically proposed. Crowthorne via Datchet, Windsor and Bracknell (extension of the 10?), Camberley via Sunningdale and Bagshot (enhancement of the 500?), and Cobham via Shepperton and Weybridge. Frequency increases also singled out the 8, 442 and 555. Long distance coach services highlighted were to the south coast, south west and south Wales, with Cambridgeshire, the Midlands and the north also mentioned as possibilities for enhancement. Specifically, National Express' 033 Salisbury via Basingstoke and their 203 on the Southampton leg.

Guildford was specifically highlighted and obviously materialised with the RA2, with the 442 to Staines getting an X442 variant. Interestingly though, Guildford looked to be shown on a map as being served not only by a new Railair service, but also by coaches en route to Bognor Regis via Portsmouth! The Woking Railair was shown as increased frequency, along with new Railair services to High Wycombe and Watford Junction. High Wycombe did get large coaches put onto Carousel's Chiltern Hundreds services, with purple Heathrow branding on their rears like Carlone's 442 and NatEx's 925, so I think it's safe to say all those routes were in receipt of funding from the airport as part of the results of this plan.

Things have obviously changed with Covid though, with Heathrow having suspended funding of bus services causing some to be reduced/withdrawn. The RA2 is indeed intriguing that it's soldiering on, and I don't blame First for trying to take advantage of swapping the intermediate Wisley stop for Woking during National Express' suspension of the 925. Could prove to be a canny decision though, particularly as signage (and I think announcements?) still generally refer to 'Railair' at Woking, despite National Express having not used that branding there for about a decade. Now there is a branded service that matches the outdated publicity and is actually running, they may find they become the default choice going forward if they can stick it out. One presumes that with Heathrow funding for other routes being suspended, if they were funding the RA2 then it is likely currently running off First's own back now. In which case, I guess it'll be interesting to see if they can keep it going until regular foreign travel resumes, and if/when National Express reinstate the 925.

 

[chopperman21]

40714 - SL16YPH is now understood to be at Stanwell and worked SWR rail replacement today

 

[busesrusuk]

40714 - SL16YPH is now understood to be at Stanwell and worked SWR rail replacement today

It is/was. Saw it earlier today at Feltham.

 

[Bwsbro]

40714 - SL16YPH is now understood to be at Stanwell and worked SWR rail replacement today

Interesting to see it pass south, I presume that this will end up being allocated to the Royal Holloway University routes, alongside some weekend Rail Work

 

[Flange Squeal]

Interesting to see it pass south, I presume that this will end up being allocated to the Royal Holloway University routes, alongside some weekend Rail Work

Might also be for the DHL staff contract, assuming that is still operating/operated by them. I think that is usually the preserve of Scania decker LX59 CNZ, but will fall into Euro VI territory next week with the LEZ changes. Low bridges certainly prevent it operating the 458, 555 or 814!

 

[busesrusuk]

Might also be for the DHL staff contract, assuming that is still operating/operated by them. I think that is usually the preserve of Scania decker LX59 CNZ, but will fall into Euro VI territory next week with the LEZ changes. Low bridges certainly prevent it operating the 458, 555 or 814!

Not sure what's happening about the DHL contract. Whilst at Hatton X this past week, there has been a steady stream of minibuses (transit type vehicles) picking up in the bus station. I haven't seen the decker for some time. Here is a pic I snapped a couple of years ago now of one of the deckers on the DHL shuttle:

Hallmark LX59 CSF Mar19 | Eastern Perimeter Road, Heathrow. … | Flickr

 

[Flange Squeal]

Not sure what's happening about the DHL contract. Whilst at Hatton X this past week, there has been a steady stream of minibuses (transit type vehicles) picking up in the bus station. I haven't seen the decker for some time.

Thanks for that. They certainly still seemed to be running it around May last year, but I guess that was still fairly early on into Covid so there may well have been changes since then - either in operator or just vehicle allocation. Indeed there is a photo on Flickr taken in October of a DHL-liveried Vauxhall Movano minibus (FM18 YDO), as you describe. Sadly it is an offside shot so not possible to view the legal lettering to identify an operator!

Looking at recent tracking history on Bus Times, it does seem the Scania decker LX59 CNZ was the regular allocation for the 616 school route in November/December.