Be interesting to see what happens with the surplus buses at Rawcliffe come 6 April; Starbeck is struggling with a number of vehicles out of service for weeks/months and presumably there is a lack of interest in fixing most given the new electrics due soon - the one exception to that being Volvo Electric 805 Woodfield which has been out of use awaiting attention since last September. By coincidence the school it is named after closed in Dec 2022. It could be that the Versas head west to help out.
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Transdev Blazefield
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Ashly_Jethro
Member
Versas heading back to Harrogate, seems quite fitting somehow haha. Would I be correct in thinking most still have their red interior?
I would have thought the enviros might get taken off lease again which would be a shame, probably a few places within the company where they can be put to good use
dodecahedron67
Member
All TDV York versas retain the red interior
Keeping the Versas at York for the remaining single decker routes would make sense with a PVR of 7, and 9 Versas available. Looking forward, if Transdev is not successful in the current retendering for the 24/25/26, the MMCs might be a better option as a fleet of 4 for a PVR of 3. Depends how much they're being leased for of course. Plenty of options for redeployment within Blazefield's fleet, whichever vehicles are displaced.
216 (originally 286) while part of the same batch was previously a Burnley based bus along with 215.
Ashly_Jethro
Member
I know, think 215 was ex Burnley too. I didn’t think much of them in comparison to the 07 Starships they accompanied at Burnley.
Speaking of 215, it’s coincidently on loan at Harrogate at the moment
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RustySpoons
Member
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- 825
I think they had a slightly nicer interior, the seats had a nicer moquette and had padded headrests, but they weren't as popular at the 07 batch. 215 and 216 were Merc engined, nowhere near as powerful as the Cummins powered 07s.
All th 2012 Versas have Mercedes engines which have a better emission rating than the 2007 Cummings engines. 285 and 286 (now 215 and 216) went new to Burnley so York is the only depot that the whole batch have been allocated to, until 215 went wandering.
Obviously subsidiary accounts don't always tell the full story with how costs are allocated and such, but here are the profits/(loss) before tax reported by each of the Blazefield subsidiaries for what was certainly a bad year in 2022:
Lancashire United £857k
Keighley & District (£268k)
Burnley & Pendle (£624k)
Rossendale (£813k)
Harrogate & District (£847k)
Team Pennine (£1.73m)
Coastliner (£2.85m)
Some grim numbers there. You would hope that things have improved with the cuts made since, plus the price of fuel falling and Covid not being as much of a factor as it was certainly in the early part of 2022. But you can see why Coastliner might be in line for something more drastic.
Transdev York Limited appears to be a dormant company with no employees, so I guess it's accounted for within Coastliner.
Yorkshire Coastliner Limited covers Yorkshire Coastliner, York & Country, City Sightseeing York and Flyer (Idle)
Ashly_Jethro
Member
Surprised to see LU the only one in the black. Think most of TP will be new fleet costs and we all know about the overstretch of Rosso with Burnley and Preston services. Other than that, not sure how the others could have lost so much, was it 2022 they they ran Coastliner extra? Can see that being a big cause for some of the losses. Not to mention the large cost of keeping the B5s on the road in regards to their maintainace.
dodecahedron67
Member
2022 was the disaster year for Coastliner extra I think
stevieinselby
Member
Included within Coastliner.
Transdev have noted that their local services around York have had a poor post-Covid recovery (not sure if that is just the 24/25/26 or if it also includes the 22 and CastleLine), which might explain why the figures for Coastliner look so bad. In the York Zebra files, they noted that Transdev were only interested in bidding for Zebra funding for the York local routes if they could get an 8 year contract to run them because passenger numbers were so low that they would need that long to get a return on their investment.
Whether things are looking rosier for Coastliner now may depend on how the bus fare cap funding has worked out. As the route that previous had probably the highest fares of any stage carriage bus in England, they potentially had a lot to lose if the sums didn't work out right. And yes sure, Coastliner has seen a big boost to ridership from the scheme, but if they're only getting £4 from each passenger then they physically can't fit enough extra passengers on the buses to make a significant dent in any shortfall.
The figures don’t look great for Transdev Blazefield. Team Pennine would possibly be increased by replacing many worn out vehicles inherited from Yorkshire Tiger. The Coastliner figures look awful but if the reliability of the B5TL’s is questionable it makes me wonder if a different vehicle like the E400MMC’s would have been better to cope with the route.
dodecahedron67
Member
The 24/25/26 are very lightly loaded. I don't think I've ever seen more than 5 or 6 people on any of them.
The problem with the Coastliner B5s is that they were spec'd with a smaller engine option, which has proven to be underpowered for the routes they do. One of them even blew up on the M62 on delivery (I know the driver - at the time TDV supervisor - who was driving it) from Burnley to Malton all those years ago
The problem with the Coastliner B5s is that they were spec'd with a smaller engine option, which has proven to be underpowered for the routes they do. One of them even blew up on the M62 on delivery (I know the driver - at the time TDV supervisor - who was driving it) from Burnley to Malton all those years ago
Cesarcollie
Member
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- 5 Jun 2016
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- 690
New fleet costs will worsen the P&L slightly due to higher depreciation and finance charges. But the cost is capitalised over the expected vehicle life, so it won’t worsen the operating profits to anything like the apparent awfulness of TP.
Ashly_Jethro
Member
So you’re saying that replacing owned vehicles with new leased second hand, the cost of refit on those and what little retained fleet they kept, and the brand new Mellor shouldn’t effect that years profit or loss??
Back to the topic of Yorkshire Coastliner, there’s also CityZap to consider with it not long having brand new high spec fleet and minimal passenger numbers post-covid. That can’t have helped things either. May have just been a perfect storm with so many losses from different factors accumulating into the massive hit it was.
I think at the time of the announcement of the losses, the increase in fuel costs accounted for a staggering percentage of the losses. I can’t remember the figures off the top of my head but it was a lot.
YorkRailFan
Established Member
No one gets 26 from South Bank to Fulford or vice versa; it takes far too long to go via the city center. Its quicker to walk/cycle over Millennium Bridge.
Their buses are often full and standing around peak times and when there's a rail strike on, drivers will have to decline boarding for passengers. But yes, I agree, I also wonder if the shortfall is made up by having the buses full or if there isn't enough capacity on each bus for that to happen.
Plus the renumberation they get. Eclipse 1701 has been confirmed as being withdrawn at Starbeck.
Yeah. Much of Transdev routes are N Yorks and they are not exactly generous to the bus industry. E Yorks will have a go but may well fail.
The £2 fare (outside of West Yorks, Manchester etc who already had one) is funded by the UK Government though, so being in North Yorks shouldn’t matter
stevieinselby
Member
The 26 isn't intended as a route from South Bank to Fulford – and in fact there aren't even through buses in that direction, it runs from Fulford to South Bank, but from South Bank to York and then it turns into a 24 and goes back out to deepest darkest Acomb.
It's just a convenient way to provide a service from Fulford to York and from South Bank to York by linking them across the city centre. (Although it looks like the 26 is being pulled out of South Bank anyway, and we're going to be going back to the old days of the 11 doing a loop round South Bank on its way to/from Bishopthorpe, albeit with the 11 dropping down to hourly).
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Most of their buses were always busy, even when it was full fares – and probably a higher proportion of fare paying passengers compared to concessionary travel holders than on most rural routes. It would be physically impossible to make up the shortfall from the fares cap by carrying more passengers (on the same number of buses) because there just isn't the capacity for them, so I hope that the grant funding is sufficient to cover the difference!
G_for_Gnome
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- Joined
- 4 Aug 2015
- Messages
- 20
Can anyone give a snapshot on how Team Pennine has been performing recently? Are the days of buses being missing from routes around Huddersfield for large parts of the day largely history? Are TP still operating legacy K-Line routes competing with First, or have things changed? I’ve been a little out of the loop but would be interested to know if the operation is settling down - it seemed like there was big fanfare launch, and shortly after a fairly disastrous period of lost mileage etc. I hope its been better but those profit / loss figures don’t look good!
There's not a lot of competition except for the 360 between Huddersfield and the Infirmary. On the other side of Huddersfield it's rarely the only route on a road, but it doesn't run the same as any First route.
G_for_Gnome
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Yea I’ve just had a look at the Team Pennine website - I see the 301/302, 319, 324 all gone. All these were routes that duplicated First routes. Does this mean that they can now operate what they are left with? Are they doing it well, or not so much? Genuinely interested to hear news / opinion etc
Service 301/302 and 324 were withdrawn under Yorkshire Tiger
Service 319 which was the main service that had lost mileage (chosen no doubt because it duplicated the First 306 entirely) was withdrawn last year leaving that route to First, also service 262 was withdrawn leaving that area to Arriva.
At the same sort of time First withdrew their 327 meaning Team Pennine’s 360 became the main service to Brackenhall
Therefore there isn’t the competition on multiple corridors like there was in K Line days
The services run now are the D1, D2, D3, X1 in the Ex-Yorkshire Traction part of Huddersfield, Ex-K Line 360, tenders 303/304, 343 & FreeTownBus and then various other normally First services during evenings and Sundays
As a result of all that there isn’t particularly any lost mileage anymore.
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If you scroll along to the 8th April on the Coastliner website, the new timetable is now available
8 buses start at Malton and 7 buses end at Malton so it looks like 7-8 buses will still be run from there. The remainder start/end at either York or Tadcaster, with one ending at Leeds
Looks like it isn't as dramatic as some posts that said only a couple of buses would still be run from Malton
The first bus westbound from Malton is now slightly earlier at 0447 and as expected there is a lower but still good frequency before 8am
The last bus from York to Tadcaster now runs 13 minutes later at 2318 and starts back from Malton giving a last bus over an hour later than currently from Malton
The first bus from York to FERA now joins up with a journey from Malton to Thornton le Dale meaning an earlier journey York to Malton
The overall frequency is the same as currently but there are slightly longer journey times and longer layover meaning an extra bus in the cycle, and 840 and 843 trips no longer swap over in Leeds
Scarborough buses now terminate at Peasholm Park and no longer run to Alpamare
8 buses start at Malton and 7 buses end at Malton so it looks like 7-8 buses will still be run from there. The remainder start/end at either York or Tadcaster, with one ending at Leeds
Looks like it isn't as dramatic as some posts that said only a couple of buses would still be run from Malton
The first bus westbound from Malton is now slightly earlier at 0447 and as expected there is a lower but still good frequency before 8am
The last bus from York to Tadcaster now runs 13 minutes later at 2318 and starts back from Malton giving a last bus over an hour later than currently from Malton
The first bus from York to FERA now joins up with a journey from Malton to Thornton le Dale meaning an earlier journey York to Malton
The overall frequency is the same as currently but there are slightly longer journey times and longer layover meaning an extra bus in the cycle, and 840 and 843 trips no longer swap over in Leeds
Scarborough buses now terminate at Peasholm Park and no longer run to Alpamare