Had my first experience of one of the new Witch Ways earlier after I found myself stranded after dropping a vehicle off to a client.
A very impressive piece of kit. Absolutely no rattles or vibrations, a very quiet engine and smooth drive much better than the B9TLs they replaced. Aside from the odd alternating orange head rests the seats are fantastic, the seat back 'tech' with the wireless phone charger and coat hooks are a brilliant little feature. I'll admit I didn't leave my phone charging, so no idea how quick it'll have been, but I'm guessing relatively slow as these things generally are.
The stop button on the back of every seat saves looking around for one on the nearest pole - of which there's only one on the top deck. The seat back light is a neat little touch too. And it isn't a 'cold' light either, has a slightly warm tint to it. The clock on next stop display is one of them things that makes you wonder why something so simple hadn't been done before. It's the little things!
I'm not sure why such a fuss was made about Jennie McAlpine providing her voice for the next stop announcements. As we left Rawtenstall she welcomed us all to the bus, told us how clean, safe and ready to go everyone was, how we should wear a mask, to check out the Transdev Go app, and then she was replaced by a generic sounding local radio DJ-esq type chap who slightly mispronounced quite a few of the stop names. Jennie came back to tell us we'd all arrived back at Burnley. I thought she'd do them all?
One thing I noticed on the internal branding was the lack of any mention of the Saturday 'late' buses. Obviously they've not been running for the past 12 months, but it did mention the last bus back from Manchester being 11pm Monday - Saturday. Hopefully the post 11pm services will return in time on a weekend!
All in all it's a brilliant bus, and aside from the incohesive next stop announcements it really couldn't be faulted. And in all honesty, if you're relying on the next stop announcement who really cares who the voice is?
Ironically, my onward journey to the lock up was provided by a Mainline Versa. Which in comparison was quite uncomfortable, noisy and pretty rattly. My final journey home was on one of the faithful old B10s. Warm, comfortable and aside from a noisier engine was just as rattle free and refined as the E400, although really starting to show it's age internally.