What on earth is a Wright 'Floline'?

[Hullian111]

Hi all, in researching for writing up a Wikipedia article on the Wright Crusader, I stumbled upon an old issue of Bus and Coach Buyer (issue 436, 5 December 1997) in which Andy Izatt writes about the First Floline Crusader for Universitybus. Per site rules, not totally sure if I can post a photo of the article here.

However, there's something that has stumped me - and has stumped me for quite a while. For a moment, I assumed this article was about the first Crusader-bodied Darts in general, but the further I go down through the article, it reads:

The 10.8 metre 41 seater Dennis Dart SLF, incorporating four tip-up seats, will be used alongside conventional Wright Crusader bodied Dart SLFs on route 600/602 between Welwyn Garden City and Watford Junction via the University of Hertfordshire at Hatfield, Albans and the University's Watford Campus.

Emphasis on "conventional", because now I'm stumped!

Which brings me to my title question: what on earth is a Wrightbus 'Floline'? I'm aware it was somewhat of a low-floor Wrightbus concept in the nineties rolled oht to the rest of the 'Wright Classics' range, so its been nicknamed, but I can't say the following quote gives a lot away:

Robert Wright first unveiled its new Floline concept under the Renown name for the Volvo B10BLE earlier this year. At Coach & Bus 97 in October the design was extended to the Scania L94 as the Scania Access Floline.
Now it is being made available on the 10.8 metre Dart. The idea behind Floline is to encourage people to make full use of all the seating and standing areas in the bus, and not to be put off by the steps into the rear section of the vehicle. The conventional Crusader body has two steps but the new Floline design reduces this to a single 180mm one ahead of the rear axle. This is achieved by a gently rising floor area between the front wheel arches and the rear step inclined by just 1.76 degrees.

So, what's all this about, then? Is the 'Floline' concept a fancy way of saying 'step-free access'? Or is it something else or more complicated entirely? I ask this here as there appears to be nothing else on the internet except for vaguely-sourced Wikipedia articles to go off, and the separate existence of Wright Axcess-Floline and Axcess-Ultralow bodies only complicates things a bit more.

 

[GusB]

Hi all, in researching for writing up a Wikipedia article on the Wright Crusader, I stumbled upon an old issue of Bus and Coach Buyer (issue 436, 5 December 1997) in which Andy Izatt writes about the First Floline Crusader for Universitybus. Per site rules, not totally sure if I can post a photo of the article here.

However, there's something that has stumped me - and has stumped me for quite a while. For a moment, I assumed this article was about the first Crusader-bodied Darts in general, but the further I go down through the article, it reads:

Emphasis on "conventional", because now I'm stumped!

Which brings me to my title question: what on earth is a Wrightbus 'Floline'? I'm aware it was somewhat of a low-floor Wrightbus concept in the nineties rolled oht to the rest of the 'Wright Classics' range, so its been nicknamed, but I can't say the following quote gives a lot away:

So, what's all this about, then? Is the 'Floline' concept a fancy way of saying 'step-free access'? Or is it something else or more complicated entirely? I ask this here as there appears to be nothing else on the internet except for vaguely-sourced Wikipedia articles to go off, and the separate existence of Wright Axcess-Floline and Axcess-Ultralow bodies only complicates things a bit more.

Wikipedia has the following:

Wright Axcess-Floline - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

The Wright Axcess-Floline was a low floor single-deck bus body built on the Scania L94UB chassis by Wrightbus between 1998 and 2001.

It was the successor to the Axcess-Ultralow on the Scania L113CRL chassis, and was visually almost identical to this model, but had slightly different side window spacing. It was also very similar to the Liberator and Renown bodies on Volvo chassis.

Of the 276 Axcess-Flolines produced, FirstGroup purchased 242.[1]

Following the introduction of Wright's new-style Millennium range in 2000, the Axcess-Floline was superseded by the Solar on the same chassis.

There were a few at First Aberdeen when I lived there some years ago, but they were transferred elsewhere fairly quickly.

 

[Hullian111]

Wikipedia has the following:

Wright Axcess-Floline - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Yeah, that's what I'm trying to sort out. See, it doesn't give a lot away about what a Floline is, and by the looks of it, it was one of Wright's biggest buzzwords of the 1990s. Heck, it even got picked up for the Pulsar!

Innovation and investment

The Wright Group was founded in 1946 and today is one of Europe’s leading independently-owned bus manufacturers. With headquarters based in N Ireland the company has an annual turnover in excess of £100m and employs more than 950 people.A twenty-first century solution for passenger...

www.intelligenttransport.com

More conventional but equally stylish Wrightbus offer the Pulsar. Based on the Euro 4 VDLBus SB200 chassis and featuring the 6.7 litre in-line Cummins engine with SCR, this 11.9m low entry vehicle incorporates the Floline concept to offer a lightweight, yet highly durable full size single deck bus.

 

[Man of Kent]

Floline was a gently ramped floor that minimised the number of steps into the rear raised section. Early low floor designs often offered what seemed like a mountaineering expedition to reach the rear, and the rearmost seats especially.

Google "Floline interior" and some pictures will appear....

 

[GusB]

Yeah, that's what I'm trying to sort out. See, it doesn't give a lot away about what a Floline is, and by the looks of it, it was one of Wright's biggest buzzwords of the 1990s. Heck, it even got picked up for the Pulsar!

Innovation and investment

The Wright Group was founded in 1946 and today is one of Europe’s leading independently-owned bus manufacturers. With headquarters based in N Ireland the company has an annual turnover in excess of £100m and employs more than 950 people.A twenty-first century solution for passenger...

www.intelligenttransport.com

It's not helped by Wright using different names for what is essentially the same body on different chassis types!

Low-floor buses were just starting to become mainstream at that point and there were still a lot of fairly new step-entrance vehicles around, so "Floline" was probably just used to distinguish the low-floor product from the rest.

Stagecoach branded its early low-floor buses as "Lo-liner" to emphasise this.

Floline was a gently ramped floor that minimised the number of steps into the rear raised section. Early low floor designs often offered what seemed like a mountaineering expedition to reach the rear, and the rearmost seats especially.

Google "Floline interior" and some pictures will appear....

That's interesting - I hadn't realised it referred specifically to the interior.

What's scary is that it's 25 years since it was first produced!

 

[Strathclyder]

As First Glasgow bought the Wright Axcess Floline in bulk and had numerous examples transferred in from other parts of the First Bus empire over the years (including the ones new to Aberdeen that @GusB mentioned above), I've found that the easiest way to tell the Floline, Ultralow & the Renown apart externally is the position/shape of the rear radiator grille and the position of the rear route number display and rear registration plate (all attached images are my own).

Renown/B10BLE (square radiator grille on the driver's side with the rear number display mounted centrally at the top of the rear window alongside the rear registration plate)


Axcess Floline/L94UB (square radiator grille on the off/passenger door side with the rear number display & rear registration plate mounted at the bottom of the rear window)


Axcess Ultralow/L113CRL (a square-ish radiator grille on the driver's side slightly nearer the rear of the bus with the rear route number display/rear registration plate in the same basic positions as the Floline)


Yes, I know the latter two images aren't rear-quarter shots (I do have some, but I can't access them at the moment), but one can see where the rear route number display & rear reg plate were installed by the higher window sill at the rear of both 61676 & 61478.

 

[K4016td]

Few years ago I managed to take a picture of interior of one of these Flolines - indeed the step towards the back of the bus is quite low, also look how wide the aisle seems to be even though the bus is of a standard width.


Scania L94UB Wright Axcess Floline - 65624 - T824 JBL by K4016td, on Flickr

 

[JD2168]

The Scania Wright Florine to me when I saw them reminded me more of the Axcess Ultralow than the B10BLE Wright Renown although quite a few interior things seemed quite similar to each other apart from the rear which was the main difference.

 

[buslad1988]

Few years ago I managed to take a picture of interior of one of these Flolines - indeed the step towards the back of the bus is quite low, also look how wide the aisle seems to be even though the bus is of a standard width.


Scania L94UB Wright Axcess Floline - 65624 - T824 JBL by K4016td, on Flickr

Also note how the floor gradually goes up in the lower section (the seats are the biggest giveaway).

The Ultralows had a higher step, all seats faced forward - unlike towards the rear on Flolines and they also had the additional offside narrow window behind the drivers cab.

The window layouts in general also differed. All minor quirks but they do give away the differentials between the types.

Here’s a FirstGroup Axcess Ultralow to demonstrate the additional offside window.

R343SUT.0001 13.07

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

www.flickr.com

 

[fgwrich]

Can I just say - Anyone else really rather miss these era Wrightbus vehicles too? The Renown seemed a particularly indestructible vehicle and used to fly down the motorway when First used them on Rail Replacement round here.

 

[K4016td]

I didn't have a lot of experience with these late 90s examples as in my area these were confined to Bracknell, but later Wrights (my local Slough examples being Solars) on heavyweight chassis seemed to be built much more sturdy and powerful than Streetlites they bought to replace many of them. Only thing I didn't like about them is the stupid arrangement of openable windows with none towards the back of the bus, but still better than Wrightbuses built today with stupidly narrow and reduced amount of these.

 

[Bus Lightyear]

A massive downgrade on the Scania L113 which they ''succeeded''.

They were total bone shakers, not nice to drive or to be a passenger on. When driving over potholes and poor road surfaces the steering column and dashboard would shake and shudder really badly. As they got older, the smell of fumes would build up in the saloon and in the driver's cab. And they weren't exactly watertight neither and suffered from water ingress but that is par for the course with most Wrights products.

The Volvo B10ble which was it's competitor at the time was a far superior vehicle.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Can I just say - Anyone else really rather miss these era Wrightbus vehicles too? The Renown seemed a particularly indestructible vehicle and used to fly down the motorway when First used them on Rail Replacement round here.

The big upside of those (I think it was those) in First spec was that they were double glazed, which meant significantly less condensation and significantly fewer rattles than most UK buses due to the glazing being more rigid. Between these this gave for a much higher quality travelling environment than normal.

Odd that someone else is talking about rattles, though, as the small double window openers are quite distinctive.

 

[Lewisham2221]

The big upside of those (I think it was those) in First spec was that they were double glazed, which meant significantly less condensation and significantly fewer rattles than most UK buses due to the glazing being more rigid. Between these this gave for a much higher quality travelling environment than normal.

Odd that someone else is talking about rattles, though, as the small double window openers are quite distinctive.

Scania chassis' tend to have harder suspension than their Volvo counterparts, so that could account for extra rattles.

I personally found the Axcess-Floline versions fairly uncomfortable due to their seating configuration. We had some with the usual layout of wheelchair bay and either tip-up or single facing seats (I forget which) opposite, but then with a bay of 4 facing tip up seats behind - to give more pushchair space, I imagine. However the tip up seats were too hard, too low and too upright. Meanwhile, to create the wider aisle, the normal seats had absolutely no gap whatsoever between the seat and the bodyside, and the two paired seats, meaning you were always sat on top of the person next to you. Lastly, we had at least one batch, with "extra space for shopping trolleys" (as claimed in some press release at the time). What that actually meant was the seat pitch (I.e seat back to seat back) stayed the same, but they created "extra space" by shortening the seat cushion, creating a larger gap between the front of the seat cushion and the back of the seat in front. This just meant uncomfortable seats that you always felt you were about to fall off and provided inadequate support. Perhaps some good ideas on paper, but terrible implementation.

Later versions adopted a more conventional seating layout (as later seen on the Solar bodied vehicles), with proper sized seats, legroom, and space between the paired seats and the bodyside. Albeit that came at the cost of thinner, harder seats (not quite Urban 90s, but the similar type that most late 90s/early 00s First buses had). They were reasonably shaped though, so comfort was tolerable.

 

[Mr Mean]

Yes these wrighbuses were well built. Not sure if Leeds had "flolines" but the wrightbuses in the region put in a good service and always seemed well built and powerful. They never seemed to age either in terms of looks.

Off topic, but prior to low floor buses, Yorkshire Traction had some K and L reg Scania Wright endurances that were memorable for their huge, tall windows. They could certainly shift, but seating wise they were awful with no legroom and with two sets of facing seats at the front, nothing to hold onto whilst trying to get on/off!

 

[route101]

First Glasgow had them. Pretty solid buses but they didn't look great externally.

 

[JD2168]

Yes these wrighbuses were well built. Not sure if Leeds had "flolines" but the wrightbuses in the region put in a good service and always seemed well built and powerful. They never seemed to age either in terms of looks.

Off topic, but prior to low floor buses, Yorkshire Traction had some K and L reg Scania Wright endurances that were memorable for their huge, tall windows. They could certainly shift, but seating wise they were awful with no legroom and with two sets of facing seats at the front, nothing to hold onto whilst trying to get on/off!

I am sure Leeds had some FloLine’s as quite a number plus some that ended up at Stagecoach after the sale of Chester/Rock Ferry ended up at Connexions.

I too remember those Scania Endurance’s the body seemed very high on the chassis with plenty of steps at the entrance. One this I miss about Yorkshire Traction was the variety of the fleet.

Can I just say - Anyone else really rather miss these era Wrightbus vehicles too? The Renown seemed a particularly indestructible vehicle and used to fly down the motorway when First used them on Rail Replacement round here.

The B10BLE Wright Renown was pretty much bulletproof. Climbed hills with ease & also very comfortable on flatter road runners. There are still some in use with Transdev Blazefield. The following vehicle to this the B7L Wright Eclipse seemed a massive downgrade from the start.

 

[Hullian111]

Floline was a gently ramped floor that minimised the number of steps into the rear raised section. Early low floor designs often offered what seemed like a mountaineering expedition to reach the rear, and the rearmost seats especially.

Google "Floline interior" and some pictures will appear....

It's not helped by Wright using different names for what is essentially the same body on different chassis types!

Low-floor buses were just starting to become mainstream at that point and there were still a lot of fairly new step-entrance vehicles around, so "Floline" was probably just used to distinguish the low-floor product from the rest.

Stagecoach branded its early low-floor buses as "Lo-liner" to emphasise this.


That's interesting - I hadn't realised it referred specifically to the interior.

What's scary is that it's 25 years since it was first produced!

Also note how the floor gradually goes up in the lower section (the seats are the biggest giveaway).

The Ultralows had a higher step, all seats faced forward - unlike towards the rear on Flolines and they also had the additional offside narrow window behind the drivers cab.

The window layouts in general also differed. All minor quirks but they do give away the differentials between the types.

Here’s a FirstGroup Axcess Ultralow to demonstrate the additional offside window.

R343SUT.0001 13.07

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

www.flickr.com

Thanks all for the help, I've got a bit more of a profile to go off now for descriptions. "Step-free" isn't exactly the right description, as I now understand, but I suppose I could write of a "gently-sloping floor with a single step in front of the rear axle"? Or is that too technical for non-enthusiasts/folk who have never seen a Floline bus to grasp?

Oh, if anyone has any articles related to the 'Floline' concept as a whole, and/or for other Wright products of the time, don't hesitate to send them my way. I think this 'Floline' and 'Ultralow’ business seems significant enough to go into more detail about on the old free encyclopedia.

 

[Andyh82]

Yes these wrighbuses were well built. Not sure if Leeds had "flolines" but the wrightbuses in the region put in a good service and always seemed well built and powerful. They never seemed to age either in terms of looks.

Off topic, but prior to low floor buses, Yorkshire Traction had some K and L reg Scania Wright endurances that were memorable for their huge, tall windows. They could certainly shift, but seating wise they were awful with no legroom and with two sets of facing seats at the front, nothing to hold onto whilst trying to get on/off!

Leeds did have Flolines.

This was a strange era that started during Yorkshire Rider and carried on into First West Yorks where Leeds would buy Scanias but the other areas that make up the company would generally buy the same bodywork but on a Volvo.

 

[Busman84]

The Flolines (on Scania chassis) were never as good as the Renown (on the Volvo). While it was near enough the same body I preferred the Renown layout. The Renown was virtually rattle free due to the far superior suspension Volvo had. The Scania suspension was awful they were boneshakers and also had issues occasionally were the front would be too high or too low. The Renown was quieter too as a bus the engine was much more refined and would accelerate at ease. The Flolines were much noiser with vibrations and didn’t have the same acceleration a feel of being gutless compared to the newer Scania (euro 3s) on the Solar which was a lot better.

 

[Spsf3232]

The Flolines (on Scania chassis) were never as good as the Renown (on the Volvo). While it was near enough the same body I preferred the Renown layout. The Renown was virtually rattle free due to the far superior suspension Volvo had. The Scania suspension was awful they were boneshakers and also had issues occasionally were the front would be too high or too low. The Renown was quieter too as a bus the engine was much more refined and would accelerate at ease. The Flolines were much noiser with vibrations and didn’t have the same acceleration a feel of being gutless compared to the newer Scania (euro 3s) on the Solar which was a lot better.

The suspensions on the Scanias were shocking, especially on the steering as you turned and hit bumps it would snap the wheel around out of your hands! The Volvos on the the other hand were just lovely and smooth, one of the best buses made to this day!

One upside to Scanias from a drivers point of view was in Glasgow I could have it broken down at the side of the road in 10 minutes simply by driving it hard to keep up with times, they just couldn't survive hard driving and would cook themselves

 

[Strathclyder]

Can I just say - Anyone else really rather miss these era Wrightbus vehicles too? The Renown seemed a particularly indestructible vehicle and used to fly down the motorway when First used them on Rail Replacement round here.

As far as low-floor saloons were concerned, the Renown/B10BLE was one of the best out there; the closest thing to a low-floor B10M/PS there's ever been imo.

 

[Towers]

Can I just say - Anyone else really rather miss these era Wrightbus vehicles too? The Renown seemed a particularly indestructible vehicle and used to fly down the motorway when First used them on Rail Replacement round here.

Yep, massively! ‘Barbie’ Renowns were truly superb vehicles, and also represented the era when First attempted to bring a level of quality to urban buses that had never really been seen before - it all went rapidly downhill of course, but at the point of delivery these were pretty luxurious! I miss the sounds and smells of these, and lament the loss of the ‘proper bus’ when contemplating the harsh, rattling, lightweight stuff that has superseded them!

 

[buslad1988]

Here’s a couple of photos of demonstrators which helpfully (although not sure how accurately) try to show the floor concept in their liveries.

Firstly an original Volvo B6LE:

96-017

Wright low floor bus M918 MRW on trial with IB, Tower Ramparts, Ipswich, 15.2.1996

www.flickr.com

And a Scania L94 Floline:

Ipswich Buses Scania demonstrator in 2000

Explore BristolRE2007's 35886 photos on Flickr!

www.flickr.com

 

[Mwanesh]

Don't know why Wright or where they went wrong. They can't make a simple bus these days. The ones Sovereign had at Stevenage were built properly. The current line up is not so inspiring.

 

[JonathanH]

‘Barbie’ Renowns were truly superb vehicles, and also represented the era when First attempted to bring a level of quality to urban buses that had never really been seen before - it all went rapidly downhill of course, but at the point of delivery these were pretty luxurious!

Yes, absolutely so. They were a step change in provision. I don't see how anyone can think the spartan post-2012 interiors offered up be First are better than these vehicles.

 

[37114]

I seem to recall First only went for the Scanias as the Volvo chassis (B10RLE?) had some protrusion at the rear which meant they could only get 3 seats at the back rather than 5? Volvo produced an updated version which meant a full rear seat could be added.

 

[Towers]

I seem to recall First only went for the Scanias as the Volvo chassis (B10RLE?) had some protrusion at the rear which meant they could only get 3 seats at the back rather than 5? Volvo produced an updated version which meant a full rear seat could be added.

These were the later generation which came immediately after the Renown and featured the first of Wright’s ‘Nokia’ front end styling. Early ones as you say had an odd rear end arrangement. I seem to remember this was part of an effort by Volvo to impose a more standardised European layout onto UK operators, in the same way thay they tried and failed with their prototype low floor decker? That mis-step resulted the Trident gaining a substantial foothold while Volvo went away an re-engineered their offering

Interestingly, the very same rear end layout made another appearance - limited within First’s fleets but reasonably widespread elsewhere - with the Scania Omnicity, which also features reduced rear seating and an offside ‘cubby’ housing the radiator.

 

[alphabravo43]

These were the later generation which came immediately after the Renown and featured the first of Wright’s ‘Nokia’ front end styling. Early ones as you say had an odd rear end arrangement. I seem to remember this was part of an effort by Volvo to impose a more standardised European layout onto UK operators, in the same way thay they tried and failed with their prototype low floor decker? That mis-step resulted the Trident gaining a substantial foothold while Volvo went away an re-engineered their offering

Interestingly, the very same rear end layout made another appearance - limited within First’s fleets but reasonably widespread elsewhere - with the Scania Omnicity, which also features reduced rear seating and an offside ‘cubby’ housing the radiator.

The Volvo replacement for the B10BLE was initially the B7L chassis which was in a vertical layout which created an almost toilet cubicle look to the back end of the Wright bodywork, not sure how it looked with other bodybuilders, the only other B7L I can think of off the top of me head was BX03OVZ with Hispano bodywork. The B7L was replaced by the B7RLE which did sell in a much more numerous volume than the B7L did.

 

[K4016td]

an almost toilet cubicle look to the back end of the Wright bodywork

One example with such chassis is former ''Arriva's Bus Of The Future'', LF02 PVA - decent bus, although last time when I had a ride on it it sounded like it was about to fall apart. The luggage shelves and 2+1 seating was a bit way over the top, but it was a concept bus in the end

6200 LF02 PVA by Phil Bradley, on Flickr

You have mentioned ''toilet cubicle'' - as UK doesn't use fully low floor three-doored 12m buses which is the main reason for the vertical engine compartment at the end of the bus I see why this failed in the UK, but concept as such is not too bad as we don't have to climb endless stairs towards the back of the bus to reach the back seats.