So, we went shopping

After an unexpected financial windfall in June, I'm now in a happy personal position of not owing people lots of money. There are no debts to service, either, so I've been able to put some concrete into the bottom of the holes and watch it set. 

It's only took me three years. 

Throughout this time, the fleet has had to have investment as and when money permits. This is a situation I've been in a few times before so it is one I can operate relatively well in. It is still stressful though. 

The fleet faces a number of short to medium term challenges, and those are resolved by investment in new vehicles and some secondhand purchases. We've touched on those before but there is a need to ensure we have new coaches coming in, and equally, new buses to replace the ones which are getting old and requiring more maintenance. 

Although in our case, we will be able to move those buses onto lower mileage contract work such as college services. Once we've got through 2021 we will have a fleet of top line coaches (primarily Irzar i6s with Scania chassis, but also some integral ones), a fleet of general go anywhere coaches (mostly Irizar PB bodied triaxle Scania) and a very small fleet of contract coaches (older Volvo B10Ms with Van Hool Alizee bodies). 

We will also have a number of new minibuses coming into the fleet (the last major purchase of these being a load of short wheelbase Mercedes Sprinters during 2012). These will be Iveco Daily's and some more Mercedes Sprinters. We have also got in some Mk8 Ford Transits (like having a Mercedes in perceived quality terms but without the German premium tax that applies!). So we again have a fleet of decent minibuses to work alongside the full sized coaches. 

The 2012 Sprinters will be used on school contract work until such time as they dissolve. Which, might well be soon given how poor quality the Sprinter is! 

Alongside this we've thought long and hard about the direction the bus fleet will take. It has been difficult to purchase 'new diecast' buses of any sort since 2017 when the Wright Eclipse single decker ceased being made by Wrights. The 'Darth Vader' fronted versions aren't modelled by OOC and whilst there is a promised model of the ADL Enviro 200 MMC, it's not appeared. 

Model 1 now do the M790SR version of the Optare Solo, and examples of these have finally reached our shores, without the £70 price tag they initially had. They're now retailing around £50, which is a lot, but in the context of 4/5 new arrivals a year, just about manageable over a few years. So, my first example came along a couple of weeks back and is based on the Public Light Buses which operate in Hong Kong. The green and cream livery means I don't need to paint things, for once! 

First of 5 Solo SR's to arrive here - YT21 GYC

 

Having been impressed, I ordered 4 more of the other release, and these have gone to my home town of Yeovil, where we've launched some commercial town services. Ordinarily we'd have put the buses somewhere else, but we are a little light on spare service buses at the present time so having the 4 there helps us immensely. 

It is also lifts the image somewhat as the buses come into Yeovil town centre every half hour so the impact of them is magnified, when you compare it to a rural service running on a two hourly frequency.

The 4 examples of the second release of the model are destined to be the only ones. More painting was required with these 4 than the first example.

These things are breeding.......!

 

So, going forward we will probably stick to the simpler version. 

We are big believers in simple liveries which follow the lines of the vehicle. Far too often I see brilliant liveries which don't follow this principle. I'll explain what I mean.

In the world of operations, buses tend to hit things, or more commonly, cars tend to use the sides of buses as footbrake substitutes. You have to repair such things and if you're very organised (like no operator ever is) you'll have a stock of ready painted panels in the right colours just waiting to be fitted to the bus, and off it goes. 

Take a look at most of Best Impressions livery designs and you'll see what I mean. Bump damage badly matched in, missing parts of vinyl on lower panels all detract from the image the operator is trying to promote. So, as a result of my operational experience I'm a big believer in having a livery that is easy to maintain. 

You need to minimise colour variation on those lower panels, as you'll be replacing them at some point, or you'll be adding in filler. And I've yet to meet a engineering department which isn't rushed off their feet with vehicles wanted back yesterday. 

Where we need larger vehicles than a Solo, we will look at additional ADL Enviro 400 MMCs with coach seating. These then have a dual use, being ideal for railway replacement work at weekends. We like the MMC model and I've always been impressed with the real life ones I've either worked with, or travelled in as a passenger.

Having said this, very few of our bus workings require anything larger than a 28 seat bus - we find, especially post covid that the buses we have with this seating capacity operate half full a lot of the time, so we could make use of a lot of 16 seat minibuses with their lower operational costs. 

So after the next three Enviro MMCs arrive, we'll be looking for an additional four, and then we need to buy in a couple of batches of Solo SRs, one for Taunton, then a batch for Bridgwater, targeting them to town services where they'll be seen. 

This investment then gives us some breathing space but we can put in 3/4 new buses each year and make some headway with replacing older Dart MPDs (youngest of which was new in 2006) and Solos.