Editorial

Issue nr 288
Thursday February 15th, 2024

From the Editor

Interesting times ahead as delivery of electrics speeds up. Elsewhere one reads that infrastructure delays have caused problems with entry into service 0f the planned fleets.

As always I am grateful to contributors without whom this page would not be possible. Thank you !

In this week's issue

LION ROAR FOR LAUNCH OF NEW BUSES

Rail Replacement - Chiltern Railways

Piccadilly line closure

Readers Write

Jack Cooper re his contributions for this issue

Julian Walker regarding London Superloop services

Richard Sharman with a memory from 2017

Buses in the Landscape

Coach visitors to Oxford

Fleet News & Developments

Update from Luke Marion, Managing Director.-Go Ahead Oxford

Reading Buses update

London Operations

The Zen Project

Parliamentary' service linking West Ealing with West Ruislip

A Superloop update

Chinese New Year bus celebrations

LION ROAR FOR LAUNCH OF NEW BUSES
Robert Williams, Reading Buses Chief Executive Officer:

In a bid to encourage more people onto the bus, Reading Buses has proudly launched new vehicles in what is seen to be the resumption of major investment in their fleet.

The new buses, which have numerous special features from coffee shop style flooring and tables, to glazed staircases and skylights for more natural light, will be running on the Reading Buses lion 4 and X4 routes.

The company launched the buses by parking one of them in the pedestrianised Market Place just outside Wokingham Town Hall – much to the delight of many passers-by who were interested in the new features that also include comfortable high-back seats.

And following yesterday’s launch the new buses have already wowed the public with customers telling the company that many of the features will make them more desirable to use.

All the vehicles have USB, USB-C and wireless charging facilities, seatback phone holders, tables for working, tinted windows, and an air chill system upstairs to help cool down customers on warm days.

Said Robert Williams, Reading Buses Chief Executive Officer: “We are thrilled to introduce these new buses to the lion routes – the first major investment in the lion since we started running it in 2015.

“This represents the next level of comfort and class for our customers and repeats the specification we have successfully used on our prestigious London Line 702 and Flightline 703 buses.

“These eight new lion buses, plus one painted in our silver generic colours for use on any route when needed, will encourage even more people to get on the bus and take advantage of the government £2 single fare cap that is set to continue until 2025.”

Reading Buses gave away some branded pens and shopping bags as well as many timetables with information on the route.

To help promote the service which runs up to every 20 minutes along the key A329 corridor, guests from the local authorities the route connects were invited to officially launch the buses on Monday.

The congregation included the Mayor of Reading Councillor Tony Page, Wokingham’s Deputy Mayor Councillor Robert Comber, Wokingham Borough Councillors Prue Bray and Paul Fishwick, Wokingham Town Council’s Marianna Pentek and Morag Malvern, Robert Williams, Reading Buses Chief Executive Officer, and other officials from the councils and bus company.

Robert added: “In addition to the £2 single fare customers can also take advantage of our tap on, tap off system to be sure of never having to pay more than a day ticket when they travel. This also takes away all the worry of getting the best value ticket on the day, as it’s done automatically.”

Further promotional activity takes place in Bracknell on Wednesday as they promote the new buses on Thames Valley Buses 171/172 routes which, alongside Thames Valley’s route 194, run together with the lion between Great Hollands and Bracknell town centre.

YX73PHA	AD E40D SFDA18ER8PGX12304	AD P407/1	H47/29F	2/2024	Reading	241
YX73PHF	AD E40D SFDA18ER8PGX12305	AD P407/2	H47/29F	2/2024	Reading	242
YX73PHK	AD E40D SFDA18ER8PGX12306	AD P407/3	H47/29F	2/2024	Reading	243
YX73PHN	AD E40D SFDA18ER8PGX12307	AD P407/4	H47/29F	2/2024	Reading	244
YX73PHO	AD E40D SFDA18ER8PGX12308	AD P407/5	H47/29F	2/2024	Reading	245
YX73PHU	AD E40D SFDA18ER8PGX12313	AD P407/6	H47/29F	2/2024	Reading	246
YX73PHV	AD E40D SFDA18ER8PGX12314	AD P407/7	H47/29F	2/2024	Reading	247
YX73PHY	AD E40D SFDA18ER8PGX12315	AD P407/8	H47/29F	2/2024	Reading	248

Richard Windley (Reading Buses), Councillor Tony Page, Robert Williams (Reading Buses), Rebecca Brookes, Paul Fishwick,
Prue Bray, Robert Comber, Morag Malvern, Marianna Pentek, Kevin the lion and Leo the lion in front.

Rail Replacement - Chiltern Railways

Changes to Train Times | Planned Changes | Chiltern Railways

from Joel Forey on February 3rd

Stagecoach Oxford's contribution included 10431, 10432, 10671 and 11250.

South sent 10890 and 11585.

West contributed 10433 and 10893.

transpora sent LJ09CCD seen at Aylesbury
Transpora operates transport services across England. (transporagroup.co.uk)

from Derek Taylor at Aylesbury Parkway on February 11th.

Pictures on the service to Bicester North and Village service on the 11th.

Piccadilly line closure
by Andrew Webb

The Piccadilly line has been closed for scheduled engineering work between Acton Town and Heathrow between 10 and 14 February, with buses replacing services at both the weekend and also for three weekdays. A variety of operators took part with a selection of vehicles captured at Boston Manor on Wednesday 14 February.

Takeover by First has not dampened Ensignbus' enthusiasm for rail replacement work as these shots of the varied fleet illustrate. The two BCI Enterprises are rare examples of the type in the UK, acquired when Ensign attempted to sell the type. The Wright bodied decker started life with First in London, passing to Tower Transit with that company's takeover of the operations.

After finishing TfL service it joined the Ensignbus fleet, only to end up back with First after their takeover in 2023.

Another bus that started life with First is this anonymous Enviro 400 which served London as DN33779.

It now works for Sullivan Buses, another operator with a liking for rail replacement.

Arriva and Metroline also fielded vehicles, with two Arriva vehicles seen at Boston Manor,
HA18 still showing evidence of its relatively rare appearance on route 254 on 8 February.

Fellow Delgro company Westbus added a touch of luxury to the route with Mercedes Tourismos working the route.

Imperial Coaches are usually found working school contracts and private hires, but at least four of their Enviro MMC 40D double deckers saw use on 14 February.

Despite the destination blind, this shot was taken at Boston Manor en route for Acton Town.

Jack Cooper re his contributions for this issue

A busy week for photos this week, so I have held my photos from Swindon over to next week. This week has pictures from Witney, Faringdon, Wantage, Didcot and Oxford.

Next Saturday I shall be heading up to Scotland, for the first time. I will be staying a couple of nights in Glasgow, then moving to Edinburgh.

Jack's pictures maybe found uder the relevant operators. Ed.

Julian Walker regarding London Superloop services

Thank you again for all your work on the Oxford Chilterns Bus Page, I look forward to reading it every week.

I just wanted to comment on the use of older vehicles on the new Superloop services, especially the SL5 (Bromley-Croydon) where the use of elderly Enviro200s has raised some eyebrows (London Operations, OCBP 8^th February). The new Routemasters for the SL3 (Bromley-Thamesmead) are also eleven years old, having been cascaded from RATP route 9 which was an early convert to the type - RATP recently ceded route 9 to Metroline.

Transport for London's most recent funding settlement with the Government allowed for the setting-up of the Superloop services, as money was explicitly available to invest in increasing suburban bus mileage in the capital. This funding is due to expire at the end of March 2024 so needs to be spent by then. To get the new services up and running, Transport for London has awarded short-term interim contracts lasting two years or less - the SL5 contract is for just one year. In due course these routes will be retendered and will have full seven-year contracts, mostly with new electric buses. This will also help to spread the demand for new electric vehicles, as TfL fully intends that all its bus services will be operated with zero-emission buses by 2034.

Route SL4 (Grove Park-Canary Wharf) will only commence once the new Silvertown Tunnel opens next year, however a provisional contract has been awarded to Go-Ahead London and this calls for new electric double-deckers from the outset. The contract will run for a full seven years from the date of the service commencing.

Richard Sharman with a memory from 2017

On this day in 2017! A demonstrator was numbered 20 for it's stay.

Not yet on diversion 5464 heads for Aylesbury departing The Eden Bus Station on February 11th.

4211 and 4212 are back in service after a long time lout lof juse in Cressex yard.

Arriva Volvo B7 3959 is at the head of a 3 bus line up at Leighton Buzzard High St with a morning F77 on February 7th 2024.

889 will return to Carousel in due course, however the inspections of the Volvo hybrids by TfGM are continuing this week meaning we have some of those off the road. 890 and 891 are now at Carousel following repaint and vinyls have been ordered for all three of these. They are to be allocated to Route 1.

723 - >The recently delivered new buses still need Wrightbus to attend to some delivery defects before they can enter service. I am hoping this will be before the end of next week.

351-369 None of the hybrids have travelled to Manchester yet, but some have been withdrawn from service in anticipation of transferring. We also need to ensure these buses have sufficient MOT when they transfer, as part of the vehicle sale & purchase agreement associated with Manchester franchising and so there is a need for some of this batch of buses to be MOT prepped and tested over the coming weeks. We anticipate that all will have left us by around this time next month.

I'm informed by Carousel that the three London deckers (938/40/1) and Animal Citaro 870 have been transferred to Thames Travel.

689 on a 45 service in Abingdon today, February 14th, just heading into the town centre by The Broadface
- nice to get these unusual pics while we can.

Whilst I was at Heathrow on Saturday, February 10th, two coaches arrived on Megabus services. Neither of them carried any form of Megabus branding which is not very helpful to intending passengers.

Children's Mental Health Week took place between 5 and 11 February. To mark the week The Zen Project took their 'Zen Bus' on a tour of schools to give students the chance to experience some positive mindfulness techniques. The vehicle is an International CE300 built as a school bus which saw use in New York before being exported to the UK. On 9 February it spent the afternoon in Southall, just 2 miles from the site of the AEC factory which built the London icon that is the Routemaster.

The eagle eyed will spot the message along the roofline that Gucci Ancora is the Spring and Summer collection from the global fashion giant.

Go Ahead's LT860 has just crossed Oxford Circus whilst working route 453 on 10 February.

The first MCV Volvo BZL electric double decker to operate in London has now entered service with Go Ahead, mainly on route 213 linking Sutton and Kingston. It is a demonstrator, presumably to encourage a future order.

Ovo Energy has updated their advert campaign with this two tone green design. So far it has appeared on 4 electric buses, all of which previously carried the previous version.

Go Ahead's EP1 shows off the design in early spring sunshine at North Greenwich on 12 February.

Wednesday is the day for the weekly 'Parliamentary' service linking West Ealing with West Ruislip, thus saving the bureaucracy of going through a closure process for the railway line which parallels the Central line between South Ruislip and Greenford.

Since December 2022 the service has been operated as a rail replacement bus, with the chances of a train being reintroduced virtually impossible without Chiltern drivers relearning the route.

Metroline is the third operator of the contract, having recently replaced Stagecoach Oxford.

A double decker is habitually used with VW1280 being employed on St Valentine's Day.

Despite the end-to-end journey being quicker via train with a change at Greenford|
and Ruislip town centre having 5 buses per hour on route E7 from the same stop,
there was a crowd of over 20 passengers waiting to show their love for this quirky anachronism.

Had a London day today, have been wanting to go to Sutton to get pics of Route S3 which changes from RATP to Abellio on 6th April fro a long time but it is such a difficult place to get to. Then I suddenly thought I could get The Airline from Lewknor to Heathrow Bus Station and then Superloop SL7 to Sutton which is what I did, free travel all the way both ways!

In London on Sunday there was a celebration of The Chinese New Year, this year being the year of The Dragon. The parade included 3 Routemasters and Nigel Eadon-Clarke was there to record the event.

RML 2713 CHINESE NEW YEAR, TRAFALGAR SQUARE-1 10TH FEBRUARY 2024.and RM 1159 and RML 2621 in Shaftesbury Avenue.