Heritage fleets: should bus companies keep them going?

[M803UYA]

You make a superb point. The elderly Leyland really ought to have been donated to the Amberley museum where it spends much of its time, and LRV 992 has spent years in the custody of a Portsmouth preservation group where it would be guaranteed a grateful and secure home. I feel there may be a significant degree of goodwill being junked here, and probably a degree of apologetic embarrassment from some management at a local level. Hopefully appropriate strings might be able to be pulled to at least make an effort to get vehicles to the right homes, but it looks like the disposal process may be very much a centralised affair which doesn't inspire confidence.

The email address on the advert is for someone central - so disposal is on a centrally planned basis. It's the same name which appeared when the group had a load of Dart SLFs and Optare Versa's for sale. Where they work, I'm not sure. A number of Stagecoach central functions are undertaken from Stockport along with Perth.

 

[GusB]

First South Yorkshire, and other First operating companies do at least donate significant vehicles to preservation groups. So there are a number of vehicles which have passed into preservation through this method. One would argue that the first new double deck bus and Dennis Dart of the post privatisation era of Stagecoach merit some retention or at very least merit donation to the movement to groups which can ensure the long term survival of those vehicles. I was at the Glasgow Vintage Vehicle Trust site at Bridgeton last weekend and was looking at a 2004 Dennis Trident which had spent it's working life in London before operating in Glasgow for the 2014 Commonwealth Games. It was based at that depot. For the sum of £1, it was donated to GVVT. It was a vehicle which would command a sensible sum of money were it to be sold on the open market to a second owner.
Those significant Stagecoach vehicles (the first Dart, the first F reg Olympian of the privatisation era, the 1929 Leyland) wouldn't be worth more than £50,000 and given the turnover of Stagecoach, it's money they wouldn't even register.
Far too many preserved vehicles fall upon hard times once they change hands. Look at how many vehicles operated for Steve Morris' Quantock Motor Services operation, for instance. Once he became bored of the vehicle(s) they were sold to the first person offering £25,000. Hence why many are now mobile catering vehicles and live abroad. Or a worse outcome.
I accept that heritage vehicles rely on the support of their owners for their continued existence, but one might argue these vehicles should survive, not be exported to the USA and endangered needlessly. Which is the situation that is occurring. Stagecoach could avoid this, but the people in charge don't care about that. Will those people be in charge of the company in 5 years time or will they have moved onto something else? They're not people who look beyond the numbers.

I'm not disagreeing with anything you're saying here, but the cold hard fact is that the bean counters, and let's not forget that the new owners of the Stagecoach Group are just that, don't see things in quite the same way.

There's no room for sentiment here; they've clearly looked at the accounts, seen that there are some assets that aren't earning very much and accordingly they've decided to get rid of them. The people in charge aren't bus people. One can only hope that there is someone present who can see the significance of certain vehicles that has the sense to make sure that they go to a good home.

 

[Porte Molitor]

The Delaine is a small, successful,family owned company, and has its own museum featuring former buses and paraphernalia.

I would say something like Delaine Bus Museum is different to this. These buses being sold are actually owned by Stagecoach, whereas Delaine Bus Museum is part of the Delaine Heritage Trust, a registered charity, with the trustees all being from the Delaine-Smith family. So in the extremely unlikely event of the excellent Delaine Buses being sold to a German investment bank, the old buses and all the memorabilia would remain with the Delaine-Smiths. It's a sad fact of life that Stagecoach are selling off these old buses as they are on the balance sheet, but that is the way of the modern world

 

[WibbleWobble]

To put this into some context, do First/ Arriva/ National Express/ Go Ahead have any/many preserved vehicles?

Go Ahead do - four at Plymouth, three at Go South Coast and two at East Yorkshire.

I believe First have some up at Aberdeen, and didn't they recently take two classic coaches on at Truronian?

 

[Simon75]

First Potteries do store some preserved bus on behalf of the local preservation society

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Go Ahead do - four at Plymouth, three at Go South Coast and two at East Yorkshire.

I believe First have some up at Aberdeen, and didn't they recently take two classic coaches on at Truronian?

First have a few that are up in Aberdeen - think there's something really old, a Daimler CVG, a couple of Atlanteans, then something like a Leopard, an ex Hong Kong Dart, and then an early Barbie low floor like a Scania Floline? The classic coaches aren't owned AFAIK but have First Group IDs for cost centre purposes, and there is an Olympian open topper with Truronian too.

The challenge is that I think enthusiasts (who will naturally inhabit this site) see the value of preserved buses. However, I doubt few ever cover anything like their costs if they are used. Again, they perhaps turn up at bus rallies and open days, and again this is largely beneficial for enthusiasts. What benefit does the average punter get from these vehicles being retained (and it's the average punter that operators concern themselves about most). The hackneyed cliche is that an accountant knows the price of everything and value of nothing and yet, it is difficult to see exactly what benefit they do bring. Goodwill? From whom? Are passenger figures going to be adversely impacted by the loss of goodwill? I was certainly surprised to see the numbers of vehicles we're talking about here.

I wouldn't wish to see vehicles like the old Southdown Titan or even the newer ex-Portsmouth machine being endangered in any way. For these really significant vehicles, you would hope that some charitable bequest or discounted sale of those would be the way forward.

To be absolutely honest, this is perhaps the most noticeable "cost saving". However, it's really not where I'm concerned. I'd be more bothered the dead hand of centralisation (encompassing marketing and ops). The confused and uninspiring marketing includes the mandated move from printed marketing materials (with a few exceptions) and the closure of enquiry offices most visibly but there's been an overall decline in publicity, even online. Added to that is the deteriorating fleet age profile, and that's all gone on before the sale!! With the new owners demanding a return on their investment, be concerned about more stuff like sale and leasebacks on property, or outright property disposals, as well as continued pruning of the networks.

 

[bussnapperwm]

To put this into some context, do First/ Arriva/ National Express/ Go Ahead have any/many preserved vehicles?

National Express has a small heritage fleet which they use for hire / rallies (one was also used as extra space as a canteen during COVID.)

Vehicles include MOF225 and D957NDA

 

[MotCO]

On the London Buses discussion thread, it has been announced that the Arriva London heritage fleet, including RM2217, will be disbanded.

London Buses Discussion

So, a quick trip to Victoria earlier and the 185 is indeed now starting at stop E in terminus Place. Makes sense I suppose as it gives a common stop nearer to the station for buses heading south to Vauxhall. The other route I couldn't remember that terminates in Terminus Place is the 13. Where...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[Titfield]

To be absolutely honest, this is perhaps the most noticeable "cost saving". However, it's really not where I'm concerned. I'd be more bothered the dead hand of centralisation (encompassing marketing and ops). The confused and uninspiring marketing includes the mandated move from printed marketing materials (with a few exceptions) and the closure of enquiry offices most visibly but there's been an overall decline in publicity, even online. Added to that is the deteriorating fleet age profile, and that's all gone on before the sale!! With the new owners demanding a return on their investment, be concerned about more stuff like sale and leasebacks on property, or outright property disposals, as well as continued pruning of the networks.

A bit OT but to just comment about printed marketing materials. I think a couple of the issues which have arisen of the past few years are:
(1) As the number of Public libraries, Tourist Information Centres, Bus Enquiry Offices (and similar) have declined so actually getting the hard copy timetables on display and thus into the hands of the public has become more and more difficult.
(2) As the number being distributed (whether by customer demand or by the issues in (1) above) so the print runs have been reduced. One of the problems then becomes is that the cost per timetable can increase and you get into a sort of spiral where they become less cost effective and so the money allocated to print goes down and thus fewer are printed and so on.
(3) When times are tough one of the first casualties is the marketing budget!

 

[Vespa]

Arriva usually have a good relationship with North West bus preservation movement and indeed have repainted some their modern buses in heritage colour schemes from Merseybus and Crossville.

Very interesting to see.

Perhaps instead of getting rid, it could be kept together by a separate trust run by volunteers with Stagecoach garage support.

 

[Eyersey468]

To put this into some context, do First/ Arriva/ National Express/ Go Ahead have any/many preserved vehicles?

First here in South Yorkshire are pretty good at painting midlife machines in “retro” liveries, but I think that any actually “vintage” vehicles are in the hands of local preservation groups/ museums etc

Whereas I don’t think Stagecoach have had many “retro” liveries in recent years in these parts (other than one Yorkshire Traction one?) but seem to have more buses preserved mainly?

In answer to this I know of 3 heritage vehicles within Go Ahead and no doubt there are others, CDL 899, the Bristol K5 at Southern Vectis and East Yorkshire's Leyland PD2 and AEC Regent V, the latter being a Beverley Bar bus

 

[Titfield]

I think that one of the key factors in the retention and use of heritage vehicles is that there has been involvement and / or strong support by one or more directors or senior managers fighting the cause.

If that support has been diminished (the director or senior manager moving on or retiring for example) then "the mood changes" to the point that another director or other senior manager says why are we bothering with this? If support diminishes to the point of apathy then the outcome is inevitable.

 

[Busaholic]

I think that one of the key factors in the retention and use of heritage vehicles is that there has been involvement and / or strong support by one or more directors or senior managers fighting the cause.

If that support has been diminished (the director or senior manager moving on or retiring for example) then "the mood changes" to the point that another director or other senior manager says why are we bothering with this? If support diminishes to the point of apathy then the outcome is inevitable.

I regret to say I think you're absolutely right.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Perhaps instead of getting rid, it could be kept together by a separate trust run by volunteers with Stagecoach garage support.

Depends on the vehicles. Vehicles such as the old Southdown Titan, or even the Dennis Dart, have relatively little actual value outside of being a museum item so hence bequeathing these to a charitable trust or museum would be a more palatable outcome.

However, when you have a number of Routemasters or even some of the other half-cabs, they DO have a value on the open market. I'd have few qualms about the RMLs being sold but would be sad to see something like the ex Pompey Titan sold and exported.

I think that one of the key factors in the retention and use of heritage vehicles is that there has been involvement and / or strong support by one or more directors or senior managers fighting the cause.

If that support has been diminished (the director or senior manager moving on or retiring for example) then "the mood changes" to the point that another director or other senior manager says why are we bothering with this? If support diminishes to the point of apathy then the outcome is inevitable.

Many bus company managers are extremely supportive of bus enthusiasts and the fraternity, and are often part of the gang anyway. Interesting that James Freeman was less involved in that at First despite his King Alfred involvement.

However, at the end of the day, managers are invariably judged on performance - financial, operational, compliance etc - and some preserved buses seldom contribute positively to those performance measures.

 

[Leyland Bus]

The buses are being sold on a bidding format with formal bids to be in by the last day of the month, so probably not long to see what goes where.

Does anyone have a full list of all the Stagecoach heritage vehicles?

 

[overthewater]

Has any details come out if buyers were interested in them?

 

[heathrowrail]

Goes to show how wonderful Stagecoach really is and the lack of respect the new brooms have for the business they lead now. Wasn't the 1929 Titan at Amberley? Shouldn't be too hard to 'donate' the bus to them to secure it's future. The two newest vehicles on that list - the first service buses the group bought new post privatisation. Wouldn't cost a great deal to keep those vehicles going....

Bus companies are burning through money right now sadly and as we've seen in Bournemouth & Southampton it's quite cut throat. Having expensive heritage vehicles are great when times are good but right now we are back in early 80's territory, savings need to be made.

 

[M803UYA]

Bus companies are burning through money right now sadly and as we've seen in Bournemouth & Southampton it's quite cut throat. Having expensive heritage vehicles are great when times are good but right now we are back in early 80's territory, savings need to be made.

You're looking at vehicles which barely get to 5 figures (£00,000) in value on the open market. Some might be worth £25,000. The Routemasters twice that.
There'd be a cost associated with regular maintenance inspections and MOTs - but those are fixed depot costs split amongst a vehicle allocation. You could argue that the depot overheads increase from having fewer vehicles bearing those costs. So I wouldn't say those vehicles are 'expensive' compared to a modern vehicle.

As someone who worked in Bournemouth (and was the last person to be in the team which made a profit in 2014 at the recently demised company in question) I must have forgotten the competitive nature of the operations we were running. We did well until the new Managing Director (the then finance director promoted in 2014) started interfering in things he didn't understand. Turns out he didn't understand finance either, which for an accountant is poor form......!

 

[Tom Gallacher]

You're looking at vehicles which barely get to 5 figures (£00,000) in value on the open market. Some might be worth £25,000. The Routemasters twice that.
There'd be a cost associated with regular maintenance inspections and MOTs - but those are fixed depot costs split amongst a vehicle allocation. You could argue that the depot overheads increase from having fewer vehicles bearing those costs. So I wouldn't say those vehicles are 'expensive' compared to a modern vehicle.

As someone who worked in Bournemouth (and was the last person to be in the team which made a profit in 2014 at the recently demised company in question) I must have forgotten the competitive nature of the operations we were running. We did well until the new Managing Director (the then finance director promoted in 2014) started interfering in things he didn't understand. Turns out he didn't understand finance either, which for an accountant is poor form......!

From my, long, experience in the transport game as soon as an accountant becomes MD it's the beginning of a slippery slope. Never works out well.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

You're looking at vehicles which barely get to 5 figures (£00,000) in value on the open market. Some might be worth £25,000. The Routemasters twice that.
There'd be a cost associated with regular maintenance inspections and MOTs - but those are fixed depot costs split amongst a vehicle allocation. You could argue that the depot overheads increase from having fewer vehicles bearing those costs. So I wouldn't say those vehicles are 'expensive' compared to a modern vehicle.

As someone who worked in Bournemouth (and was the last person to be in the team which made a profit in 2014 at the recently demised company in question) I must have forgotten the competitive nature of the operations we were running. We did well until the new Managing Director (the then finance director promoted in 2014) started interfering in things he didn't understand. Turns out he didn't understand finance either, which for an accountant is poor form......!

The view I raised before is aligned with yours - some of those (like the Southdown Titan, or the first Dart) really have little realisable value so they could and should be bequeathed to museums and/or charitable trusts. Even better if Stagecoach then permitted storage in depots on a peppercorn rent basis. The Routemasters, of which there are plenty in preservation, DO have a value and they probably could be sold, and that's less contentious. Perhaps sad to see them converted into a travelling coffee bar or a sales stand or whatever but there's enough of those around as it is. EDIT: see on the Routemaster4Hire thread that, indeed, they are on for £45k and £60k for two of their examples.

You may indeed look to spread overheads over more vehicles but if those vehicles are nothing more than a cost (i.e. they don't provide a revenue stream), then it really doesn't matter. As I said earlier in this thread, it's really easy to quantify the costs associated with these vehicles. Less easy is the benefit. Take the two Eastbourne vehicles - aside from rolling up to some bus rallies, what do they actually do in terms of benefiting Stagecoach?

From my, long, experience in the transport game as soon as an accountant becomes MD it's the beginning of a slippery slope. Never works out well.

Moir Lockhead was a busman (with an engineering background) whilst Brian Souter was an accountant so not an exact rule.

 

[heathrowrail]

You're looking at vehicles which barely get to 5 figures (£00,000) in value on the open market. Some might be worth £25,000. The Routemasters twice that.
There'd be a cost associated with regular maintenance inspections and MOTs - but those are fixed depot costs split amongst a vehicle allocation. You could argue that the depot overheads increase from having fewer vehicles bearing those costs. So I wouldn't say those vehicles are 'expensive' compared to a modern vehicle.

As someone who worked in Bournemouth (and was the last person to be in the team which made a profit in 2014 at the recently demised company in question) I must have forgotten the competitive nature of the operations we were running. We did well until the new Managing Director (the then finance director promoted in 2014) started interfering in things he didn't understand. Turns out he didn't understand finance either, which for an accountant is poor form......!

Which vehicles barely get to 5 figures? Atlantean? Leyland PD2? That's not even the point I was making, the point is finding the spares to keep them roadworthy, the additional maintenance, resources to maintain them away from the main fleet, tax, insurance for them etc it all adds up. You might be able to use the excuse with Yellow Buses but it doesn't add up with CityReds does it?

 

[Danfilm007]

On a slight tangent - from where I used to live, Routemaster Buses in Nantwich used to have a roaring trade with their older vehicle collection before they entered the fray of public services (and GHA...) - does anyone know what happened to their heritage collection, as IIRC it was under the same legal entity as the PSVs?

 

[M803UYA]

Which vehicles barely get to 5 figures? Atlantean? Leyland PD2? That's not even the point I was making, the point is finding the spares to keep them roadworthy, the additional maintenance, resources to maintain them away from the main fleet, tax, insurance for them etc it all adds up.

May help to clarify the point you're looking to make?. As for the second point, covered that in my post.

 

[Falcon1200]

To put this into some context, do First/ Arriva/ National Express/ Go Ahead have any/many preserved vehicles?

Oxford Bus Company, part of the Go Ahead group, do not appear to have any heritage vehicles, however Oxford's bus history is kept very much alive by the excellent Oxford Bus Museum at Hanborough.

 

[MotCO]

Oxford Bus Company, part of the Go Ahead group, do not appear to have any heritage vehicles, however Oxford's bus history is kept very much alive by the excellent Oxford Bus Museum at Hanborough.

Likewise, the Bromley Bus Preservation Group have a large number of former Metrobus (and Stagecoach, Metroline, etc) buses in preservation.

 

[A0]

Oxford Bus Company, part of the Go Ahead group, do not appear to have any heritage vehicles, however Oxford's bus history is kept very much alive by the excellent Oxford Bus Museum at Hanborough.

The reality is even back to NBC days there were some fleets which had some 'heritage' vehicles and others which didn't.

Sometimes the last of a vehicle type became adopted as a depot 'pet' or was restored by apprentices or others as part of their training - but even then a depot 'pet' could easily become neglected.

TBF to Stagecoach, I do understand their selling off the 'heritage' fleet. Increasingly the ability to use such vehicles is limited - indeed the number of drivers familiar with driving them is probably much smaller than it once was - how many of Stagecoach's drivers are going to be familiar with driving a crash-box vehicle for example ? And that's before you get to the issue of where and how you can use such vehicles - if your depot is in an LEZ for example, you run the risk of charges just for taking it out - at which point you have to ask, what's the point ?

 

[M803UYA]

Oxford Bus Company, part of the Go Ahead group, do not appear to have any heritage vehicles, however Oxford's bus history is kept very much alive by the excellent Oxford Bus Museum at Hanborough.

When I worked at Stagecoach - the justification for the heritage stock was that they were available to enthusiastic depot staff to take to bus rallies. The Engineering Director was open about not letting 'normal' service vehicles attend rallies as his view was that buses were for operating on services carrying paying passengers. So, should a vehicle break down on way/coming back from a bus rally then that affected the bus service output for the following day(s) by reducing the vehicle establishment by one vehicle.

Other Stagecoach operating companies didn't do this - so really down to the whims of the Engineering Director whether or not vehicles attended rallies. This was also why the company I worked at didn't undertake pre-planned Railway Replacement work on Sundays - same issue on a Monday. So rail jobs where I lived were a sort of clapped out bus running event of small operators using MCW Metrobuses, Leyland Olympians and a batch of Southdown Northern Counties Volvo Citybuses.

This 'don't send normal buses to rallies' was a view expressed at another company I worked at later on, though they did send vehicles to a bus rally in the same town and whilst they didn't organise it, they weren't shy about promoting it.

 

[Tetchytyke]

You're looking at vehicles which barely get to 5 figures (£00,000) in value on the open market. Some might be worth £25,000. The Routemasters twice that.
There'd be a cost associated with regular maintenance inspections and MOTs - but those are fixed depot costs split amongst a vehicle allocation. You could argue that the depot overheads increase from having fewer vehicles bearing those costs. So I wouldn't say those vehicles are 'expensive' compared to a modern vehicle.

The older the bus, the less plentiful the spares will be. The less plentiful the spares are, the more expensive the maintenance.

In general though I'd agree that having a few heritage buses isn't *that* expensive, but if these vehicles don't bring in any revenue then they're a drag on the business.

Most of the heritage fleet will have been depreciated long ago, too, and that means any proceeds from sales will count as profit. So its easy to see why it's tempting to sell.

I'd agree with @TheGrandWazoo that donating the sentimental buses and selling the ubiquitous Routemasters is probably the best course of action.

It's sad Stagecoach don't have room for a bit of sentimentality though. It's nice to see when companies do, like M&S keeping their "original" market stall in Newcastle Grainger Market.

 

[Man of Kent]

if your depot is in an LEZ for example, you run the risk of charges just for taking it out

Vehicles over 40 years old (most but not all of those concerned) are exempted from all LEZs by national legislation.