I’ve heard a rumour that Lothian have ordered some new diesel buses, new single decks and new airlinks potentially. Goes against the all electric fleet but with no government grant to help purchase electrics, could this be why they might need to rethink the timeline on going fully electric. Again it’s a rumour so might be nonsense
I've heard a rumour the Airlink will be MCV B8L Tri axles, here's hoping! Probably the last new diesel buses if so.
Ideal if so. Only credible options.
The single decks could be smaller Evora’s for the ECB council routes. Else I wouldn’t think there’s a chance of anything else singles wise.
I think single deck full length BZL single decks are part of it, i'd imagine to replace the early 7900s.
I think these are all safe guesses. New Evoras (maybe 96-100?) could let 191-3 potentially even be sold off (bit of an odd idea, sure, but they are definitely a bit of an oddity in the Lothian fleet), & new BZL single deckers replacing the 13-plate 7900Hs feels somewhat reasonable. B8L Evosetis would work well in tandom with XLBs & the Evoras.
Have they gone to the Traffic commissioner? or are we looking for the 25th August at the planned date?
10th August seems a more realistic date to align with school returning, and to give enough time for the announcement and preparation of the main network change afterwhich, as that'll probably take place on the 7th or 14th September.
Definitely a bit late, but I think that if anything were to be happening in August, we’d have heard about the Traffic Commissioners getting data & that by now. Probably nothing until September now.
Are they still looking for mid August to start making minor improvements to Lothian Country services or are they getting pushed back to September?
Think it will be September at this rate, which is a shame as I feel as if they could of done it sooner.
That’s fair, though I do definitely think that it’d be better for all the changes to be done at once instead of just sprinkling them around 2 or 3 dates in around a month.
I do feel like it would make sense to open a depot in Midlothian for routes which operate there. Possibly in East Coast Buses branding which should allow them to convert some routes over to that brand. Obviously the pay issue would need to be resolved before that happened but it would free up some space at Longstone and Central.
I do think that a depot near, say, Cockpen would be a good bet. Services 3, 29, 31, 46, 48, 139, 140, & 141 could be ran from it, maybe the 37/47 too.
There was long rumours of Lothian opening a 'mega-depot' in the Queen Margaret University area to replace Marine, Seafield and Musselburgh. No idea how much truth there was to this, probably very little, but a big argument for it was the Seafield developments the council are looking at which would likely see Marine and Seafield both demolished. With new developments at QMU progressing it seems unrealistic now that there would be a depot placed there, however it would be interesting to see where Lothian would consider opening a garage to replace Marine/Seafield should they have to. Any new garage incorporating East Coast buses would be fantastic for increasing capacity with how constrained Musselburgh is.
This is exactly what I thought of when stevenedin brought up depots. I do think that there is a chance they could open up this megadepot maybe a bit across from the service station at Old Craighall.
There currently look to be buses operating a route "GX1" between Longniddry and Gullane; is this open to the public? Or do they check and let on golfers only?
it is for those travelling to the golf from Longniddry train station, and then doing the return journeys at the day goes on
I’ll also add that entry is free to anyone, you could just rock up to the temporary stops at Longniddry Station & just hop on.
