Fairly rare now. They appeared quite a bit on Sundays after the Hydroliners were first in service but even that seems to be rare now.
Sunday is usually re fuel day, they get the hydrogen delivery on the Sunday
Notable exception being when the Quarry and Redhill lines are shut north of Gatwick (one weekend per year, I believe) and Metrobus are involved in the associated rail replacement work, I take it. It would explain why GB Kite Hydroliners aplenty still covered routes 10/20 last time I visited Crawley on a Sunday.
They fuel for a whole week in one go? That's some mileage between fuelling if so.
No, the tanks in garage get filled up on Sundays hence the lack of them out
Interesting that there is no route information on this one, unlike the 12
It is possible that the livery is unfinished and they are yet to add the route information to the branding. There is plenty of blank space where it could go. Or alternatively maybe they have avoided route branding in case the 28 and 29 get changed again.
Actually love that livery. Much more toned down from the previous one.
As it happens, I paid a visit to Brighton yesterday, I didn't think the current Regency livery was that great (a bit sombre IMO) - the new livery looks quite smart (maybe there will be additional route branding vinyls?). Its always interesting to visit a fleet when the livery is in transition, you can compare and contrast. I actually quite like the new B&H livery - nice, bright and vibrant.
but Bh4 Regency (but if you mean the full purple livery you have a point but that's only been used for 3-ish years) and the previous coaster livery are just variations of the past Bh4 livery, just with different colours
For me I think having Coaster/Regency as almost a completely stand-alone brand works well, even if it's not a variation of the standard livery, but what hasn't worked for the last 3+ years is that any impact is lost as they've been running so many liveries together (especially as they gave up on rolling out the new Regency livery). But what I do like is that both the Coaster and Regency are now a variation on each other's theme, so compliment each other nicely as independent route liveries - should look great in places like Eastbourne where they run together.but Bh4 Regency (but if you mean the full purple livery you have a point but that's only been used for 3-ish years) and the previous coaster livery are just variations of the past Bh4 livery, just with different colours
Didn't they just do the exact same sort of thing with the new livery? They also disconnected quite from the normal livery compared to the below: https://www.flickr.com/photos/27204054@N07/48264228132
are the old liveries, they have a connection in design and resemble the same company.
https://history.buses.co.uk/history/fleethist/images/adl766.jpg and https://www.flickr.com/photos/94467101@N02/53887176693/in/pool-2885346@N20/ are very similar and you have a point there that they are variants of each other but they absolutely cannot be associated with the new standard bh5 livery: https://www.flickr.com/photos/94467101@N02/54569226205/in/pool-2885346@N20/
I personally think they did a better job connecting the coaster/regency brandings to the standard livery back then. (Also why did they change the Regency logo, looks a bit oversimplified and doesn't feel very "Regency" )
*Photos are NOT mine
I wonder when all the buses in Brighton are going to be in the new livery? When are they going to repaint the dual door streetdeck, especially the low height ones?
At the end of the day, will the new livery / liveries attract more passengers?
Perhaps, but it might make things more confusing like how there's gonna be temporarily 3 Regency liveries since the new Regency buses enter service. And the fact that there is currently 3 liveries that could be used for anything and can be mixed up in routes like cream and red, turquoise and teal and the live & breath/ above & beyond liveries. The vibrancy of the colours may attract passengers but the confusion between buses and the inconsistency of bus liveries may lead the passengers away.
To be honest I think the fleet will be a bit boring in the future with almost every corner of Brighton having either a streetdeck or enviro400mmc as Brighton & Hove are definitely going to sell all of not most of the gemini 2s like they did with the omnidekkas, which is a shame as I liked the variety in Brighton back then.
Why would they sell them, when they could move them to Crawley and and perhaps more importantly they still need a large number of them until the Electrics.
Yeah completely appreciate that. I always liked how B&H had different buses for different routes. As a user I always liked having the Geminis on the Regency route (it provides a really consistent experience as a passenger), but in Brighton like you say there was always a huge mix of buses converging so in that respect we always had the best of both worlds; consistency (on routes) but a broad selection of buses across the fleet.
*Oops, forgot that Metrobus is technically Brighton & Hove, but it does feel like another company since the buses loses its name, kind of losing its uniqueness.
I wouldn't say that Crawley has enough famous/notable people to name a bus after, whereas Brighton is a city so. Unless you did the whole Metrobus network
Couldn't there be people that are from Gatwick, Worthing, East Grinstead, horsham, Tunbridge Wells, a bit of Brighton and also commemorated drivers that could be named on buses? Metrobus does serve a lot of areas apart from Crawley.
They could name one after 'Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells'
XD, Also Crawley is voted as one of the ten most depressing towns in the UK so "depression in Crawley" (sorry anyone from Crawley)
