Metal Mickey
Member
It’s very unlikely that individual depots will get to decide which buses are ordered or transferred from elsewhere for each route.
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First Greater Glasgow
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If anything out of the ordinary randomly tracks on the 2 you can assume it has been done on accident as I believe this is the first route on the list when putting a duty into the TM. Which is why you see so many trainer vehicles do it from time to time
handandy67
Member
this is the list of repowers and former fleet numbers coming to Glasgow ,71031,32,34,37 are showing on Bus times
| 71031 | CMZ 5331 | Ex | 35111 | SO 15 CUU |
| 71032 | WYY 752 | Ex | 35184 | SK 16 GVE |
| 71033 | HIG 1733 | Ex | 35166 | SK 65 PWN |
| 71034 | MIG 9614 | Ex | 35158 | SN 65 OKK |
| 71035 | MXZ 3345 | Ex | 35156 | SN 65 OKH |
| 71036 | MIG 6069 | Ex | 35149 | SN 65 OMT |
| 71037 | PSU 627 | Ex | 35183 | SK 16 GVD |
TheGrandWazoo
Veteran Member
The private reg WYY752 appears again.
Was originally on a DAF coach (that may have ended up with First) but then on a former Badgerline B10M, then a Bath B7TL, a Weymouth open topper and now a Streetdeck repower.
Via Durbins. The B10 gained blue/white and the plate, and then stayed at First post offload of First Durbins. The plate briefly moonlighted on a D10M too, amazing First have hung onto that for so long.
There’s a couple of ex FDC plates reappearing in there too.
TheGrandWazoo
Veteran Member
That makes sense. There is a single photo of it on a D10M on flickr but not in service. Whilst I've not travelled on a repower yet, at least they're retrimming them so they look like a new vehicle (even if we know better).
They moved two SN66 E400MMCs (33431 & 33434) over to Blantyre after some of the Streetdecks arrived into service at Caley, so IDK.
JumpinTrainz
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Pure speculation but I assumed once a new order was announced they would push some of the current E400EVs out into Lanarkshire.
Going by the recent airport order and repowers - I’m guessing Glasgow will opt for Wright over Yutong?
Going by the recent airport order and repowers - I’m guessing Glasgow will opt for Wright over Yutong?
Cascading is no longer that easy. For the ADL/BYD buses, there were 80 dual gun chargers (for up to 160 Buses) installed in Caledonia. This involved 3 11kV substations, and Scottish Power constructing a new 33/11kV substation within the bus depot (this is owned by SPEN so is not entirely dedicated to the bus depot). For the airport Electroliners a further 11 charging points have been installed of varying capacity, but 3 of them are 360kW chargers, and 2 others dual gun so allows up to 13 buses to be charged. AFAIK there are only 11 airport buses, and currently 5 repowers, so they may be working chargers harder. For reference BYD E200EVs for M3 I believe use AC chargers so they are separate and specific to these buses. Don't know how the two demonstrators are set-up, most likely standard CCS DC chargers.
The charger layouts and electrical supply were based on specific bus types (length and battery re-charge time), so moving buses around is more involved now.
That being said, for First to meet their targets, charging will be needed everywhere so cascading EVs is still going to happen.
JumpinTrainz
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I’ve heard whispers Blantyre is being wired just now or is in the process of being?
I imagine this is something that will need to be developed over time as no more diesel buses are being bought and this has been the case since 2019 for Glasgow.
Dfatcontroller
Member
71034, 71035 & 71037 all seen today in service.
33431-35 are all at Blantyre now. My prediction is that they’ll be replacing the SN65 plates there once Caledonia has all the Streetdecks in service.
Metal Mickey
Member
Why would they do that?
jazza374
Member
They are there due to a straight swap. E300’s 67875, 67877, 67884, 67891 and 67894 have gone to Caledonia. Either Blantyre needed more deckers or Caledonia needed more singles. Suspect it’s Blantyre that needed deckers given 37204 and 37272 have also gone to Blantyre.
Can’t imagine the SN65 batch are going anywhere given how short of buses FIG are at the moment.
On topic of the bus shortage, the ex London E200’s have terrible reliability. 7 out of the batch have been off the road for at least a week and since June/July in some cases.
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According to a few people, we are now due 29 total Repowers. I assume this will be the start of a Gemini purge, but only once it is clear that the fleet availability is stable enough for that.
I had 71036 out on the X3 yesterday, and I can't think of much positive to say about it, which is a shame for a bus that is technically brand new. They seem to be sticking to the X3 and 38s just now but that will not be the norm as I know they are authorised for most routes at this stage.
I had 71036 out on the X3 yesterday, and I can't think of much positive to say about it, which is a shame for a bus that is technically brand new. They seem to be sticking to the X3 and 38s just now but that will not be the norm as I know they are authorised for most routes at this stage.
Noticed this year Blantyre has more streetlites out in 267 and 201. Deckers would be welcome.
I agree.
I had 71034 on my 38 home tonight. Honestly, where do I start. For technically brand new, I found the interior to be fairly dated with hard non leather seats, the old colour scheme very prominent, the windows and seats rattled and shook with every bump and the engine really struggled to get out of its gear - spurts of acceleration followed by slow driving - and I felt I was forced back into my seat every time we accelerated. I have only experienced worse ride quality on the New York Subway. Myself and other passengers found the staircase too steep and narrower than usual too.
I know of the issues at Alexander Dennis and particularly the Scottish plants but is this seriously the best Wright can do?!
I have included a couple of photos I took of the interior.
Attachments
Scotrail88
Member
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I am confused about the getting out of gear as it’s an EV with no gears.
Sounds like a driver issue with it which can be understandable given only in service few days
AndrewTaylor95
Member
The bus is almost 10 years old with the interior refurbished
Can't say I drove my one on Thursday very well either. You certainly can get it to pull away smoothly with some practice but when you go onto it after 5 hours with an MMC it will be a real struggle.
Maybe so, but I just didn’t particularly feel much expense had been spared especially with the old blue and pink safety stickers still in situ albeit very worn away.
Could possibly be the the driving but doesn’t take away from the fact that the engine sounded under immense strain, nor the fact that the ride quality as a passenger was horrendous with the acceleration thrusting you back into your seat and level of vibrations that would surely be on the Richter scale.
I was on a Enviro400 MMC this morning on another 38 which was much better. Nowhere near as much rattling and no vibrations at all. Also because it had leather seats, it was much more comfortable.
ScotRail158725
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a seat retrim and refurb are two different things
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Its an electric bus there is no engine or gears.
Its not technically brand new people need to get it out their head that its not a new bus its a 10 year old mid life streetdeck with a repowered drive system and seat retrim
From my observations on what I understand to be materially very similar Gemini 3s of 2017/2018 vintage (aka the REALLY bad build quality years) the issue is the top of staircase surround upstairs being attached to the side of the bus at one end, and to the ceiling by a single pole at the opposite side. It shoogles all over the place and the large removable panel that's part of it just makes the soundtrack worse as you've got a panel rattling along with all the flexing.
Busman84
Member
Really shocking compared to the previous Gemini/Gemini 2 which would have no rattles especially on the upper deck with the oldest over 18 years old and still solid.
These could possibly be the worst deckers that Glasgow has had certainly for the build quality side of things.
These could possibly be the worst deckers that Glasgow has had certainly for the build quality side of things.
Metal Mickey
Member
A lot of the B7TL Geminis rattled although the 07 plates which were transferred down south in 2018/19 weren’t quite as bad.
JumpinTrainz
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Could this be that when the repowers were originally built that the build quality was just bad. How do the newer Electroliners hold up? I have heard good things.
The airport Electroliners are brilliant.
Maybe they can be the successor to the famous Glasgow Subway trains which, according to some people, don’t shoogle like the old ones!
For anybody wondering what shoogle means:
Verb: to shake or to wobble
In a sentence: “Jist gie it a wee shoogle and it’ll come loose.”
In English: “Just give it a small shake and it’ll come loose.”
Thank you for the translation that I should have included