Oxford Bus Company/Thames Travel

[aswilliamsuk]

New MMCs 631, 632, 633 were all lined up on a private hire in Oxford yesterday alongside a Pearces coach.

Are Oxford getting some new coaches as I passed a two tone blue Tourismo today which looked like unbranded Airline livery. It just said ‘123 Hanover Displays’ on the front

There are 11 new Tourismos coming - 13 were ordered in total, 2 arrived earlier in the year and of the next 11, 80140 has already been seen. They wear a new, brighter blue scheme.

 

[Andyh82]

I moved on from Oxford to High Wycombe and I have to say that fleet presentation at Carousel is pretty poor

- Many buses are battle scared with replaced panels meaning fleet names half missing

- Former Oxford and Thames Travel buses are in use, still fully branded, so I managed to see Oxford Park & Ride, Oxford X1/X15, Oxford 46, Thames Travel, Didcot Connector, some of these have been kicking about for years, and others are more recent but probably will stick around

- Carousels own liveried buses seem to be allocated at random so you could have one service using a Carousel bus one trip, a Chiltern hundreds bus the next trip, a Carousel country the next trip and an Uxbridge 458 bus the next trip. Some are plain red, some are basically in Plymouth livery.

It looks to me that they have bitten off more that they can chew since taking on the expanded Carousel operation. Has the number of buses being painted increased or is it the case that whatever number they do a year was ok when it was just Oxford and Thames Travel but now falls short when they have Carousel to deal with, so everything now takes an absolute age.

 

[mickey]

I moved on from Oxford to High Wycombe and I have to say that fleet presentation at Carousel is pretty poor

- Many buses are battle scared with replaced panels meaning fleet names half missing

- Former Oxford and Thames Travel buses are in use, still fully branded, so I managed to see Oxford Park & Ride, Oxford X1/X15, Oxford 46, Thames Travel, Didcot Connector, some of these have been kicking about for years, and others are more recent but probably will stick around

- Carousels own liveried buses seem to be allocated at random so you could have one service using a Carousel bus one trip, a Chiltern hundreds bus the next trip, a Carousel country the next trip and an Uxbridge 458 bus the next trip. Some are plain red, some are basically in Plymouth livery.

It looks to me that they have bitten off more that they can chew since taking on the expanded Carousel operation. Has the number of buses being painted increased or is it the case that whatever number they do a year was ok when it was just Oxford and Thames Travel but now falls short when they have Carousel to deal with, so everything now takes an absolute age.

They’ve expanded too rapidly to keep up with presentation or design. Overall it’s a good thing, as it means they’re growing. I do think route-specific livery is a bad idea for them though, given how much interworks as standard (and even more is rolled up when inevitable traffic delays hit) - e.g. ‘country’ is fine for the 37 but then doesn’t work when it goes straight onto a town route.

The new dinky ones used in Maidenhead are pretty smart though, and seem to be kept in decent condition. The purple colour looks great.

 

[Goldfish62]

They’ve expanded too rapidly to keep up with presentation or design. Overall it’s a good thing, as it means they’re growing. I do think route-specific livery is a bad idea for them though, given how much interworks as standard (and even more is rolled up when inevitable traffic delays hit) - e.g. ‘country’ is fine for the 37 but then doesn’t work when it goes straight onto a town route.

The new dinky ones used in Maidenhead are pretty smart though, and seem to be kept in decent condition. The purple colour looks great.

The "Country" brand seems to me to be pointless and unnecessary, as well as not being as nice looking as the standard Carousel livery with correctly applied vinyls.