Metroline Egyptians

In 2017 Metroline ordered 66 new vehicles for new contract on the 30, 31/N31 and 274. Towards the end of the year it was announced that the contract with Wrightbus had ended and instead a new Volvo contract was negotiated with MCV, the body in production being the eVoSeti. Examples of which in London can also be found with Go-Ahead and Tower Transit as well as with provincial operators outside of London.


Route 30
On Saturday 23rd June, the 30 passed from Tower Transit control (at Lea Interchange, LI) to Metroline at King's Cross (KC), using 25 brand new B5LH Volvo eVoSetis classed VMH.

VMH2468 at Warren Street heading west towards Marble Arch.
© Tommy Cooling
https://www.flickr.com/photos/127662272@N07/41196314630/in/dateposted/

VMH2479 at Marble Arch.
© Tommy Cooling
https://www.flickr.com/photos/127662272@N07/28261358817/in/photostream/



VMH2469 at Warren Street heading east towards Hackney Wick.
© Tommy Cooling
https://www.flickr.com/photos/127662272@N07/42436833754/in/photostream/

Route 274
On the same date as the 30, the 274's new contract also began, a Metroline retention. The award with deckers was the main surprise announcement from the electric single deck tender award last summer, but also suffering a drop in frequency as a result of the increased capacity. In true ironic fashion however, despite having over one year to prepare for decking a single deck route, offending trees in the vicinity of London Zoo that had previously prohibited double decks on the 274, had still been untouched with days before the conversion.

Normal fashion would be that previous workings would continue to be applied until the new deckers were allowed to run in service. However, with the 30 starting at King's Cross on the same day, using space originally part held by the 274 (before the frequency cut), and some former 274 drivers were also now used on the 30. So passengers have instead had to suffer with the same capacity restricting single decks, and a reduced frequency just when summer arrived. So much so that TfL have had to implement a very short term temporary 274 supplement service on the 274 using deckers spare from the 30s weekday allocation to provide extra capacity between Marble Arch and London Zoo at weekends only until the tree situation has been resolved.

VMH2462 working a temporary weekend only supplement service between Marble Arch and London Zoo.
© Tommy Cooling
https://www.flickr.com/photos/127662272@N07/28261358797/in/photostream/

Post by Tommy Cooling
Some of these images and more can be found on my Flickr page:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/127662272@N07/

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