WLTM Transport Blog: May 2013

30/05/2013

Heathrow7Series New Hybrid Buses 28/04/13

I have had said we'd cover non-London. And we have. The Heathrow 7series have gained new Volvo 7900 hybrids (integral), and Lewis and I went on 28/04/13 to cover them.

First Berkshire VSH69929 on Route 75, Heathrow Central

Rear nearside stickers.

Slough/Heathrow 7series

First Berkshire VSH69923 on Route 75, Slough Town Centre

First VSH69923 on Route 75, Slough

Roof pod detailing

VSH69923 on Route 75

Rear view

First Berkshire VSH69922 on Route 75, Slough

First VSH69922 on Route 75, Slough

First VSH69927 in depot

VSH69929 in depot.

First VSH69923 on Route 75, Slough

VSH69923 on stand at Slough Bus Station

Side LED display detail

Interior of VSH69923

First VSH69923 on Route 75, Heathrow Central

I had to, didn't I, with that angle.
First Berkshire VSH69923 on Route 75, Heathrow Central

29/05/2013

Workings on Route 9, 10, 49 25/05/13

These workings are non-allocated. I went out to get an ADH on the 9, which is rare at the moment. And I also got the non-allocated SP on the 9, ADH on the 10 and SLE on the 49:

London United ADH28 on Route 9, Hammersmith

Side blind 9 Aldwych

London United ADH28 on Route 9, Kensington

ADH28 rear

London United SP149 on Route 9, Kensington High Street

London United SLE44 on Route 49, Kensington High Street

London United ADH30 on Route 10, Kensington High Street

London United ADH28 on Route 9, Kensington High Street

Side Blind 9 Hammersmith

London United SP182 (V60) and ADH28 (V61) on Route 9, Hammersmith

London United ADH28 on Route 9, resting at Hammersmith.

26/05/2013

Temporary Bus Route 573 20/04/13

During more Crossrail works, Routes 473 and 474 are affected. 473 is curtailed to London City Airport, 474 is on diversion. This means a new temporary route 573 is made, looping London City Airport-North Woolwich Ferry-London City Airport. This is operated by Go-Ahead Docklands Buses using LDP buses from ex-219(?).

Small poster complete with line map about the works

Route 573 timetable from London City Airport

London City Airport bus stop

573 to North Woolwich iBus

573 to London City Airport iBus

Go-Ahead LDP192 on Route 573, London City Airport

Note how the via and destinations are the same...

Go-Ahead LDP192 rear.

Go-Ahead LDP191 on Route 573, London City Airport

Go-Ahead LDP195 on Route 573, London City Airport

And the affected 473/474:

Stagecoach 17891 on Route 473, City Airport (on stand)

Go-Ahead WVL432 on Route 474, City Airport

Route 473 timetable with 573 note.

And some pictures from before the change (taken on 05/04/13):

Stagecoach 18252 on Route 473, North Woolwich

The 473 bus stop already having the 573 sticker

Stagecoach 18274 on Route 473, North Woolwich

22/05/2013

Random Picture of the Month 6 (May)

Whilst I will now mainly post on the West London Bus Blog, I will continue to do these small posts on here.

This month saw YT11LSD pass from Stagecoach's Plumstead garage in Plumstead to Transdev's Edgware garage in Edgware. The bus was first seen in service on Monday 20th, and I simply couldn't miss the opportunity to photograph it.

YT11LSD on route 114 at Ruislip Station

Ruislip Station is the home to the photograph above, undergoing some work to the bus stands on the left. Buses now use the original stop area to stand, and pick up the first passengers from a temporary stand outside the Station Approach area.

YT11LSC and YT11LSD (and YT11LSE for outer-London services) were introduced by Scania whilst the company gradually started taking back all the N230UD chassis buses to undergo changes. YT11LSC was first introduced with London United (numbered SC01), but has now passed to Stagecoach (numbered 80021). YT11LSD was first introduced with Metrobus (numbered 979). then passed to CT Plus (where it was uncoded) and finally Stagecoach (numbered 80019).

The bus had some problems today, mainly with setting the smartblind. The system has not been reprogrammed since gaining new blinds, so in order to set a certain destination and route, you have to put in a completely different destination and route!
To Display '114 Ruislip', you have to set '99 Woolwich' into the smartblind.
To Display '114 Mill Hill Bdy' you have to set '99 Erith' into the smartblind.

As the small notice telling the driver about this strange system only displayed how to set the system with 114 displays, I am assuming that the bus will be allocated to route 114 for it's time at Edgware.

Finally, the bus has been coded 'YT11'. This code obviously stems from the numberplate, although why they didn't code it anything remotely related to 'Scania' or 'SP' does befuddle me.

Thanks for reading the post!

20/05/2013

My Picture Archive Post 11

London United ADH1 on Route H91, Hammersmith, 15/11/11

Ah, the ADH. Enviro 400H. Featured here, again. ADH1 is the first Enviro 400H for London United, at that time, part of the Transdev Group. It initally went into service in 2009 for the Route 482. However, someone had finally realised it should be on the H91, so after shuttling from Southall* to Heathrow Terminal 5, it now shuttles between Hounslow West and Hammersmith. It has then since moved from HH to S* for the 94, and now moved to the 27 at V, joining other ADHs to make 27 the first fully hybrid route by allocation (16 still has allocated TEs, but rarely has many of them) (27N (well, N27) doesn't count with this).

Route H91 is the western offspring of the old 91 (Hounslow West-Wandsworth, now H91/391). It has gone back to using double deckers due to loadings. The 91 lost its Sunday service back in the 1950s, and the H91 only gained a Sunday service in the 2000s. H91 also has been home to the Dennis Lance SLF (I like them), or LLWs. These were "too small" for the 120, so they moved to Hounslow Heath for the H91. They moved to Stamford Brook with the route when it did and were finally withdrawn unfortunately in 2004 (or finally, depending on viewpoint). Now it has double deckers (SPs), due to capacity issues with single deckers, as experienced by me (Au).

Footnote: A few recent changes have also occured - since Jacob has decided to leave the West London Bus Blog to prioritise other things, Lewis will continue to post there and not here. However, Lewis will continue to support the blog and his images will still appear here occasionally, which is a good thing!

17/05/2013

Routes 29, 121, 144, 329 05/04/13

Bus shuffling. 121st post. And we are covering the 121. Nice :)
But the post is one month late. Due to A LOT of circumstances. As was seen earlier in the 120th post.
The easiest place to cover all this was Wood Green-Turnpike Lane Stations.

Simply as it follows, mainly for type standardisation:
Route 121 have new buses (DW), replacing DLAs (part of new contract)
Route 144 will get some older DWs, replacing Ts (standard type in WN)
Route 329 will get the ex-144 Ts, replacing DLPs (standard type in AD)
Route 29 just gets the DWs that are new for the 144 at times.