Arriva North West - St Helens Depot

[motormayhem]

RE: Arriva North West - St Helens Depot
The word is that when the MOTs are up on the T*** PNB darts that they wont get the MOTs renewed and will just be withdrawn from here on and thats why 2320as took the bullet as its mot is up according to form.

[V671 DVU]

RE: Arriva North West - St Helens Depot
It appears the end for all T reg's in the fleet are nigh then, St Helens have withdrew a lot of theirs whereas only 7618/9 are left at Green Lane. Not long now until the V reg Marshalls are withdrawn.

[CX54 DKD (Moderator)]

RE: Arriva North West - St Helens Depot
The T-PNBs being withdrawn tallys up with what management allegedly wanted - R, S & T single decks gone as near to the end of last year as possible.

With regards the X-regs, there's another good three years out of them yet, they're only just turning 12. Also don't forget that being from the back-end of the year, the V reg Marshalls potentially have another 8-10 months to go too. I suspect they'll start to be withdrawn upon developing costly faults as with the T reg examples though.

7622 is an odd one mind because it would potentially have another 8(ish) months in service if it weren't off the road... With replacement engines having been coming out of Darts for a while now, including 2320 according to MM, would it really be that much trouble to fit one, replace the dashboard (which is only a case of re-attaching some plugs and putting in some screws anyway) and then pulling a front panel from a withdrawn T reg example to continue to make money out of it? To potentially act as an extra vehicle during the exodus of the T reg vehicles, it still genuinely wouldn't surprise me if it were to return to the road especially given that it's been treated to P&P. Within a short term period anyway; the longer it's left the less likely they are to do anything with it, obviously.

[K101HUM]

RE: Arriva North West - St Helens Depot
Your argument would certainly make a lot of sense there CX54. However, and looking at the Green Lane examples, 7613 &7614 also received P&P and were withdrawn with faults which could be rectified in-house though the company are reluctant to continue to throw good money after bad. Its worth saying 7612/3/4 & 6 were all withdrawn due to faults which the company were not to prepared to rectify by spending money, and not MOT expiry. This trend can only continue and being further reinforced with the withdrawal of T-PNB's as and when faults arise, or ticket is due for renewal. In regards to 7622, I personally would have thought this particular example would have bitten the proverbial bullet when nibbled for spares at Bolton initially, instead it was rebuilt and still managed a further mechanical failure. One does have to ask after this when to draw the line. At the time, there was much debate over 7622's presence at St Helens with members suggesting it was withdrawn for scrap then.

As 7620 has not yet saw use with St Helens, could this be the next to be

[K853 MTJ]

RE: Arriva North West - St Helens Depot

(23/01/2013 22:04)CX54 DKD Wrote:  The T-PNBs being withdrawn tallys up with what management allegedly wanted - R, S & T single decks gone as near to the end of last year as possible.

With regards the X-regs, there's another good three years out of them yet, they're only just turning 12. Also don't forget that being from the back-end of the year, the V reg Marshalls potentially have another 8-10 months to go too. I suspect they'll start to be withdrawn upon developing costly faults as with the T reg examples though.

7622 is an odd one mind because it would potentially have another 8(ish) months in service if it weren't off the road... With replacement engines having been coming out of Darts for a while now, including 2320 according to MM, would it really be that much trouble to fit one, replace the dashboard (which is only a case of re-attaching some plugs and putting in some screws anyway) and then pulling a front panel from a withdrawn T reg example to continue to make money out of it? To potentially act as an extra vehicle during the exodus of the T reg vehicles, it still genuinely wouldn't surprise me if it were to return to the road especially given that it's been treated to P&P. Within a short term period anyway; the longer it's left the less likely they are to do anything with it, obviously.

With 7622, its not impossible, but a bit of a pointless thing IMO. First it would take up time and capacity in the engineering part them the body part of St Helens, all of that adds to cost, and as I'm sure everyone knows, they are on a tight schedule and high work load as it is as Speke go through P&P. All of the parts may be easy to get hold of, but it would be somewhat futile to do quite a lot of work on a bus that A) has blew at least 1 more engine since it was decided to try and put it back into service following it's arrival from Bolton, B) is going to replace a vehicle of pretty much the same age and will last around 6-8 months before inevitably going for scrap, and C) A bus that has already had quite a bit of time, money and resources spent trying to get it back on the road, personally I think Arriva will cut their losses and just keep it stored until scrap, extra work and parts bump up the book value on a bus which is only going to be sold for scrap value anyway. Not only would it provide useful spares to keep others going a little bit longer, but if it has a freshly retrimmed set of seats, theres nothing stopping Arriva putting them in another Marshall or any other bus that has the same style and sized seats, it wouldn't cost them anything but a quick half an hour which would drastically improve the buses interior appearance.
I completely appreciate your point, don't want you to think I'm shooting you down, after all stranger things have happened (1046 and 1047 getting new engines in the last year of their servicable life)!

Edit: K101 beat me to it! :P

[CX54 DKD (Moderator)]

RE: Arriva North West - St Helens Depot
Absolutely K853, the point I was trying to get across though was the fact that there is certainly potential for it to go back on the road, as a short term solution, without the outlay of a brand new engine or the like with the parts being readily available. Like I said, I was never trying to insinuate that it would definitely be returning to the road or the like ;-)!

As an aside, other than them sharing 2(?) pits for structural work, I'm fairly certain, though do stand to be corrected, that the engineering work is separate to that of the lads carrying out the P&P work so the workload of one shouldn't really impact the other massively.

(23/01/2013 22:21)K101HUM Wrote:  One does have to ask after this when to draw the line.

I think this is pretty much the underlying factor. Particularly when you could be getting into a situation whereby the cost of putting new engines in, which could be put to other uses, may be becoming greater than the actual value of the vehicle to the company.

[T42 PVM (Moderator)]

RE: Arriva North West - St Helens Depot
think the 2 main points in the way of getting 7622 back on the road is its had 2 or 3 engines already but for some reason within hours on the engine going in theres a fault with the darn thing plus i think its been VOR for so long it will need tax and MOT itself

[motormayhem]

RE: Arriva North West - St Helens Depot
When you say it as 8ish months left in service you only have to look at 2814/16 round the back,surely they could of been on the road just as temporary cover for 2 withdrawn PNB darts but still there letting them rot round the back.

[T42 PVM (Moderator)]

RE: Arriva North West - St Helens Depot
i would bring it up to someone mate as they look strong buses

[MPTE1955]

RE: Arriva North West - St Helens Depot
2814 & 2816 have just been wasted sitting there doing nothing when they could have been in service. However, last I heard that they were not down as being north west areas vehicles and that is why nothing has happened. They should really be up in the north east with the rest of the batch, but aren't they also lying around doing nothing up there after being transferred from Scotland due to the Mcgills takeover.