Diamond Bus North West

[Citibus]

RE: Diamond Bus North West

(18/06/2020 21:59)gilesbus1 Wrote:  The 130 deckers will be welcome I am sure, however it is unusual being in the middle of the Corona Virus and then having to hire vehicles from Preston Bus, surely this indicates that if they were at full service levels they simply wouldn't cope.

Of course the option is to transfer vehicles in that are redundant due to the suspension of schools, the earliest these would be needed are September therefore they would be deckers and put into service quickly, also the demise in airport work at Hallmark presumably might mean there are spare deckers there with no fixed return date being necessary, there are a few Scania OmniCity deckers and the Twin Volvo B9TL to the Bolton based bus based there. Preston of course is an option that could field a lot of deckers short term as schools are suspended and several of their deckers so I believe are confined to school work and therefore surely parked up, some even have Diamond North West fleetnames applied from when they were previously allocated here.

All that is cheap and simple to arrange, and I am surprised Rotala hasn't done this at this stage other than the transfer of the Volvo B9TL from Redditch and the loan of an East Lancs OmniDekka from Preston.

Really generally I am suprised that Rotala hasn't bought or leased more deckers in the past as Birmingham is a largely Urban area and surely deckers would be useful there, though I guess the fact that what was brought in from Diamond Bus (GoAhead), First Redditch and Kidderminster depots has a lot to do with this, as it was a saloon based fleet that was inherited and also the fact that many drivers possibly only have saloon entitlement on their licenses and the fact that deckers are more expensive to lease or buy and much of the Birmingham work was/is competitive.

Two of the Hallmark ex London Scania N230UD OmniCitys, in all red, were parked at Bolton depot in May but i don't think used in service.