Arriva North West - Southport Depot

[Vbg111v]

RE: Arriva North West - Southport Depot

(26/09/2012 21:00)CX54 DKD Wrote:  If it's the latter, I suspect it could be that the newer vehicles have been kept in that morning to have a fault rectified or for their monthly check etc. and then, as the only thing in the garage because 'school' deckers are deputising, are taken out onto the school runs. In that situation, ideally, a swap would occur between the normal service vehicle and the Palatine deputising but, for some reason (which I suspect may be something to the effect of the timings not allowing on the boards the Palatines are running), that doesn't seem to be happening. I think the underlying thing that seems to be coming from this though is that Southport are really running without adequate spares for a depot previously fully low floor on normal services. All of this, I have no doubt, is further hampered by whatever issues are keeping the B7s from full-time 375/385 allocation.

Like I say, this is on the premise that school services are vehicles taken from the garage and not working off of normal services which would surprise me as that would mean that there is genuine intention for vehicles that arrived for school use to see regular normal service too as opposed to them having to be used.

From my observations I note that during the summer the Palatines were put to use in normal service most days. Since the return of the new school term it would appear that on occasions the Palatines are still being Allocated from first thing in the morning for normal routes, hence leaving a gap on the school routes. I appreciate this is not always the case, but certainly yesterday was one such example.