Stagecoach Cumbria & North Lancashire

[BHA]

RE: Stagecoach Cumbria & North Lancashire
Had an away-day yesterday to Carlisle to catch up with the new Enviro200s and had a successful day - managed to see them all. I did a bit of homework before going and estimated the PVR of the local routes. I came up with 5 on the 60, 10 on the 61, 6 on the 62, 9 on the 67/68, 1 on the 69 and 5 on the 76, a total of 36. One of the 'previous' Darts 34707 was working the 69 and 22149 I saw several times on the 67/68. So that left 34 out of the 41 on local routes though I saw 35 - changeovers accounted for this with 37111 appearing on the 67 around luchtime and 37107/12 being seen on 2 separate routes while I was there. In addition 37114 was on the 79 and 37118 came in on the 93 and shifted to the 38 along with 37108 and 37119. 37087 and 37123 seemed to be in the depot all day.

From observation 37086-8 are branded for the 60, 37089-91 for the 76, 37092-7 for the 67/68, 37098-102 for the 61 and 37103-5 for the 62. All branded buses were on their allocated routes. 37106 is in the bright yellow/orange for the Youth Zone and 37107-26 are not branded other than the standard 'Serving Carlisle since 1921' strap-line. They all looked very smart and clean.

Of the old Darts, in addition to 34707, I saw 34716 on the 600 and 34718 in the depot. There were one or two others in the depot but not identifiable. Other observations were London 18202 ( I think previously reported ), 16776 on the 685 shorts ( 47921 having a day off in the depot ), 24118 replacing 27767 on the 685 ( 27767 being repaired over the pits ) and all of 15920-3 running on the 300. I only saw 5 buses of the 79/179 out of a PVR of 6 - I did not see 24123 out of the 9 MANs and wonder whether this was having problems somewhere out on the road to Annan and Dumfries ( the 1250 arrival/1255 departure was the missing link ). I saw the other 8, 4 on the 79/179 ( with 37114 ), 2 on the 104 (along with 'deckers 18361/5 ), 1 on the 685 ( along with 27766 ) and 1, 24124, over the pits. So from elimination 24123 was missing.

Apologies for all the detail. If any of you Cumbria-based correspondents have any observations on any of this I should be most interested.