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[email protected] · October 17th 13, 12:52 AM posted to uk.transport.london

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

On Wed, 16 Oct 2013 19:25:06 +0000 (UTC),
d wrote:

On Tue, 15 Oct 2013 17:23:14 +0100
Paul Corfield wrote:
Electrocity buses and all bar 1 of the Wrightbus hybrid double decks
(routes 24, 141 and 328) have left service. It also does not include

Any idea why? Were they unreliable or just cost too much to run?

The general consensus is that reliability was pretty poor. The First
ones disappeared from view when First London sold out - the new owners
of that business didn't take the vehicles. I think the buses have gone
back to Wrights.

Oddly one of the Arriva ones (HW4) has been rebuilt and lengthened
with a different engine and seems to run on the 141 OK. It has been
suggested that HW1-3/5 were to receive the same treatment but they've
disappeared from London and no one knows for certain if they are being
rebuilt or not.

For reasons that have never been clear (to me at least) Wrightbus's
hybrid designs have been largely unsuccessful. The first trial single
deck barely ran in service at all. The initial double deck had very
intermittent service in London. The first batch of Electrocities on
the 360 were spectacularly unreliable with each bus being "man marked"
by a conventional diesel bus! They have all been rebuilt and now run
on the 360 pretty reliably. A second batch on the 360 were also fine -
no more man marking required.

The batch bought by Abellio for the 129 moved to the R70 when Abellio
lost the 129 contract but were soon left derelict in Fulwell garage. I
think they've all been written off from the Abellio fleet (not 100%
certain on that but none are in service). Not a brilliant record.

By contrast Alexander Dennis and Volvo seem to have successful and
reliable models in widespread London and provincial service.

Isn't the NB4L a Wrightbus product?

--
Colin Rosenstiel