Boris Magic Wonder Bus builder announced
 

....and it's Wrightbus. Three doors, two staircases, wtf?

http://www.wrightbus.com/site/default.asp?CATID=9
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/medi...tre/13903.aspx

Announcing it two days before Christmas while everyone's looking the
other way does suggest it's not to be looked at too closely. There
isn't even a sketch yet, let alone any costings.

Tom

Boris Magic Wonder Bus builder announced
 

"Tom Barry" wrote in message

...and it's Wrightbus. Three doors, two staircases, wtf?

http://www.wrightbus.com/site/default.asp?CATID=9
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/medi...tre/13903.aspx

Announcing it two days before Christmas while everyone's looking the
other way does suggest it's not to be looked at too closely. There
isn't even a sketch yet, let alone any costings.

I note that it says, "The preferred manufacturer was chosen on
Wednesday 23 December 2009, there will then be a 10 day standstill
period. (This is a mandatory period required by the public procurement
regulations between announcing the winner of a contract and the signing
of the contract.)".

Does this mean 10 working days, or 10 elapsed days? If the latter, one
assumes that the xmas/new year holiday period was deliberately chosen to
wrongfoot anyone who might be thinking of objecting.

Boris Magic Wonder Bus builder announced
 

On 23/12/2009 12:30, Tom Barry wrote:
...and it's Wrightbus. Three doors, two staircases, wtf?

http://www.wrightbus.com/site/default.asp?CATID=9
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/medi...tre/13903.aspx


"Capacity for at least 87 passengers"

Including standing? Seems a bit low.
Bendy buses have a capacity of 49 sitting, 149 total.

--
Paul

Boris Magic Wonder Bus builder announced
 

On Wed, 23 Dec 2009 13:46:25 +0000
Paul wrote:
Bendy buses have a capacity of 49 sitting, 149 total.

Thats irrelevant. Cyclists don't like them so they have to go.

Quite how Boris is going to persuade the bed wetters in the HSE that an
open platform is a good idea is anyones guess. Routemasters have grandfather
rights. These won't.

B2003

Boris Magic Wonder Bus builder announced
 

Paul wrote:
On 23/12/2009 12:30, Tom Barry wrote:
...and it's Wrightbus. Three doors, two staircases, wtf?

http://www.wrightbus.com/site/default.asp?CATID=9
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/medi...tre/13903.aspx


"Capacity for at least 87 passengers"

Including standing? Seems a bit low.
Bendy buses have a capacity of 49 sitting, 149 total.


TfL work on a DD capacity of 85, against 120 for bendies - 87 is
therefore unsurprising as a target unless they want difficulties
operating the contraption alongside normal buses. I can't see them
fitting 87 people, two staircases, two doors and a platform with a bloke
on or a cover over it in the 10-11m normal double deckers take up, let
alone the old RMs which were much smaller.

Tom

Boris Magic Wonder Bus builder announced
 

In message , d writes

Quite how Boris is going to persuade the bed wetters in the HSE that an
open platform is a good idea is anyones guess.

Ah, but the "open platform" has a closing door. What's the betting that
it can only remain open when a conductor (or PCSO) is supervising its
use?
--
Paul Terry

Boris Magic Wonder Bus builder announced
 

On 23 Dec, 13:46, Paul wrote:
On 23/12/2009 12:30, Tom Barry wrote:

...and it's Wrightbus. *Three doors, two staircases, wtf?

http://www.wrightbus.com/site/default.asp?CATID=9
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/medi...tre/13903.aspx

"Capacity for at least 87 passengers"

Including standing? *Seems a bit low.
Bendy buses have a capacity of 49 sitting, 149 total.


Capacities for well-designed vehicles are based on things like the
number of seats.

Capacities for badly-designed vehicles are based on dividing the total
volume by the average volume of a person, assuming that all the bodies
can be slotted in upside down or chopped into bits or impaled on
obstructions as necessary.

That's why so many bad designs get approved on the grounds of
"capacity".

It's bollox.

Boris Magic Wonder Bus builder announced
 

MIG wrote:
On 23 Dec, 13:46, Paul wrote:
On 23/12/2009 12:30, Tom Barry wrote:

...and it's Wrightbus. Three doors, two staircases, wtf?
http://www.wrightbus.com/site/default.asp?CATID=9
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/medi...tre/13903.aspx
"Capacity for at least 87 passengers"

Including standing? Seems a bit low.
Bendy buses have a capacity of 49 sitting, 149 total.


Capacities for well-designed vehicles are based on things like the
number of seats.

Capacities for badly-designed vehicles are based on dividing the total
volume by the average volume of a person, assuming that all the bodies
can be slotted in upside down or chopped into bits or impaled on
obstructions as necessary.

That's why so many bad designs get approved on the grounds of
"capacity".

It's bollox.

You want a seat for everyone. I want people to be able to afford to get
to work.

Since these are mutually exclusive in a London context, shall we agree
to differ?

There is no such things as 'well-designed' - either it's well designed
for the job it's expected to do, or it isn't. The problem with Boris's
bus is that it's well designed for the twin roles of getting him elected
and burnishing his CV as a Man Who Gets Things Done. The concept of
'moving people about' appears to have fallen by the wayside at some
point, as has any mention of who pays for this thing.

Tom

Boris Magic Wonder Bus builder announced
 

"Paul Corfield" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 23 Dec 2009 13:46:25 +0000, Paul
wrote:

On 23/12/2009 12:30, Tom Barry wrote:
...and it's Wrightbus. Three doors, two staircases, wtf?

http://www.wrightbus.com/site/default.asp?CATID=9
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/medi...tre/13903.aspx


"Capacity for at least 87 passengers"

Including standing? Seems a bit low.

Not really - it's a tad higher than the normal capacity spec for low
floor double deckers which IIRC is 80 people. Therefore this is
notionally 10% greater. Given the proposed configuration of three doors
and two staircases this suggests most seats will be upstairs with
relative poor lower deck seating capacity but perhaps more room for
buggies / wheelchairs / standees. I also suspect the chassis length
will be longer than we are used to - possibly 11.3m. I doubt we will get
12m unless we end up with route specific variants as we did to some
extent with the Routemaster (RM and RML versions). Whether Wrightbus
are brave / daft enough to built a maxi Boris Bus of 13.7m configuration
remains to be seen. The composition of the 5 vehicle "evaluation" batch
will be most interesting as will the routes used to test the vehicle.

The bus is probably going to be a mutant hybrid of a Red Arrow style
lower deck mated with a Berlin Lion City three door / dual staircase
double decker but with the engine and drive line in the most bizarre
location possible (given the need for the rear platform plus door).

Ah, so it's possible the AEC "Q" could be reborn? :)

DW downunder


I think we should also wildly speculate about which mobile phone or
music player Wrightbus will use to base the "face" and "back" of the bus
on ;-) Sorry but most modern deckers look like mobile phones!

I still think this is barking mad but I am genuinely surprised it has
got this far!
--
Paul C

Boris Magic Wonder Bus builder announced
 

On Dec 24, 4:20*am, "DW downunder" noname wrote:

Ah, so it's possible the AEC "Q" could be reborn? *:)

Well I suppose it is also possible that the moon is made of cheese,
the earth is flat and that black is white. The problem, as mentioned
on another group I read, is that side engined vehicles have a very
poor reliability record. Hybrid technology may offer some new options
but that has hardly been a breeze in terms of building reliability.
Ironically it seems the Enviro 400 hybrid (from purely an anecdotal
viewpoint) runs more consistently and reliably that other models - it
also got in to service far faster and with fewer glitches than all
other versions. While I am not criticising Wrights (they did, after
all, provide the first hybrids for London years ago) their models have
taken a lot longer to get in to fleet service and Volvo even longer
still. Both of the single deck routes using Wright Electrocities (129
and 360) have an equivalent number of diesel buses available to cover
for buses conking out or not being available. Not exactly a viable way
forward if you're looking at a potential fleet of 400-600 buses.
Still they may actually exhume the remains of the Volvo Ailsa and have
the engine [1] at the front :-) If Boris had been really brave
he'd have gone for trolleybuses - that would have provided a genuine
legacy and even I might have indulged him in having a specific
"London" design for that.

[1] most engines are either car or van derived so therefore perfectly
suited to front installation. Where you stick the batteries and
driveline are other issues altogether.
--
Paul C
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