First Manchester

[M60lad]

RE: First Manchester
Why would they goto Bradford or even Leeds when it would seem sensible to keep them in Oldham and to partly upgrade the fleet at Oldham Depot?

[AlexBus12]

RE: First Manchester

(12/03/2021 07:07)M60lad Wrote:  Why would they goto Bradford or even Leeds when it would seem sensible to keep them in Oldham and to partly upgrade the fleet at Oldham Depot?

Oldham is beyond repairable now. The damage has been done. They'd be more use being moved to another operation.

[Mayneway]

RE: First Manchester

(12/03/2021 09:40)AlexBus12 Wrote:  Oldham is beyond repairable now. The damage has been done. They'd be more use being moved to another operation.

How is it beyond repairable?? I’ve heard people who actually work in the industry suggest recently Oldhams been turned around and is ‘standing on its own feet’. It’s also heavily suggested they have taken it off the market and Intend keeping it.

[M60lad]

RE: First Manchester
If Oldham has been salvaged I wonder whether its got anything to do with past service changes removing cross-town (Oldham) services from Manchester as I know before the service changes on some days there could have been quite a bit of lost mileage due to delays caused by various roadworks and general traffic getting into/out off Manchester. Now you've just got various services running to/from Manchester via various routes and mostly during the day you have to change in Oldham for connecting services to where you want to go.

Also I wonder if Oldham will now start bidding on tenders again as it would be good to see some of the evening/Sunday tenders returning to the Depot that they operate during the day and used to operate in the past.

[Mrboo]

RE: First Manchester

(12/03/2021 07:07)M60lad Wrote:  Why would they goto Bradford or even Leeds when it would seem sensible to keep them in Oldham and to partly upgrade the fleet at Oldham Depot?

As they could go on X6 as got busway on that route. Unless they had newer buses.

How is it sensible? they can swap for buses without guideway wheels. South Yorkshire just sent steel link buses to Bristol. If Oldham need new buses or better they would get them but Oldham is now a dumping ground. Let's see when happens at end of month as if they do go with a London system .bFirst would just send old buses as they will replace in 18 months or so with new to tfgm spec.

[Y458 KNF]

RE: First Manchester
Will Oldham be withdrawing the 4 remaining Eclipse Urbans anytime soon, at some point this year they will almost certainly be the only examples left in service in Greater Manchester.

[Mrboo]

RE: First Manchester

(27/03/2021 16:29)darylyates17 Wrote:  Will Oldham be withdrawing the 4 remaining Eclipse Urbans anytime soon, at some point this year they will almost certainly be the only examples left in service in Greater Manchester.

Well they have about year to be Euro 6 So it not looking good for a number of buses at First.
As am sure the standards be same as ULEZ and if you check the buses at mumps they are going to have to sort there fleet out fast.

https://ulez.co.uk/ulez-checker/

[Mikeonthebuses]

RE: First Manchester
It will be interesting if the 184 get's announced as a temporary route diversion until winter 2021 between Uppermill and Huddersfield due to a new one-way system being interested in Diggle village and will the route go via standage road the old route during these works.

[M60lad]

RE: First Manchester
Interesting transfers recently have seen 36280 return to Oldham Depot from Bolton Vantage Depot and this has recently been in service on 409 and 181/182s with guidewheels removed.

Also the trio of spare Volvo B7RLE Eclipses 69537-69539 are now at Oldham Depot and only seem to be being used on V4s in the peaks and various other Oldham Depot services outside the peaks also having been on 69539 the other day I noticed that this one still has its guidewheels fitted and hasn't had them removed.

Not to sure how true it is but it does seem that for some reason at the moment Oldham Depot seem to be short of vehicles again hence why these vehicles are back at Oldham Depot and covering.

[SF07]

RE: First Manchester
36280 seems to have gone back to Bolton, looking at bustimes, operating on the V1 in the last couple of days. Perhaps a temporary loan to Oldham depot.

There have been a few tweets from First Manchester in recent days about some journeys not running due to "vehicle issues", which suggests Oldham depot perhaps struggling with some of its vehicles recently.

https://bustimes.org/vehicles/171478
https://twitter.com/FirstManchester/stat...8132462595