Arriva North West - Winsford Depot

[copey]

RE: Arriva North West - Winsford Depot

(11/09/2014 20:37)polarbear Wrote:  Just noticed on the Chester West & Cheshire website that "major changes" are due to take place on the 84 Chester - Crewe service as from 26 October? Does anyone know what those changes might be?

Thanks

84 Changes are not that major. Extra layover in Chester and a bit of differential running time tweaking.
The lates are still staying on. 84 shorts are retimed from Nantwich to fit in with the changes on the longs. Also extra late service will be running between Sandbach and Winsford to be funded by Cheshire East I believe.
On a down side still nothing late out of Northwich and the 1934 and 2030 37 departures from Crewe are going.

[copey]

RE: Arriva North West - Winsford Depot

(09/09/2014 11:15)33109 Wrote:  A driver I spoke to yesterday in northwich reckons that from now on as we've had a few DLAs withdrawn that the 37a/31 circuit will probs be more regularly diagrammed for single deckers in future. Copey this true?

Yesterday (mon) it was a really bad idea as 2614 leaving northwich was filled to capacity plus about another 30 people standing! All well & good during the day but the 16:20 #31 off northwich into crewe deffo needs a decker allocating to it as there's all the students piling on from john deanes college. Plus quite a few get on in northwich centre so its always busy. Copey any reason why yesterday most of the deckers were allocated to 29 duties? I know their busy at peak times with the school kids etc etc so maybe this was the reason for the 31&37a been single deck yesterday.

IIRC our DLA fleet stands as follows - 4026/4027/4030/4031 plus 4098/4143/4156 as well as 4215 which is running solo atm. 4216 however not seen this since the summer hols when all the deckers were on the 84 longs, assume then its ill again, are anymore DLAs due for withdrawal now or is above list it till the B7s get here???

Shortage of deckers at Winsford at the moment. 4030 on loan to Macc, 4216 is away getting a ramp defect sorted. 4215 has returned after MOT but 4156 was dragged back from Chester today.
With regard to the allocations, sometimes the correct type of vehicle is not available for the earliest departures with buses being held back for later departures to have minor defects rectified.
Hope there are enough deckers for the 84 longs tomorrow as there is racing on in Chester.

[33109]

RE: Arriva North West - Winsford Depot
Thnx a load for the gen copey much appreciated, at last that's 4216 tracked down?

Forgive me if am being a bit dumb here, but haven't we got a workshop at winsford for carrying out repairs & maintenance etc??? Also noted 2425 parked out the back of the depot as I passed yesterday (fri)

Seems we're deffo short on deckers atm, sooner the B7s become available for us the better it'll be.

[Jack]

RE: Arriva North West - Winsford Depot
Have all the Presidents gone back to Bolton now?

[33109]

RE: Arriva North West - Winsford Depot
Aye they've all left now as bolton need em for schools contracts. Leaves us slightly tight for deckers though, as 4216 is currently away for repairs as mentioned above by copey.

The B7 ALX400 deckers are due to us in nxt 2-4 months at a guess? All depends on how quick southport introduce their new fleet, plus the B7s are having a quick tidy up 1st IIRC??? Not sure what this'll entail though.

[YN05 WKE]

RE: Arriva North West - Winsford Depot
Did not know 2425 was still at winsford bit random just one of the batch there

[copey]

RE: Arriva North West - Winsford Depot

(13/09/2014 10:25)33109 Wrote:  Thnx a load for the gen copey much appreciated, at last that's 4216 tracked down?

Forgive me if am being a bit dumb here, but haven't we got a workshop at winsford for carrying out repairs & maintenance etc??? Also noted 2425 parked out the back of the depot as I passed yesterday (fri)

Seems we're deffo short on deckers atm, sooner the B7s become available for us the better it'll be.

We do have a workshop at Winsford but the fault on 4216 needs some specialist attention. Last that I heard was that even the specialists are having problems rectifying it. The problem lies I believe in that the bus has been through so many different workshops in its life and various changes have been made to the original specs that makes fault finding very difficult.
2425 came off with a fuel leak so that could be awaiting a fuel tank. I will have to make some enquiries to engineering.
4027 was taken off Thursday evening sounding like a tractor, seems like exhaust repairs are in order.
I believe that Macc will be having 4489 MOT'd next Tuesday so hopefully we can get 4030 back.
The B7's from Southport I am led to believe are on target for some time in October but are now only going to receive an external refreshing which I think is a shame but they should be far superior to the DLA's in performance and reliability [unless anyone knows otherwise].

[H101GEV (Administrator)]

RE: Arriva North West - Winsford Depot
The B7TLs from Southport don't need any internal work as they had this when they first arrived at Canning Road.

Just to clarify, 33109: the B7s will transfer to Winsford once Southport receives its new Enviro400s, expected to be in early October. Can we please now cut down on the speculation about when they will turn up at Winsford now until they do arrive. Thanks.

[M113 YKC]

RE: Arriva North West - Winsford Depot

(13/09/2014 20:12)507009 Wrote:  The B7TLs from Southport don't need any internal work as they had this when they first arrived at Canning Road.

That's debatable! Whilst it's understandable that they shouldn't need work as they were only done-up a few years ago, particular examples such as 4100 (back of the top deck), 4102 (middle of the top deck), 4106 (back of the bottom deck) and 4107 (back of the top deck) would definitely benefit from some internal work as they weren't in the best condition when I last had them (all in the past few months). Some of them don't exactly look smart on the outside, either.

[H101GEV (Administrator)]

RE: Arriva North West - Winsford Depot
Doesn't say a lot about the 375/385 then if they're in poor condition upstairs.