First Manchester

[Wright Eclipse]

RE: First Manchester

(23/09/2014 09:56)33109 Wrote:  Anyone know if there's any new vehicles poss due for either the 98/135 routes plz?

Only ask as the citaros now are getting seriously knackered, they seem to bang & crash about loads over any form of bumps etc plus the seating is pretty uncomfy too hardly any padding on seats. The 135s are alright with the deckers but the bendy scania omni cities are horrible buggers!

The ride on these is goddam awful, plus they seem to be going wrong quite a lot lately as well. I know there's a need for big capacity vehicles on the 135 route as its always busy 24/7 but the bendys seem to struggle a lot particularly in manchester city centre the drivers seem to have difficulty getting em round even a slightly tight bend.

98 I`m guessing would just get eclipses from more busy routes (in fact it does eclipses a lot) but 135 i agree with,I Always thought it might of been a better idea to put the B9TLs on 135 & move bendys on 471,i think 135 is the only frequent route that runs out of Manchester that hasnt had new/newer buses in last 6 year (17/18 have B9TLs & now also have B5LHs 36/37,180/4 have got the new Enviro400s & had B9TLs before that,8 has a mix of Enviro400s & B9TLs,81/A has Enviro300s.83 has a mix of B9TLs & Enviro400s,163 now have B9TLs & now even 42 has new Enviro400s!) even though im guessing this has more to do with the depot than the route,Bury has hardly ever been on top of firstbuses list when it comes to new buses

[M60lad]

RE: First Manchester
Its not just Bury that needs new Buses, Oldham are in desperate need of some new Enviro200s or Solo/Versa's for 415 route as this service is getting pretty bad for reliability again at the moment and I'm sure some of the older Solos can't be long off getting withdrawn.

Other news is that 41788 made it onto 149s yesterday, made a change from the usual 415s that its normally used on

[Mayneway]

RE: First Manchester
First Pyoneer up to thier old tricks again this morning. The 419 at 10.15 heading towards Ashton passed me 'not in service' with a good load of passengers on board only to pull up outside the Hop Pole pub for about 5 mins before miraculously going back into service then setting off towards the bus station. It was clearly not late as it spent a good 5 mins plus on the stand before setting off.

[james]

RE: First Manchester
[quote='Mayneway' pid='63489' dateline='1411583002']
First Pyoneer up to thier old tricks again this morning. The 419 at 10.15 heading towards Ashton passed me 'not in service' with a good load of passengers on board only to pull up outside the Hop Pole pub for about 5 mins before miraculously going back into service then setting off towards the bus station. It was clearly not late as it spent a good 5 mins plus on the stand before setting off.
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it would either be 15+ late or 15 early. late sounds right as a lot of new drivers at pr atm he may not have known where his/her next service dep from so would have stopped and rang the depot cont to confirm what to do . it should have changed on to 10.10 or 10.40 339

[Mayneway]

RE: First Manchester

(24/09/2014 19:10)james Wrote:  [quote='Mayneway' pid='63489' dateline='1411583002']
First Pyoneer up to thier old tricks again this morning. The 419 at 10.15 heading towards Ashton passed me 'not in service' with a good load of passengers on board only to pull up outside the Hop Pole pub for about 5 mins before miraculously going back into service then setting off towards the bus station. It was clearly not late as it spent a good 5 mins plus on the stand before setting off.
[/quo

it would either be 15+ late or 15 early. late sounds right as a lot of new drivers at pr atm he may not have known where his/her next service dep from so would have stopped and rang the depot cont to confirm what to do . it should have changed on to 10.10 or 10.40 339

Dosen't explain why the driver sat outside the hop pole pub for a good 5 minutes then suddenly '419 Ashton' reapearred on the destination and he set off into the bus station. I'm not daft, it was a clear case of he's running a through minutes late/early lets go not in service.

Dentonian no I haven't but I very much doubt anything will be done about it. It's the third time I've seen this happen. Surly if a service is registered to run it should run whether it's late or not. It seems a very poor practice if First are telling drivers to go not in service because thier a few mins late.

[M60lad]

RE: First Manchester
Forgot to mention this but on Tuesday evening Tameside Depot were using one of their Hybrid Solo SR's on 335 Ashton-Denton service, noticed it on 15:05 journey from Ashton

[BHA]

RE: First Manchester
I was in Manchester yesterday and noted 33656, 33668 and 33669 in service at Rusholme, all minus the 180/184 branding that I think they had at Oldham. Are these a loan or a transfer? The new Enviro400s were plentiful and we saw 25 of the 27 out in service including 33857 on the 158 to Davenport - did not know that Rusholme work contracts. 33842 and 33848 were not seen and I think it has been mentioned that 33848 has noy yet arrived after accident damage in Glasgow. The cross-connect branding is interesting with 3384x having the NMGH strap line but that on the Streetlites changed to show Eccles as the destination. From observation 63096, 63146-9 and 63151 have been de-branded and 63150/2-6 have the Eccles branding. Having said all that there was a mix of branded 41 Streetlites and branded 42 Enviro400s on both the 41 and 42 routes to Eccles and NMGH respectively. Very confusing.

[james]

RE: First Manchester

(25/09/2014 08:17)Dentonian Wrote:  I take it you reported the previous incidents then and had no reply. This would be lamentable, as one of the basic reasons for the Service Accounts team is to make sure Tendered services are run properly. I'm very worried about james' comment about 15 minutes (late or) early. How on earth can a bus/driver run 15 minutes early!?! To run more than 59 *seconds* early contradicts Registered particulars under the Transport Act. If a bus driver wilfully leaves timing points early, especially on an infrequent service, then they should consider a career change!

that was why i said late sounded more probable as mayneway said it was 10.15 but it is due to arr at 00/30 then do the 10/40 339 circular

in regards to mayneways comment about stopping as i said he probably stopped there to ask what to do about their next service whether to drop it or just stay running late

[james]

RE: First Manchester

(25/09/2014 06:12)M60lad Wrote:  Forgot to mention this but on Tuesday evening Tameside Depot were using one of their Hybrid Solo SR's on 335 Ashton-Denton service, noticed it on 15:05 journey from Ashton

this is becoming a lot more normal atm they have rewritten/changed the hybrids duties around 14.30 with a 335 - 339/419 and a bus dead-41s or something along them lines as the 419 retimed to arr @14.42 rather than 14.30 so the 41 swaps for an hour the 335does the same so the arriving 419 forms i believe a 41/335 not sure which

[Polo Mint]

RE: First Manchester
I have no knowledge of the situation but it looks like Oldham is transferring Enviro's to Rusholme and getting B9TL's from somewhere to use on route 83. I haven't seen Enviro's on route 83 for ages and it looks like its back to being a B9 route.

The University term has started again, routes 41/42 look pretty quiet from what I've seen, what else has everyone observed?

How well is First doing on the 468 route in competition with Rosso? I am guessing that Rosso is putting up a fight as it is their core territory for most of the route. It is a shame that most of the Bury Road corridor is unserved by any bus since both firms withdrew the 469.