Stagecoach Manchester and Wigan

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RE: Stagecoach Manchester

(01/11/2012 10:51)mbonwick Wrote:  

(01/11/2012 00:00)gilesbus1 Wrote:  Optare Excels are expected to be withdrawn after December but the likely replacements will be MAN's stored at Manchester. Arrows might hit the dust later although this is more suggestive than factual when Stagecoach Manchester gets some 02 plate Tridenst for Magic that will free up existing Low Floor Magics that could mean these get repainted to nornmal livery and moved to Wigan, likely those that are Highbridge and none standard and from independent take-overs.

I would love to know where these 02 plate Tridents are coming from, seeing at Manchester don't have any, and there aren't any spare elsewhere....
Personally I think we're more likely to see the 06 plate Enviro400s move to Wigan when the E400Hs turn up.

I can also see Stagecoach requesting Volvo Olympians to be swapped with Arrows at Wigan, just to get some standardisation.

I agree that the Excels won't have long - I can quite easily see the MY&SL reserve B10BLEs going over as well, either to replace B10BLEs there already or replace the Excels.

The only 02 plate tridents I know about are the ones that were registered new to Manchester for the 2002 Commonwealth Games and then later transferred to Hull. It's been talked about that East Midlands were going to take some of the Manchester 06's so I suppose it's possible they may want to do a swap deal.
I was also thinking possibly that some of the older Enviro400's might go to Wigan on arrival of the Stockport hybrids, though I was wondering possibly about the 09 plates allocated to the 50 route. I get the feeling that route may be branded sometime in the future and some new Euro 6 buses put on it, which would make the current 09's redundant. That's probably at least a year to 18 months off yet, if it happens at all but it's probably at the back of the mind of the bosses.

I'm not sure how Arrows or Excels would fit in at Manchester so I can't see them lasting long. That would mean employing mechanics who know about them and considering most of them are P reg's I can't see that happening.
It could be an ideal opportunity to cascade the B10BLE's though if the excels do leave.