Arriva North East

[bramptontrev]

RE: Arriva North East

(17/02/2014 21:00)bramptontrev Wrote:  

(02/02/2014 21:10)Metroline1511 Wrote:  

(02/02/2014 21:03)kuyoyo Wrote:  The 5/5a and X4/4 won't be converted to Sapphire until August. As for the leather-seated OmniCities, they won't be leather seated come the end of the year.

This means that these OmniCities will follow in the footsteps of Olympuses with Arriva in Yorkshire that had its leather seats replaced with standard moquette. Admittedly, early days of leather seating were in a sense experimental.

As an aside, with route 4 and X4 going Sapphire, I wonder whether the Temsa Avenues face early withdrawal? My rides on these buses last May were these routes (or maybe similar 4a and X3).

Interesting that these OmniCities are having the leather seats replaced. On the 685 Newcastle <> Carlisle the OmniCities have become known as the 'slippery seat' buses. So how many OmniCities and for which depots and routes are the seats being changed?

The Hexham Courant Friday 14 Feb had a large article 'Bus bosses pledge to improve 685 fleet' and quotes 'we will be replacing those vehicles with leather seats with fabric seating. we're looking at the options in terms of handrails and whether we can fit seatbelts in any of the forward or side facing seats.'

The alternative vehicles to the usual 07 Omnicities are an 05 OmniCity leather seats and 61 plate Wright fabric seated VDLs.

Note that in the same article Stagecoach 'planned to put new buses in the route within this calendar year with coach style seating, seatbelts and wifi' thus replacing the 61 plate ADLs which have been reported elsewhere as a short term measure.

So a local councillor asked 'why Stagecoach was providing brand new buses and Arriva was not?'

The Hexham Courant article does not appear to be available online at the moment.

Hexham Courant article now available online -
http://www.hexhamcourant.co.uk/news/2.29...-1.1117652