Diamond Bus North West

[gilesbus1]

RE: Diamond Bus North West

(02/11/2019 13:13)johnluke Wrote:  582 should be a double decker every 10 minutes

Its not allocated a decker and I have spoke to crews before about this, they have told me, they have told management it needs deckers but its fallen on death ears, and have been doing so for years.

There is a question mark still over whether it will be converted to electric saloon operation, as a grant was obtained by FirstGroup, whether the grant has transferred remains to be seen.

The reason it is saloon operated goes back to 1997/8, when low floor vehicles were not readily available for deckers and GMPTE at that time made it into a quality route which First upgraded to Gold Service Standard and allocated new Volvo B10BLE's at that time First would not buy deckers for Manchester as there was issues over security as CCTV wasn't widely available on deckers at that time either, until FirstGroup took over TfGM service 135 was due a fleet of Volvo Olympians with NCME Palatine II bodies as part of a batch of 40 but FirstGroup cancelled the order and replaced it with one for Artics later instead.

However all other routes have since been made decker but still not 582, the Que es in Bolton Bus Station say it should be, no other route has that many people waiting for it.

As for the condition of vehicles being used on it generally latterly that leaves a lot to be desired as they seem dirty, more than half not in full livery, and operating in as acquired livery, some of what was operating on there 64 plate Citaro's seem to have moved off onto other services to be replaced by un-repainted 62 plate examples. The odd decker that was appearing is now even odder, and like the 8 and 163 the 582 has also had at least one occasion where a running board was ran with an Optare Solo, as has the 36 and 37.