REVEALED: Short New Routemaster is unveiled

Yes the New Routemaster is getting small,.

The London Bus Club has produced an exclusive report on the short New Routemaster bus which is manufactured by Wrightbus and has a reduced length of around 10.1 metres. This news comes in as a surprise.

From the London Bus Club

Yesterday, our columnist (TfL Managing Director of Surface Transport) Leon Daniels visited Wrightbus at Ballymena to view LT806. This is actually the prototype for a shorter version of Wright's NRM. It has had a whole bay of seats taken out reducing it's length to around 10.1 metres. Incredibly, due to the weight saving from less glass and metal being used, this shorter model will be able to carry 87 people, more than the existing type!

We have posted a photo of the interior in the gallery section.

The lead photo shows Leon with LT806. (Which you can view in their article on London Bus Club.)

As I have seen in the photo, there are no window openings and the shorter spec has a reduction of eight seats. Yes, just eight seats in order to reduce size and weight to achieve capacity of 87 passengers, whereas the original 11.3 metre length New Routemaster had variable unladen weight, depending on the batch and carries less than 87 passengers.

The Short New Routemaster is 10.1 metres which is smaller than the average sized double deck bus in London. It's also smaller than the Enviro 400H City which has a length of 10.4 metres.

This reminds me of the original AEC Routemaster project when they extended the RM by adding the 2ft 4in bay in the centre of the body which became instantly recognisable by the square window; this bus was known as the RML. The RM had a seating capacity of 64 and was 27.5 feet (8.4 m) in length, whilst the RML had a seating capacity of 72 and a length of 29.91 feet (9.12 m). The New Routemaster project simply has a downgrade of seating capacity where the original length had 62 seats whilst the new short length only has 54.

I think that the Short New Routemaster may run on routes which failed their route conversion test.

Anyway, some other news relating to the New Routemaster…

Extracts from London Bus Enthusiast

 07/12/2015

Today marks the first day of the new HA type buses on route 78 from Arriva's Ash Grove Garage.

Over the course of the next few months there will be further transfers with the delivery of new LT-class buses to Brixton for route 59 and the planned transfer there of route 417.

02/12/2015

The 149 conversion to NBFL operation is almost complete, this has allowed a total of 6 batches of buses to be ousted from Tottenham garage.

Onto a brief spell about Metroline, route 307  is set to be operated by Enviro 400 buses, possibly from those at Cricklewood from the 168 conversion to NBFL.

London Sovereign, will get route 139 which will be rerouted with the 13 due to the planned Finchley Road changes will which take effect soon, we are unable to confirm a date for this, the 13 will be history with the 139 taking its place at London Sovereign with NBFL.

The 140 & 182 are expected to be retain, with the 140 taking on brand new Volvo Hybrids partly funded by BAA or Heathrow which presses from Greener Cleaner Buses around the Airport the 182 is set to taking existing Volvos from Holloway when the 91 converts to NBFL.

                                                                                                                                                       

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Image attribution

"Metroline bus LT13 (LTZ 1013), route 24, 22 June 2013" by LawrenceAbel. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Metroline_bus_LT13_(LTZ_1013),_route_24,_22_June_2013.jpg#/media/File:Metroline_bus_LT13_(LTZ_1013),_route_24,_22_June_2013.jpg