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| The NRM finally get to see the light of day on route 159 |
London Bus Club have issued a news update on the Short New Routemaster project.
“We
have some more information on the shortened New Routemaster we exclusively
announced last week. It will carry the fleet number ST2001 and carry the
registration LTZ2001. ST2001 is due to arrive in London in the coming week, but
it is unlikely to be licensed before 1st January 2016.”
So a new era begins
for the New Routemaster project as they change the fleet number and the
registration. I'd also like to reiterate that the Short New Routemaster has a
reduction of 8 seats in order to achieve a length of just 10.1 metres, which is roughly the same size as the conventional
double deck bus operating in London.
Currently routes 8, 9,
10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 24, 38, 55, 73, 88, 137, 148, 149, 159, 168, 390 & 453
operate with New Routemaster buses which makes 19 routes. The 20th route to convert to New Routemasters is route
91 which will start on 6th February 2016.
Recently we have seen
the conversion of routes 159 and 168 to Wright New Routemaster buses with the
Alexander Dennis Enviro 400H City rolling into service on route 78.
Update from LOTS:
·
A
most successful running day was held on Wednesday 9th with at least 17 buses
over part of route 159 in London.
Metroline also ran RML903 over the 139 on the same day.
·
Metroline’s
new LTs (batch 641-663) started to enter service on Thursday 10th on route
168, a little earlier than forecast in
order to get enough vehicles into position for the company to take over route
307 (Barnet- Brimsdown) from Arriva on Saturday 12th. The conversion of Arriva route 149 to LT
has triggered another cascade by the move of several E400s from Tottenham to
Norwood (mainly on routes 2 and 417) and VLAs from Norwood to Edmonton to
release unmodified VLAs there. Yet more
LTs (Abellio’s batch LT 602-640) entered service on route 159 on the night of the 11/12th, allowing yet more cascades of redundant
Arriva buses to pastures new.
·
Horrendous
delays at Aldgate and at Elephant & Castle caused by road works, cycle
works and removal of one-way systems, have resulted in hundreds of buses being
routinely turned short. At Aldgate,
officially the 254 was cut back to Whitechapel and the 205 diverted. However,
in practice, almost all 15s are being curtailed at Aldwych, 115s at Stepney
Arbour Square, 78s from the south at Aldgate or Tower Bridge, At The Elephant and the conversion of the
roundabout to two-way, all seven approach roads have had traffic queuing way
back all the past week, and many buses are being turned short of their termini
at that location too.
·
First
Berkshire now has its four newest StreetLites (63313-16) at Slough, allowing
withdrawal of the last Dart SLFs at that garage, the very last being DML41336
which had stayed in First London red
livery for all its lengthy stay at Slough.
·
There
are continuing deliveries and gradual entry into service of London General’s
new buses, WHV 81-104 (Merton route155
and certain 93 journeys) , WHV 105-110 (Sutton part of route 93), SE 268-273
(Sutton part of route 80) and SE 274-287 (Merton route 164) as well as Arriva London E400H-Citys (HA 1-19 for route
78). The next batches of new kit are
due during late December and into January and include Stagecoach 13082-102
(Volvo B5LH/ E400MMC for Catford route 47) and Arriva Kent Thameside T301-T331
(E40D/Enviro400 for the 229 and 492) and ENR 1-7 (E20D/Enviro200 for route B13)
for contracts beginning 23rd January. The AKT buses were to have been 6485-6515
and 1662-1668 but will now take London-style numbers to agree with a
forthcoming merger of AKT and ATS TfL services into London control.
This
was just a quick update as I like to keep the readers informed about the New
Routemaster project.
As
always, don't forget to follow me on Twitter,
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which is @CLondoner92
Previous New Routemaster articles
that I've written: