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| They will be on route 26 operated by CT Plus |
LOTS
(London Omnibus Traction Society) news have issued their weekend London Bus
News update for enthusiasts and this time CT Plus has finally placed an order
with Alexander Dennis for 21 Enviro400H City buses.
From LOTS news:
1) A few more LTs are
now In service on Abellio routes 3/N3 although progress into service has been
slow. In turn, some E400Hs have started
to move across to Walworth for the 381.
Half of the C10 allocation of E200s have also moved to Walworth because Battersea is now too full up! Route C10 is due to receive brand new E20Ds
(batch 8844-64) fairly soon.
2) This weekend
(13Feb) saw a frequency increase on route 127 at GoAhead Metrobus with a few
PVLs introduced at Croydon Garage. All
21 Volvo B5LHs for route 47 at Stagecoach Catford (batch 13082-102) are now in
service, as are all seven (ENR 1-7) of
Arriva’s new 9.3m E20Ds on route B13.
Epsom Buses ten StreetLites (WS 01-10) are now delivered for use on
route 463 fairly soon now.
Quick
note: the Enviro200’s for route B13 have the Enviro200 MMC body work which have
some designs similar to the Enviro400H City. Image can be viewed here.
3) The first example
(VH53) of London United’s next batch of Volvo
B5LHs arrived last week and meanwhile, one of those from HH Garage (VH42)
is now at Shepherd’s Bush Garage for familiarisation training.
4) CT Plus is to introduce shortly a fleet renumbering scheme where four-digit
number blocks (each starting at xx00) will replace the present class codes. It
has ordered 21 E400H-City buses (batch 2501-2521) for route 26/N26 in a few
months time. In the meantime, they will take over those routes from 27th February using diesel E400s
loaned from Tower Transit.
I've
had a quick look on the Alexander Dennis and CT Plus press release pages for information about
the purchase of the Enviro400H City order but unfortunately no press releases
have been issued yet.
As
I said in my previous article, it's interesting to see ‘social enterprise’ companies like CT Plus taking part of the
London Bus operation which they've been doing since early 2000. CT Plus
currently operates London Buses routes 153, 309, 385, 388, 394, 675, W5, W12
and W13. They operate their own ‘hail and
ride’ minibus service which is route 812. CT Plus operates from Ash Grove
(HK) garage which they share with Arriva London (AE).
I
find it disconcerting that the Enviro400H City bus hasn’t received much
publicity from the media as it deserves to be documented due to it being one of
the newest buses specifically designed for London. Dezeen wrote an article where the New Routemaster
designer, Thomas Heatherwick
welcomes the Enviro400H City design.
One
thing to note about the Enviro400H City is that the bus is less controversial
due to it being ordered by private bus operating companies, meaning private
money is used to buy these buses. Arriva brought theirs to operate on route 78
as part of their tender requirements.
Since
TFL is extending the New Routemaster fleet to 1,000, we may see newer bus
designs in the future which are similar to the New Routemaster and hopefully
they'll be zero emission battery
electric or hydrogen buses.
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is @CLondoner92
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