Shabby First buses in Sheffield.

[Parapou]

 

These double deckers are former London buses and have had a full refurbishment inside includes the filling in of the area taken by the centre doorway.The single seat arrangement is to allow easier wheelchair access.

 

Why not leave the centre doors and speed up boarding on busy routes?

 

And yes why do we get other cities' cast offs - perhaps because their councils/ptes have tighter 'voluntary agreements' with First - and hold them them to their promises.

 

 

Posted from Sheffieldforum.co.uk App for Android

[puddinburner]

You may have noticed that First have withdrawn most of their oldest buses in the last few months (or at least moved them out of Sheffield):

 

The N/ P reg B10Ls

The R/S reg Volvo Olympians (step entrance, so not "buggy friendly")

The X reg Dennis Darts

 

Instead we've got some six year old double deckers from Leeds. Not brand new, but a big step in the right direction.

 

Sounds like an expert on bus's, so will ask you this question....kids asking me and I have not the slightest idea.

Why have some vehicles got gold stars? Applies to some on 48/47 route.

[Super Hans]

I have to say, 47/48 buses are always the decent ones. If they turn up that is.

 

Maybe that's why they put modern buses on the route? "We've had them waiting an hour for an every 12 minutes bus, let's give them a nice one".

[muttley_the_]

i get 3/4 buses a day and one of the routes is the 69 from sheffield to rotherham.

 

i have noticed in the last month or so whilst it is still by far the most unreliable route/service i have known in any city ( nearly always late, frequently missing a bus - 20 min sto next one), that wheras they were almost always the very very old grey double deckers with the step etc, now they tend to be single deckers - again the old ones but newer than the delapidated doubles

 

perhaps this is down to the extremly poor reliablility of the old doubles as whenever i questioned a driver on the route as to the punctuality or missing services they always said it was down to bus breaking down

 

 

in an average week i catch the 69 about 7 times and at least once a week one service or more fails to show at all.

[tbtc]

kids asking me and I have not the slightest idea.

Why have some vehicles got gold stars? Applies to some on 48/47 route.

 

Like above the windscreen on this picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/transpennine47/4675710672/ ?

 

It's the batch of double deckers that we received from Leeds in about September 2012 that have them (they got "new" buses that were used on Olympic contracts down in London over the summer - once the Olympics were over these new buses moved to Leeds and the buses freed up in Leeds came to Sheffield).

 

I think that the gold star is something to do with where to park them in the depot in Leeds - we had something similar in Sheffield a while ago to indicate the buses that were to be parked where cleaners would give them priority treatment - First come up with these "initiatives" from time to time to try to give special treatment to buses on key routes - the idea being that they will then roll it out across the whole depot until it becomes "the norm".

 

(it could have been a star to identify the buses that were used on the Guided Busway in Leeds though - could be wrong)

 

In short, the stars are a Leeds thing - when the buses moved to Sheffield the stars were never taken off them - they get treated just the same as other Sheffield buses now they are here. Sorry it's nor a more interesting answer!

[2101]

Why not leave the centre doors and speed up boarding on busy routes?

 

And yes why do we get other cities' cast offs - perhaps because their councils/ptes have tighter 'voluntary agreements' with First - and hold them them to their promises.

 

 

Posted from Sheffieldforum.co.uk App for Android

No, it doesn't work. It was done when the (ex) Rotherham and Doncaster Olympians arrived from London about 7/8? years ago and all of them had the centre doors removed after entering service, although they were not done as well as these recent cascades.

 

There is some right rubbish in this thread, the oldest buses in Sheffield are R reg (which is not that old compared with other UK bus operations) but most of Sheffield's fleet is now repainted and looking presentable and there have been a lot of newer buses cascaded in to replace the old scrappers.

[the_bloke]

So by naming 3 cities that in your opinion do not have hills as steep as sheffield you have proved your point? I think not. I have lived in and visited many places in the uk and can categoriclly state that there are many cities a lot hillier than sheffield.

Try going to Portsmouth and looking inland and what do you see? A clue - its steep and sticks out of the ground and has fields on top of it.

 

Indeed! Going up the hill once you got past Cosham was a very slow and noisy experience back in the 80s on a Leyland National..

 

.. not as slow as cycling however.

[Mainline]

Sheffield is the steepest city in Britain, it's beyond me how such a big hilly city can have such old crap buses. I wait for the Stagecoach when I go for the 25 because the tickets are easier to read

[nohands]

Bradford, Bristol and Bath all have the majority of their buses provided by First - in fact there are First buses in Sheffield which used to run in those three cities.

 

Many cities have some hills, yet Sheffielders seem to think that this makes our city unique.

 

As I remember it, Sheffield used to have vehicles with retarders on from the (late?) 70s due to the topography. I do not think that this was the case in Bristol, Bath or Bradford. Many places have a steep hill or two, but in Sheffield it is the frequency of inclines that wear the brakes out more quickly.

 

On a more general note, First tend to buy buses for particular routes and then cascade others. When operators were local, this meant that they would move onto other routes in the same city; now they move to other cities.

 

It is not just First. Stagecoach do the same. In Manchester city centre, it is rare to see a Stagecoach branded double decker older than about 5 years.

[That easy]

As I remember it, Sheffield used to have vehicles with retarders on

 

It still has judging by some of the driving.