Route 388 Extended

Hello, as you may know route 388 has recently been extended to Stratford City via the Olympic Park. The route is my 4th favourite and the extension has replaced the temporary bus route 588 which ran between Hackney Wick and Stratford City. Because of the extension, to maintain the frequency CT Plus bought a bus from Metroline, TP386 and recoded it HTP5. I have pictures of the 388 buses here:

The sole Enviro 400 CT Plus own, HEA1.

The brilliant EO1 vehicle. A sole Trident E400 Olympus owned by CT Plus.

Here is the bus bought from Metroline, HTP5.

The bus I rode from end to end.

Side of HEA1.

iBus

Interior of HTL3.

Thanks for reading/viewing the pictures!!

Stagecoach WIN! WIN! WIN!

Hello readers, as you may know, Stagecoach have recently won the contracts for the R5/R7/R10 and 261 with new buses. Metrobus have lost these routes and in May they will lose two more, 54 and 75 will go to Stagecoach with new Gemini 3. Routes 53/122 will be topped up with E40H and the 96 and 472 are supposed to get new buses today. But, the new vehicles aren't even at the garage yet!! Route 208 also recently got it's new buses a refurbishment (pretty pointless if you ask me). In no particular order,  Enjoy the pics:

iBus on route 261. I rode this bus from Lewisham-Grove Park Station.

The old 122 buses.

Grove Park Bus Station

At Grove Park, I caught a train to Petts Wood, and waited for the R7.

I did some 208 obs at Petts Wood.

Stagecoach 36325, normally allocated to the 273. One of the new E200's for the R routes is faulty so Stagecoach refurbished another E200 so it could replace YX63LGA for a little while.

Interior of Stagecoach 10188.

Bad traffic in Lee.

Interior of SLN 36325.

Thanks for reading/looking at the pictures!!! Before all this, I covered the 388 extension. That, will be on another post.

Wright StreetDeck: GAL Model

Hello. Recently, a B5TL Wrightbus StreetDeck (aka Gemini 3) entered service on route 12 from Camberwell garage. It has made one appearance on the 68 but no one has a picture of this. Metroline and Arriva are due to receive models like this soon, and full batches of these have been ordered for Routes 54 and 75 when they get taken over by Stagecoach and replace Metrobus SEL's (so sad) and for my favourite route the 7 to replace more SEL's (even sadder). The 7 is probably going to be withdrawn in 2018 once Crossrail is running so at the moment I'm feeling quite sad. It's not having your favourite bus types/bus route off the road. At the moment, SEL763 my favourite bus in London has not been in service for a while because it's been troublesome.
  Anyway, the StreetDeck has slim upper deck windows and has an almost black rear. Here are some pictures (about 6):

Front end near Lower Marsh

iBus.

Rear.

 The first time I tried to get V6, the bus was packed. The second time, I got on at the first stop in early January so I got one or two interior shots.

Thanks for reading/looking at the pictures in this post!!!!

ELECTRICITY IS THE KEY (HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY BLOG)

Before I say anything about the Electric Buses, I would like to say a happy birthday to London Buses On The Go. It's been an eventful year and I'd like to thank all of our viewers to help me get this far with blogging.
    Anyway, Electric Buses. Back in 2012, it was announced that Go-Ahead would be ordering two electric vehicles for use on routes 507/521. They have only been in service on route 507 although I have seen EB2 not in service on High Holborn, on the 521 route. I have pictures of these buses later in this post. The buses tend to run on weekdays and in peak hours although lately EB2 has been staying up until 00:00 on route 507. These buses have been built by the Chinese company Build Your Dreams (BYD for short). They are based at Waterloo garage where charging facilities have been installed. TFL managing director Leon Daniels said that with a PVR of 50 buses for the 507/521 and an off-peak requirement for half this number, the former Red Arrow routes are the obvious safe first step for these vehicles. The shortest duty for these buses lasts 2 hours, with the longest being 17 hours.
          The BYD's are 12m long and like the Mercedes Citaro Diesels that normally work the routes are of a half-standee layout with just 21 seats mostly situated towards the rear of the vehicle. They have a constant whine when moving and it is quieter than a regular Citaro, although not as quiet as the silent trolleybus. After the BYDs, TFL will introduce four 10.6m Optare MetroCity electric single-deckers in the next few months. They will be based at London United's Hounslow (AV) garage to test the opportunity for partial recharging during the day-time.

                         I will be off to get the MetroCities, but for now here are the BYD buses:
First we have some garage photos on the 19th December 2013.

The rear of EB1, in the garage. You can get a glimpse of the charging facilities in this picture.

The front...

Whole view in the garage.

 Here are the pictures of EB1 in service. I ran from Waterloo Garage to York Road racing this bus. I made it! I was very glad, because I got home later than expected anyway. These were taken on the 20th December 2013.

Front end. Note the small front window.

Wheelchair area.

Limited seating room in front area.

Here are the seats!!

Yes, I know.

 Finally, on 16th January 2014 here is EB2 on High Holborn not in service.

Thanks for reading and looking at the pictures in this post!!!