New Bus For London NB4L

The new Bus for London NB4L
Images Courtesy of Colin Evans

As we may all know 'Mayor' Boris Johnson since his coming into power in 2008, he has wanted to design a new bus for London, that symbolises the hugely popular Routemaster Buses that used to operate on the streets of London until 2005. So much so he even hosted a competition in which people (mostly bus enthusiasts) would submit sketches to TFL showing what they thought the bus should look like. The winners would receive £25,000 grand prize. In actual fact the winners were no ordinary members of the public, they ironically were Aston Martin and Foster & Partners who are an architectural firm who specialise in Glass and Steel building. However it was not the winners that would gain authority to build the NB4L (New Bus For London) it would be existing bus manufacturers. For this TFL called in six well known Bus manufacturers to negotiate the contract to build the NB4L.These were Alexander Dennis, EvoBus ,Hispano Carrocera, Optare, Scania AB and Wrightbus. The manufacturers had to show that they had the capability of building 600 buses or more over a period of three years. Finally on the 23rd of December 2009 it was announced that Wrightbus of Ballymena, Ireland had been awarded the contract to build these vehicles. And here it is. 

A side shot of the N4BL (New Bus For London)

NB4L Interior

NB4L Rear