The Circle of London : Metroline CELF Centre Part 31...The latter batch of TEH

This may well be the final post for the calendar year, 2011 and we at the COL Blog would like to take this time to say Merry Christmas and have a happy new year. Thank you for all the support and we hope that you join us again in the new year. In typical COL Blog fashion we visited our much loved CELF Centre. For those who are not familiar with CELF. In a nutshell, CELF is Metroline's Central Engineering Logistics Facility. It was opened in September 2007 and has since revolutionised the way in which Metroline maintain their Buses. The Centre deals with MOT, Chassis cleaning, repaints and refurbishments. It now means all of these operations can be done in house, which saves the company revenue and it also means vehicles undergoing maintenance can get back on the road much quicker than before.

Metroline TEH1241 LK61 BLZ

Today proved quite a good day for photography and a special thanks goes out to Jack who is our newest member for going out and providing us with the excellent shots we are able to give you today. The reason for the visit today was to see the latter batch of the long awaited TEHs for the Route 16 and 139. The TEH class buses are part of a batch of buses numbered between TEH1217 - 1242 that were all supposed to be delivered in November. However by late October only 8 Buses had been delivered and these came in the form of TEH1217 - 1224. It became apparent that the whole batch would not be delivered by that November 26th deadline. Interestingly the same thing happened last year with the delivery of TE1073 - 1104. Official reports confirmed that the latter batch of these vehicles 1225 - 1242 were still being prepared by Alexander Dennis in their Falkirk, Harlow and Guildford plants and delivery would be immanent.

At the Centre there are 15 TEHs which when fully introduced will allow the 86% conversion of route 16, (providing TEH915 - 919 do not move to the 189) and the full conversion of flagship route 139 to full Hybrid conversion. Making the route the fist Metroline route to become fully operated by Hybrid Buses. The Buses are being parked here briefly whilst they get commissioned before entering service at Cricklewood Garage.

The new TEHs are built to an absolutely stunning specification which sees the addition of LED running lights as well as Passenger CCTV screens. They have the red tree deflectors as standard, although when in build some did have the silver tree deflectors.

Other things to note at the centre were VPL233 Y233 NLK which was a victim of fire damage and will probably not be used again. DLD199 LN51 KXE is still standing at the centre despite the fact it should be on the Route 70 any day now. DE864 LK08 DWX which is victim of an act of vandalism. There were various TPs in the centre as expected as well as an SEL which came in the form of SEL743. However this was pretty much all that was at the centre today. Things at CELF normally quiet down during this season. Thank you for reading this post and we hope you have enjoyed it as much as we have in writing it. More photos from the visit are displayed below.