Today was shaping out to be one of those great days, my mate member Rohan had informed my yesterday that some Arriva B5L Hybrid Buses had just been delivered to Volvo Brimsdown for their PDI (Pre Delivery Inspection) check before being delivered to Tottenham garage where they will split between Routes 76,149 and 243.

Arriva HV12 LJ60AXD

 The new Buses are are coded as 'HV' and there will be twenty of these new buses arriving at Arriva London's Tottenham Garage. When Arriva were given the allocation of 20 Hybrids they chose the Wright Gemini 2 bodywork with the Volvo B5L Chassis which makes me question why they do not order their diesel cousins the Volvo B9TL.The new Buses have CCTV Screens, LED Lighting and power blinds, which is really uncharacteristic of Arriva. It brings up another question is it actually Volvo that specify power blinds with their vehicles because if you look at the Arriva HWs that were delivered around the same time as the old Arriva HVs you will notice they have manual blinds. These Buses I have to describe as the 'perfect bus'.


More Photos below

Arriva HV8 LJ60AWZ rear offside

Arriva HV8 and Arriva HV7

Arriva HV8 offside

Arriva HV8 offside shot

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For those who were anticipating the London Bus Simulator we have some good news and some bad news. The good news is the Bus simulator has not ceased production however the bad news is that production of the simulator has been halted temporarily while I  try to get my head around my college studies. The Bus simulator was set to be semi-fictional however you were allowed to drive real life Buses such as Dennis Pointers as the screenshot to the left shows. A Trident Plaxton President was in production as well as an Arriva Daf Alexander and Daf Gemini 2. Feel free to post any queries or comments regarding this.

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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

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Thanks to Colin Evans we can now hosts pictures of when the Greenline Volvos took a trip to First London's Hayes Garage in West London. The shots show new VN37891 BF60UUB and 32348 formerly VNZ32348 of First London's Alperton Garage that has had a single door conversion as well as a repaint. This vehicle is now allocated to First's Bracknell Garage which has a variety of ex First London Vehicles. 

VN37891 BF60UUB and 32348 LK53LZL 

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TE1085 LK60AFV stands outside the Metroline CELF Centre prior to entering service for the Route 210 at Cricklewood. These buses were supposed to be part of the batch 1073 - 1104 however their late arrival now means they have formed their own batch.

One thing to note is the new TEs have been delivered with the 'CW' garage codes rather than the 'W' garage codes which is strange considering the other '10 plate TEs that were delivered in July had the 'C' removed from the 'CW' codes they were delivered with. There were another 3 TEs at the centre one of them being 1088. Amongst other things at the Centre today was a First London TN from Greenford Depot (G) and the severely damaged TPL259 which has been completely withdrawn from service. It has been about a month since I visited here so enjoy the photos!

The rear of TE1088

Metroline TP379 LR52KWX

Metroline TP350 LR52KVP

Metroline TE1084 LK60AFU

Metroline TA86 T186CLO

The interior of the new TEs

Metroline DP34 W134WGT

CW garage codes.

Metroline TE1084 LK60 AFU

First London TN33293 LK03NLR at CELF Centre

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Arriva 'T' 179 LJ60AUF stands at Waterloo Bus Station about to reform the return journey to Hampstead Heath in North West London. These new vehicles have been deployed on the Route 168 since it October 2010 as part of a new contract, these have released the VLWs which have now transferred to Enfield (E) for the 349, which in turn will see older DLAs and DLPs transfer to the provinces. Photo © Peter Horrex.

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