(20/02/2015 20:53)Dentonian Wrote:  Whoa! Hang on. 17002/10/1 are in London on Rail replacement associated work, and 17243 is no longer a Stagecoach bus, and has never been a Stagecoach Manchester/Wigan bus. However, you mentioning 19088/9 does give some clue as to what might have happened. These are both Wigan buses, and as Wigan Schools are usually out of step with the rest of GM, I'm guessing it was their half-term last week. Wigan also have a higher proportion of schools work than other Stagecoach Manchester depots - hence a few to spare last week. The newer Enviro400s could have been made available by delaying repaint of cascaded Enviro400s into MagicBus livery, and I suppose a few others could have been resourced by not running 50 or 192 shorts, and dropping the odd 86.
I think you must be right about St. Peters Square as well. I don't get much chance to venture out at lunch time, but I did nip down to Chorlton Street and back up Portland Street to Lever Street, one day last week (I think it was Tuesday, actually), and I certainly didn't see any Metrolink replacement buses, and trams have certainly been running from Undercroft along Aytoun Street the whle time. The only thing I have noticed recently is more "double" trams off-peak.....leading to inevitable delays to buses and other traffic both on Aytoun Street and London Road.

(22/02/2015 01:02)SLTRegular Wrote:  There's a Freshly repainted? or so my eyes tell me Alx400 51 Plater at Wigan any Ideas?

(25/02/2015 15:16)joe_alker Wrote:  Just seen corporate liveried dual door 17497 heading along the main road in the direction of Ashton depot. Possible transfer?

(25/02/2015 19:27)SF07 Wrote:  50-branded E400H heading up from bottom of Hollins Road in Hollinwood this morning, heading to Oldham to start on 76 route.

(26/02/2015 09:25)YSV-205 Wrote:  I've noticed over the last week or so that the "magic bus" yellow lettering on the front of the magic bus Tridents is being replaced with lettering saying something like "Brought to you by Stagecoach" in the regular Stagecoach style of lettering. I thought it very odd considering that the Tridents are very quickly disappearing. Why have Stagecoach done this now?

My first thought was that maybe they were doing it because those buses could be going to other UK Stagecoach companies so having the "magic bus" brand elsewhere, with potential passengers not necessarily knowing that magic bus is a Stagecoach company / branding. Any thoughts?

(26/02/2015 11:09)Mayneway Wrote:  I think it's just part of the new magic branding. I've noticed that some of the older Tridents also now carry Wifi bus stickers also, this also stuck me as a bit odd but obviously as First vehicles habe Wifi on along Wimslow road it's probably been done to make them as attractive as Firsts.

Intestingly I seem to remember that the 'brought to you by Stagecoach' vinyls were tried on some if the Dragons many years ago above the doors but were very quickly dropped.