Routemaster Buses Nantwich

[knutstransport]

RE: Routemaster Buses Nantwich

(26/03/2016 14:21)BHA Wrote:  I have followed this saga very closely being a resident of Nantwich and a regular user of the Nantwich to Chester services. The truth is Routemaster recognised an opportunity when Arriva took out one of the hourly Chester 84s ( Didn't they consider new buses/Sapphire for this service in 2014? ) and started a gap-filling service around last Christmas. From regular observations the Routemaster service was quickly establishing itself with reasonable loadings although mainly from the bus pass brigade.

GHA I assume recognised their success and felt they should get a piece of the action. To this end they started their service a few weeks ago running a few minutes ahead of Routemaster and not surprisingly were carrying few passengers. By this time they had invested in the ex-Arriva London Geminis DW70-73 ( numbers they still carry on their superbly painted bodies ). So we had the sight of empty DDs following well-filled GHA Centros most of the day.

I feel extremely sorry for Routemaster. I hope the TC is sympathetic to their plight and does not penalise them. I think they have tried hard to provide a decent service only to be squashed by a larger operator.

I realise most of this is repetitious from previous posts but I think Routemaster have been hard done by,

Routemaster suggested at one stage they would be registering a C82 service despite never having the resources for that as well as a C84. With hindsight maybe they should have cancelled their C84 as soon as GHA had submitted their registration for the 84 and registered a C82 15 minutes ahead of some of the 82 services, given GHA moved all their 82 services by 15 minutes when they started running the 84 Routemaster could probably have got a significant number of route 82 passengers who were unaware of the timetable change prior to arriving at the bus stop.

Are Routemaster's green buses purchased or leased? They are going to have a surplus of buses on Tuesday.