Dublin Bus Artic Buses being sold for scrap

trad

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/VOLVO-B7-WRIGHT-BODY-BUS-COACH-BREAKING-EXPORT-SPARES-/120724542529?pt=UK_Minibuses_Buses_Coaches&hash=item1c1bbe5441


Apparently not for UK roads. And for £10,500 stg.

snappieT

The NDP sticker on the side... :')

Niles

snappieT wrote: »

The NDP sticker on the side... :')

Kind of sums up Ireland's development at the moment don't you think?

Drimnagh Road

Niles wrote: »

Kind of sums up Ireland's development at the moment don't you think?

Agreed, on the scrap heap!

Baron de Robeck

Anybody got any insight as to why they are not suitable for UK roads? Can't be too far removed from the bendis that operated over there.

L1011

I'd assume they meant that they can't be driven away as they're not UK registered etc.

foggy_lad

Baron de Robeck wrote: »

Anybody got any insight as to why they are not suitable for UK roads? Can't be too far removed from the bendis that operated over there.

Failed the MOT? or would cost too much to re-register it in the uk?

Run_to_da_hills

Im surprised that these aren't snappped up by various airport authorities for use on private property.

antoinolachtnai

If you need high capacity buses you also need them to be highly reliable. There is little or no second hand market for second hand RHD high capacity buses. The same goes for tri-axles. 12 year old buses with a soft service record are of no use to airports for this reason.

If a transport company buys these they really have to be prepared to maintain them and drive them to the very end in order to get value from them.

Atlantic Dawn

Must be the most impractical vehicle ever put on Irish roads, they should actually pay someone to dispose of them, worst designed vehicle for a city I have ever seen. I don't know how many times I have spotted one across a yellow box because they are too long to drive like a normal vehicle.

Mint Sauce

Boris Johnson, as far as I know is withdrawing the Bendies in London, possible reason for him not taking them. Not sure bout the other cities.

dfx-

Looks like AW10...

CIE

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

Must be the most impractical vehicle ever put on Irish roads, they should actually pay someone to dispose of them, worst designed vehicle for a city I have ever seen. I don't know how many times I have spotted one across a yellow box because they are too long to drive like a normal vehicle

...a "normal vehicle" like your average HGV? How about your 40-metre Luas trams?

Of course, with a system of bus lanes that actually worked, there would be no blocking of yellow boxes because the bus would have somewhere to go instead of into traffic.

devnull

Really it just shows the problems we have with CIE and their use of taxpayers funds to purchase buses and then dispose of them less than 10 years after entering service with the company. My question to the people who say they were useless in Dublin, is did you use tbe number four bus prior to the network direct changes every day If not then with all due respect you are not in a position to properly judge.

The fundamental problem with the number 4, is there is simply not enough capacity from O'Connell Street/O'Connell Bridge/Trinity College to Ballsbridge, this has caused many people to abandoning getting the bus and has become much worse since the withdrawl of high capacity articulated buses, and the cut of the peak frequency from 6 buses an hour to 4 buses an hour.

There is fundamentally nothing wrong with the route that the 4 actually takes, infact when it was introduced it was one of the most successful, if not the most successful route Dublin Bus have introduced in the last 10 years. This is bore out by the fact it gained an increase in frequency when the 4A came along, and it was seen to be having AW's with a hundred plus people on every morning and evening.

At the end of the day many people have abandoned the 4 and Dublin Bus including myself because of the cuts, I work with at least six people who used to get the bus, who have given up now because of the lottery in the mornings of if you are going to be able to board a bus or how many buses will go pass because one stops because they are overcrowded, following the cuts I frequently saw around 40+ people left behind at Trinity, and another 40+ being left behind at O'Connell Bridge with the same number boarding at O'Connell Street (if they could all get on).

By the way, incase you are wondering I actually used the 4 for years after it was introduced, and regarded it as one of the rare things Dublin Bus actually got right. It made me abandon my car to work and get the bus. Unfortunately for Dublin Bus they decided to take an axe to a perfectly functioning route that was already bursting at the seams, there was a far bigger argument for increasing the peak time frequency, than the savage cuts it actually got. But they destroyed it, and drove away revenue and users off their services in the process.

Solution to the problem:
Restore the Articulated buses or replace them with Triaxles.
Restore the previous timetable.

What actually happened:
Buses scrapped
A 33% peak time cut Monday to Friday
A cut to once every 30 minutes Saturday and 60 minutes Sunday
A change to double deck operation which cut capacity by 50+ Passengers per bus.

Run_to_da_hills

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

Must be the most impractical vehicle ever put on Irish roads, they should actually pay someone to dispose of them, worst designed vehicle for a city I have ever seen. I don't know how many times I have spotted one across a yellow box because they are too long to drive like a normal vehicle.

Nothing wrong with these busses as they have been very successful abroad,

In Ireland CIE had them on unsuitable routes and unions or what ever else prevented them from using them to their max, ie operating all doors and not just the front.

Hotblack Desiato

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

In Ireland CIE had them on unsuitable routes and unions or what ever else prevented them from using them to their max, ie operating all doors and not just the front.

I'll never forget seeing these yokes when first introduced, trying to get through the S-bend near Donnybrook Garda station. Wonder what genius thought that was a good idea? :rolleyes:

The unsuitability of these yokes on many/most Dublin Bus routes and DB's ongoing "issues" with using more than one door meant that it should have been perfectly obvious that purchasing them was never going to work out in Dublin.

I suspect the purchase of them was as much a political decision as anything else, throw a few Euro up North...

Losty Dublin

devnull wrote: »

Really it just shows the problems we have with CIE and their use of taxpayers funds to purchase buses and then dispose of them less than 10 years after entering service with the company. My question to the people who say they were useless in Dublin, is did you use tbe number four bus prior to the network direct changes every day If not then with all due respect you are not in a position to properly judge.

Dublin Bus didn't actually buy these buses, though. They were literally given to them by the then Public Enterprise minister overseeing CIE, Mary O'Rourke who has not seen a lot since sliced bread, so taken back with them was she after a tour of the Wrights plant in Nottingham. DB had neither garage space or proper maintenance ramps for them, the street furniture also being unsuitable and unable to handle them hence their limited use and lower reliability rates.

As it happens, circa 11 years is the projected life of a city bus so they are being disposed at about the right time, give or take a few months.

Cookie_Monster

Losty Dublin wrote: »

As it happens, circa 11 years is the projected life of a city bus so they are being disposed at about the right time, give or take a few months.

for Dublin, most other cities seem to make their stock live a lot longer in good condition

Losty Dublin

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

for Dublin, most other cities seem to make their stock live a lot longer in good condition

By all means you can get a longer life out of a bus, provided that you can get hold of spare parts etc and are willing to take one same. That said, there comes a stage when it costs more to run an old bus over replacing it.

n97 mini

Have these been legally scrapped, and hence can't be put back on the road?

dowlingm

If those Blue Line fellas had been serious they could have used them...

L1011

n97 mini wrote: »

Have these been legally scrapped, and hence can't be put back on the road?

DB definitely would not have done that in Ireland, as they would be looking for the highest possible resale value. Doubt the resale firm has done so in the UK either.

The_Wrecker

21k and there yours
http://www.ensignbus.com/Sales_Volvo-B7LA-artics.htm

L1011

If there are MOTed ones for 21k and "not for UK roads" ones seperately for less; is there a possibility some of them were in dreadful mechanical condition?

trad

How many of them were there? The scrap guy is expecting 18 more in. I wonder was it a condition of sale that they be scrapped like the old Van Hools and Bombardiers

LXFlyer

There were 20.

munchkin_utd

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

for Dublin, most other cities seem to make their stock live a lot longer in good condition

quite topical this as Munich is also getting rid of a batch of bendy busses from the year 2000 , but obviously replacing them with more bendy busses!! So it does seem to be the international standard for retiring busses with already 700,000km on the clock!!
Obviously theres less scumbags in Munich trying to hitch a ride for free than Dublin, so these are not one, not two, not three but FOUR door models for even quicker loading and unloading of passengers!!
The extra door is at the very back behind the wheel arch of the bendy bit.
http://www.mvg-mobil.de/presse/2011-05-09_mvg-pressemeldung.pdf

To be fair, on the right routes bendy busses are the biz, i.e. on shorter suburban runs as a rail shuttle or the likes wandering around housing estates where you need very very high capacity for a short distance and where people dont mind standing for 5 or 10 minutes.

For the often hour plus trek from say Castleknock to town (only 7km but anyhow.) you probably are better off with the much higher seating capacity of a large double decker.