Arriva North West - Birkenhead Depot

[H101GEV (Administrator)]

RE: Arriva North West - Birkenhead Depot

(20/10/2021 12:31)SK15 GZG Wrote:  Nobody's said anywhere Birkenhead doesn't need deckers on the main cross river routes. The point that's being made is Birkenhead received plenty of investment in deckers while many routes on the Liverpool side which needed the extra capacity were allocated single deckers which were too small.

Yes, I fully agree. Arriva management realised their mistake in 2014 and thankfully put a lot of it right, with plenty of nearly-new Pulsars transferred away as a result.

The only justification I can see for new Cross-River deckers lies in how poor the B5LH's availability rates are. There are regularly eight or so of them out of action, suggesting their reliability isn't particularly good. However, I doubt ordering new diesel deckers would go down well with various bodies, given the commitment to reduce pollution in the tunnels.

I maintain that the 407 and 464 could manage with single deckers if necessary, but I haven't suggested Birkenhead should lose its current allocation; rather, none of its town services justify anything more than full-size saloons and 42 deckers are more than enough.