Go North West

[Mayneway]

RE: Go North West - FLEETNEWS ONLY - NO STRIKE TALK!

(16/03/2021 01:33)Solo40336 Wrote:  As Mayneway has said above, there was never any "wrong buses" on the 415, its down to having different variants of Enviro200 that fit. GNW are probably the strictest operator for bus types the route has seen. When I used to use the route daily Firsts B7's did "accidentally" make it on the route, out of the 3 times I was on board 2 were swapped part way though the route for the Darts in use at the time and one (66872) made it full route no problem. Even during the closure of the low bridge a couple of months back Stagecoach used multiple deckers on there where as GNW stuck with the Enviro200s.

As for the branding your comment makes it sound oh so simple but its not. A branded bus should never be used on spares, ideally yes but on a daily basis there will be multiple branded buses in the workshops having Inspections and defect repairs, the vast majority can be done by early afternoon so you then have 2, 3, 4 branded buses that are automatically spare. Sure one or two can be slipped onto a school so doesn't really matter, but for the remaining repaired buses, branded or not they need to be sent out to make the afternoon PVR regardless of being on the correct route or not.

GNW are very strict regarding low bridges they take it very seriously. Prime example is the 52, any single decker can be used, but they won’t allow a decker even on the short Eccles or Salford preceint turn backs so there’s no confusion.

As for branded buses, last time I had a branded bus on the wrong route, it had actually been on inspection and was taken out by a VSI and swapped due to a non exsistant heater.
I know from my time as a shunter/router it’s an fine art getting every bus out on the right route every morning.