Arriva North West - Runcorn Depot

[Quackdave]

RE: Arriva North West - Runcorn Depot
Have either of the gas buses in the new livery actually needed a repaint - e.g. because of bodywork damage?

If not, it strikes me that Arriva are missing a trick by repainting them early. After all, aren't some new buses of the same type due imminently? Now, the large majority of passengers pay no attention to registration numbers most of the time; but, seeing a bus freshly painted in a new livery for the first time, they might just think "ooh, is that a new bus?", glance at the registration, see a "13", and think "oh no, they've just repainted one of the old ones". Then, when the new buses actually do arrive, they probably won't notice, because by that time they'll be familiar with the new livery.

If, however, they'd waited a bit, they might have got more people noticing that they'd bought new buses, by virtue of the new livery appearing on them first.