[Archive] Arriva North West - Speke Depot

[K101HUM]

RE: Arriva North West - Speke Depot
The contrast in refurbishments carried out by Arriva's highly skilled, qualified and experienced ladies and gentlemen at St Helens can be seen on numerous London cascades plus the Sapphire Enviro400's at Wrexham. 4403, being the pioneer of the Sapphire fleet in the United Kingdom, was the first finished to supreme levels as expected in-house at St Helens Works. 4405 is another which was completed in-house at St Helens again to the same high-standards. However, some of their counterparts done by the external contractor fail to reach these levels, in my opinion. It is clear certain areas haven't received the same levels of care and attention as the duo quoted above, for example some of the plastic/seam welding on various interior body panels plus the repainting of certain.

As 507009 highlights, the VLW-class examples fall well below the standard set by Arriva's own team of craftsmen. And, after seeing some of the current generation of DLP-class vehicles receiving attention again by the same contractor, it would appear to be a case of de-javu. Some may say these areas are small and insignificant, but such small things add up to make a big difference in the general appearance of a vehicle.