Solent Blue Line are receiving 14 five-year-old Scania Omnidekkas from Reading Buses at present. The majority are going into a purple livery branded "Simply Go", which see Go South Coast taking over the services for Alton College. However, three will go in to service branded for the BlueStar network, and the first one ready was out today...
In a dark, damp Fair Oak, Scania Omnidekka 1013 (YN06JWG) arrived this afternoon on route 2 from Southampton. It is the first Omnidekka out in service and looks very impressive. She does not yet have the stars on the rear - time will tell whether these will be applied to what has not become BlueStar's second youngest double decker. Incidentally, BlueStar's first and third youngest deckers - Enviro400 858 and fellow Omnidekka 1035 - were also out in use on route 2 today.
This was formerly Reading Buses 823, and although I didn't manage to capture it in service then, I do have sisters 819, 820 and 824 - Solent Blue Line now also own 820. Here is Reading Buses 824 (YN06JWP) pictured in the same livery that 823 arrived in a couple of months ago.
Hopefully I'll be able to capture the Alton ones over the coming days - news from GSC forum is that one of the Omnidekkas will have to work the Sunday BlueStar 5 due to a low bridge - whether this will happen or not has not yet been confirmed.
You're forgetting the 7 Scania omniCity 'deckers James - but of course these ex Reading Scanias do provide a good upgrade to the BlueStar double deck fleet, particularly as they're 80 or 90 seaters and low height.
ReplyDeleteOf course Andy, I had forgotten these as they are usually strictly allocated to route 1.
ReplyDeleteCoincidentally, my first shot of one of those in service was on a 2 at Fair Oak, back in early 2009.