On Saturday, I spent a few hours in the sun at Horsham where I was able to capture the brand new Enviro200 single deckers, which were introduced by Metrobus to improve the town services.
6 buses have been introduced at Crawley depot for use in Horsham. They look stunning, glinting in the sunlight as they buzzed quickly around the town. They are usually found on routes 61, 93 and 98 - or these were my observations yesterday. Here is 736 (SN12AAJ) heading out of the town centre on route 61.
The livery is very similar to that of the new Plymouth Citybus livery - albeit the colours are different. The Best Impressions connection is clear, although I don't think there is a problem. If the livery works, which I think this one certainly does, then why not replicate the base design elsewhere. Here is 737 (SN12AAK) heading for Horsham town centre, having just served the railway station stops.
Dennis Dart SLFs are also found alongside the Enviro200s. Caetano bodied 361 (Y361HMY) is pictured heading out of the town centre for Oakhill.
Horsham is served half hourly by route 200, connecting the town to Crawley and Gatwick Airport. The route allocation seemed to be a mixture of Darts and deckers - here is Scania Omnidekka 474 (YN53RYC) heading passed the railway station towards Horsham town centre.
Metrobus have two Scania Omnicity double deckers in blue livery rather than red. I managed to catch up with one yesterday - here is 953 (YN08OBP) heading out of the town on route 98.
Stagecoach South also serve Horsham. Using Enviro300s new to Winchester depot, route 17 connects Horsham to Brighton every hour. Here is 27511 (GX06DZP), one of 5 such examples.
Finally for this blog, here is Arriva Guildford's sole Volvo Olympian that remains in the fleet. 5925 (M925PKN) heads out of Horsham town centre, back towards Guildford on the hourly 63.
I hope you have enjoyed these photos from an area of Southern England not usually featured on the blog.
Do we know for sure if Metrobus' livery was actually done by Best Impressions?
ReplyDeleteBy the way, the Enviros are only usually found on route 98. That's the service they were bought for and are allocated to, there's enough of them to run the service.
Just that they do escape from time to time...
NEXT TIME YOU COVER HORSHAM TRY IT ON A WEK DAY FOR MORE VARIETY..LOVER THIS BLOG.REGARDS RAY A
ReplyDelete@ Anon - I am 99% sure the livery is Best Impressions. Certainly Go Ahead use Ray Stenning and his team for most of their liveries.
ReplyDelete@ Ray - many thanks - I will try and get up on a weekday next time. I also want to do Crawley soon.
I work for Head Office in Metrobus. We did the livery ourselves (it's not Best Impressions I'm afraid!), and it has been on some of our buses for a number of years now - Long before the new livery at our sister company in Plymouth was launched. All new and refurbished vehicles get it, and it looks likely that the older two tone blue livery will have gone over the next few months with fleet cascades. The 98 PVR is 4, and we ordered 6 enviros so it is quite likely that you'll see one or two on the other Horsham routes too. Route 200 will have the refurbished Caetano Darts allocated to it once they are all done - Mainly because they are the easiest to get around the Parked Cars in North Heath whilst still providing enough seats!
ReplyDeleteI have one question to ask you please. Are the Omnicities double decks assigned to serve route 98? As I live in Horsham, I see these buses very often on route 98, especially 6953 (YN08OBP).
DeleteFantastic- thank you for your comment Anonymous on 28th May. The livery does look good, and the Enviros in Horsham certainly look very smart. I don't think I've seen a Caetano Dart in the new livery yet - from your fleetlist it seems only 365 is done yet. It will certainly draw me back to Horsham/Crawley in the future.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if you have photos on your company website like Brighton & Hove do, but feel free to use any if you wish to.
James
Hi again James. 379 was the first Caetano refurb to go back on to the road - We have 6 more lined up, and possibly more but that is dependant on what we do with the 284 Omnitowns from London when the contract is renewed with new Enviros next year and what happens with the final phases of the Surrey and West Sussex spending reviews in September. Our new website doesn't cope too well with pictures unfortunately, but we have a flikr page at the link below, which includes a nice pic of 379 on the 409 in Croydon shortly after going back on the road. Link below.
ReplyDeleteGreat article by the way!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/metrobus/7260612876/in/set-72157628161827433
It's nice to see more busses in Horsham lately compared to how many there usually are... I hope it continues!
ReplyDeleteNice article James! I live in Horsham, and so I noticed that all Metrobus have now a 6 prefix next to the number (for example 737 is now 6737). Also to say that 361 (now 6361, Y361HMY) is now withdrawn from service since the beginning of 2015, but we still have 6 Caetanos in service. These are 6363 (Y363HMY), 6365 (Y365HMY), 6372 (Y372HMY), 6377 (Y377HMY), 6378 (Y378HMY) and 6379 (Y379HMY). 6378 is still in the two-tone old blue livery like on the Y361HMY.
ReplyDeleteHave you noticed that the metrobus envio 200s have been painted into a new livery.
ReplyDelete