Prepared on Notepad by Ian Smith,
This page created 2nd August 2018.
The Trustybus Scania Single-deckersGalleon, operator of Trustybus in the Harlow and Epping area, found itself needing to replace a large number of elderly Dart SLFs of various lengths that would have to be made DDA-compliant to continue. It was the time, in autumn 2015, that Metrobus were divesting themselves of their substantial fleet of Scania OmniCitys that had been used on the 358 between Orpington and Crystal Palace.
Five more OmniCitys followed during the winter and spring of 2016, for use on the 351 and other services. The 419 was revised to run via North Weald to Epping Station. A new 424 was introduced to replace the 524. Then the 541 was replaced by the 418/A/B between Loughton and Harlow. The bright "new" Scanias operated on all these longer services. RXV (ex 526), acquired in April 2016 was operated in its plain red for over a year, with the Go-Ahead London vinyls still partly visible, and paper labels for displays. RXW, not one of those bought for service, was acquired in spring 2016 for spares, and donated its front to RXF, which had been smashed in an accident. Also during early summer 2016 the OmniCitys were equipped with a "Green Urban" system to bring them up to Euro-VI standard. This enabled them to be used in the Broxbourne area on the 392 and 410 routes.
Trustybus: ELS1-4, 8-10, 12-14The long OmniCitys were not suitable for all the routes, so Trustybus also acquired ten of the ELS OmniTowns from Go-Ahead London, during the winter of 2015-16. These were used on routes like the 242 and 7 as well as the longer routes (410/a, 392, 351...)
Two were immediately repainted into Trustybus red,yellow and blue, but others were used in their Go-Ahead London livery (or still all-red in the case of ELS14), with the fleetname vinyls more or less removed. Trustybus soon put six of them into store, but later resurrected two.
Trustybus put most of its acquisitions into service in their Go-Ahead livery, with Go-Ahead vinyls more or less removed. This is ELS12, at least fitted with a digital display rather than hand-written pieces of paper like some others. It was working between Waltham Cross and Welwyn Garden City in June 2016 on the Sunday 242.
More OmniCitys from WarwickshireIn December 2017 Trustybus splashed out on two more long OmniCitys, this time from Warwickshire County Council. These two had been operated on behalf of the council by Stagecoach and then Johnsons of Henley in Arden. Trustybus acquired them via Ensignbus, and had them repainted in the smart house livery, and fitted with multi-colour digital displays. They seem to have made the 420A (Harlow - North Weald - Epping Station) their speciality. They probably displaced some of the relatively unreliable OmniTowns.Secondhand SolarsBy now Trustybus had switched its allegiance to Wright Solars on Scania L94UB chassis. These were not much younger than the Metrobus OmniCitys, most having been new to First Potteries in 2005. First had used them on its Chester-Liverpool operations, which was then taken over by Stagecoach complete with these buses. Trustybus bought six of them in July 2017, then another two in December. Then in February 2018 it bought another two Solars, this time from Go North-East. Trustybus repainted them in a similar style to the OmniCitys, fitting some at least with new multi-coloured digital displays.
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Thirteen (of seventeen) of the batch were bought by Galleon of Roydon for their Trustybus operations. The first eight, bought in October 2015 were promptly painted into house colours of red, yellow and blue, and fitted with digital displays, greatly improving the appearance of the Trustybus fleet. These were specifically for competition on routes 419 and 420, against Townlink's routes 19, 20 and 21. Competition was cut-throat, with both sides slashing fares and abandoning timetables willy-nilly. But the Townlink/Roadrunner/Olympus operation ceased in February 2016.
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