(14 Oct 2017, 1:04 pm)Jimmi About how long do the current contracts last? I fear that if the answer is a short duration, the operators won't bother spending as much effort in vehicle presentation, especially if they are mostly only going to do scholar's and Nexus misc boards, when Phoenix aquired a fair amount of Nexus contracts last year, they put pretty much all of the vehicles they aquired out in their previous operators liveries and sure enough they lost most of these services when the contracts came to a end about 8 months later, who would spend fortunes on making buses look smart and well presented when you only end up having to sell them after 8 months, which is a shame really.

(14 Oct 2017, 3:28 pm)S813 FVK As far as I am aware, Stanley Travel currently have no plans of repainting the Geminis. Understandable if the contract is short but they could at least tidy the bodywork up.

(14 Oct 2017, 8:24 am)Swiny1 Dan do you think GNE will win some of the contracts back. Awful seeing Kingsley (cowboys) operating so much. Some of the buses they have now must be leased but I still think they will balls up

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(14 Oct 2017, 12:21 pm)cbma06 Only slightly agree with the comments, it's ashame that the independent bus companies don't have the backing of someone who's smoking a big Brazilian cigar


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(14 Oct 2017, 1:04 pm)Jimmi About how long do the current contracts last? I fear that if the answer is a short duration, the operators won't bother spending as much effort in vehicle presentation, especially if they are mostly only going to do scholar's and Nexus misc boards, when Phoenix aquired a fair amount of Nexus contracts last year, they put pretty much all of the vehicles they aquired out in their previous operators liveries and sure enough they lost most of these services when the contracts came to a end about 8 months later, who would spend fortunes on making buses look smart and well presented when you only end up having to sell them after 8 months, which is a shame really.

(14 Oct 2017, 3:00 pm)BusLoverMum Regarding Dan's comment about the night buses: the angel is out with its night bus livery, this afternoon, while the 56 one is still bare.

(14 Oct 2017, 3:51 pm)GuyParkRoyal In my opinion Kingsleys are a long established family run business that take a great pride in their operations.

Some of Kingsleys vehicles are now advertising on behalf of the schools that they serve. A major operator is unlikely to support schools own advertising as is the case with an independent business.

(14 Oct 2017, 3:55 pm)Andreos1 I think those two points, hit the nail on the head.
All be it, in a totally fashion.

There's no PLC funding these purchases, repaints, pleather seating, wifi, plugs etc like there is with the big boys.
There's no need to do so, because the contracts are for such a short period.

Kingsleys had a smart fleet in the past - even though the fleet colour scheme was adapted previously (to suit the livery their WM Metrobuses arrived in ironically).
Did their ex-Lothian's ever get a repaint? I remember them hanging around for quite a while in harlequin.

Gateshead Central haven't repainted their entire fleet orange and possible can't afford to, due to the margins they're on.

I haven't picked up on the quotes about driving. Simply because they're down to opinion.
If schools, Nexus and whoever else are continually hiring them for contracts, the fleet are passing PSV tests and VOSA (or whatever they're called these days) are happy with what is put before them and *touch wood*, there hasn't been a serious accident... Then I would suggest that maybe there isn't too much wrong...

(14 Oct 2017, 6:19 pm)Adrian Kingsleys, as well as being a long established family run business, have also a long established record of delivering value for money to the local authority. They have been running scholars and works services, especially in the Washington area, for the past 20 years. Whilst their fleet may not be full of 17 plates, they have constantly invested and upgraded what fleet they have, without the use of PFI schemes or similar.

(14 Oct 2017, 6:33 pm)Dan Have Kingsleys ever operated their own commercial services? I can't recall one in the recent past.

Though a different kettle of fish to the topic in the original post, we've regularly commented on this forum in the past about how independent operators should do more to take risks and operate services commercially.

(15 Oct 2017, 2:16 am)Jamie M The 58 CL versas have done 4 years of service, not a bad shout actually.

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(14 Oct 2017, 3:00 pm)BusLoverMum Regarding Dan's comment about the night buses: the angel is out with its night bus livery, this afternoon, while the 56 one is still bare.

(15 Oct 2017, 10:08 am)Michael When will 5299-5303, get branded for the X84/X85 and 680?

(15 Oct 2017, 10:11 am)Dan Probably when 5298 returns, as that's an orange one too.

5229 has now transferred to Chester-le-Street, following repaint.

(14 Oct 2017, 9:49 pm)Citaro5326 A chester le street driver has told me that the 28s apparently getting long versas. However i doubt this

(15 Oct 2017, 10:37 am)Jimmi I wouldn't be too surprised if Chester-le-Street does get Versa's for the 28s, especially as it would achieve further fleet standardisation considering they already have some for the 34/34A & 36.

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