(02 Jan 2016, 9:59 pm)Davie wrote That's fine than.

I think that they'll be there to stay now until at least 2018 / 2019 and I don't think they'll be replaced. Mind you though, I thought that they were good candidates for replacement giving the Pronto needing newer stock and Riverside needing more backup vehicles for the TEN / TTX as well as a few others.

I honestly can't think of any other decker routes that require an upgrade and if they were to upgrade the 27 to double deck vehicles, I think that another batch of Streetdecks would most likely end up being ordered but bar a few runs where the Metro is off and perhaps a very small number of peak time runs, I don't think GNE will replace the Citaros as they do the job well.

I think GNE are looking to keep the Omnicities, Citaros and B9TLs (bar the TTX) on their retrospective routes for as long as possible before seeking replacements. Just look at the Coaster, GNE have recently fitted Wi-Fi onboard and that in itself shows commitment to keeping them for that bit longer. I know that GNE replaced the Red Kite examples but they were then utilised (at the time) to replace some of the aging vehicles on the 11/31/32.

Although in theory having a 10 year old vehicle running around even on some very profitable routes is a bad idea, unlike some of Arriva's refurbished Sapphires up and down the Country, the vehicles in question bar a few, don't really have much questionable history behind them (being used on the likes of the X93 etc) which could determine the reliability of them.