(14 Oct 2017, 12:21 pm)cbma06 wrote 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 wrote 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.

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...