(16 Dec 2017, 8:21 am)Dan wrote Few photos below.
Aside from the obvious cost impact it would have had to renew all of the seats and change the seating layout, I don't think it was needed? I personally think that the seats in 5337 and 5338 are more comfortable than Go North East's standard seating in Mercedes Citaros. They're a bit wider.
Cosmetically they look a little strange with the new leather - the shape of the seats means that the fabric has to stretch over - but I don't think many passengers would notice that.
Go North East: 5338 / HF06FUB by Daniel Graham, on Flickr
Go North East: 5338 / HF06FUB by Daniel Graham, on Flickr
Granted the refurbs on the acquired Solars happened a lot sooner in to their working life; but they have the same standard seating.
Even if the costs in installing all brand new seats was prohibitive, I would have thought some sort of compromise or work-around would have been possible.
In some aspects the seats in 5338 are comfier than those in the native examples. However, I feel lack of a headrest, takes some of the positives away.
(16 Dec 2017, 11:08 am)S813 FVK wrote It's the scholars bit that gets me. I see no reason why it can't work given that they manage fine now. Perhaps it is be down to jealousy with them having a bus with WiFi and I don't (I certainly made use of 6141's WiFi yesterday, although I was surprised that nobody else seemed to make a big thing of it).
On the topic of scholars services, complaints have apparently being coming in from passengers regarding the state of the bus that does the 16:52 10X - I can only apologise on the behalf of those cretins who can't find anything else to entertain themselves other than throwing bottles, cans and whatever else at people and don't bother clearing their mess up.
Scholars services and the cleanliness of them has alway been an issue and I think the introduction of the 'school bus' Metrobuses 17/18 years ago was partly down the issue of keeping the main fleet away from scholars work.
Obviously this continued with the Olympians, but the policy seems to have stopped.
Way back when - my school regularly had contact from local depots, with threats made about removing the scholars services completely.
They never did during the years I was there.
Maybe the money they made, compensated for any rubbish, graffiti and bus seat fires!
I think I have mentioned in the past about the numbers which squeezed on.
Having my face pushed and squashed to the front of a Mk1 National windscreen isn't up there with my favourite school memories.