(14 Jul 2022, 5:04 pm)toward6931 wrote "Ricardo is seeking to offer the hydrogen fuel cell re-powered vehicles at around half the price of a new bus, significantly reducing the upfront investment required whilst also avoiding up to 45,000kg of carbon dioxide emissions by extending the life of existing buses rather than building from new. The aim is to secure 50% match funding investment plus customer commitment for an initial production of 150 buses, which could enter service from late 2024."
so if in theory SNE decided to re-engine the ALX300s,1st gen E300s,any E300s before the 2014 batches and E400s before the hybrid E400Hs thats probably a good 60 to 70 vehicles that Ricardo can prove themselves on, and it also saves stagecoach forking out money on new buses which they seem to love doing in the case of the northeast, im wondering if that's why we still using buses that are nearly 20 years old when for example hull is using SP08 batch E300s as trainers
I'd somewhat disagree with this statement given there hasn't been investment in new buses in the North East for almost 3 years (2019) with the last new vehicles before that coming in 2016, the last time there was a large investment in new buses was between 2013 to 2015 when Sunderland got the ADL E200's/Gas E300's and Stockton got E300's, South Shields also got E200's then compare that to other areas such as Manchester and ops up in Scotland which get investment year on year whereas Sunderland have had nothing now for 9 years, I would've thought there would've been further investment in the meantime to make Sunderland fully gas operational which was part of the original plan iirc.
Elsewhere Hartlepool depot have never had new buses to my memory and just get cast-offs from other local depots and it's shocking to think we still have 19 year old ALX300's operating daily on Newcastle Express Service to Throckley/Kingston Park and due to be transferred to Stockton ahead of the Emission Zone coming into effect if hasn't been pushed back again.