(28 Jul 2024, 4:45 pm)PH - BQA wrote NE wise, the 57-plate DB250s have to go down as one of the worst purchases.
Money pits from the start, reportedly they all had new gearboxes within the first few years. All were withdrawn from service after, at most, 13 years with 7453 only lasting 11 and a bit - and they were replaced by ex-London B7TLs which were around 6 years older. The E400s purchased at the same time are still going, 3 years after 7455 finally gave up.
Of course they were great on their day, but had huge reliability issues and cost a bomb to keep going.
It's funny, I was thinking about them but the earlier batch were generally alright, ignoring the Urban 90's. God knows what on earth happened to them as newer batches generally get better but they couldn't be any further away.
Mind speaking of East Lancs / Optare (Post 2008) / Darwin / Switch or whatever name they're going for this week aren't exactly the gleaming success story and generally produce crap. The Cityzens at Blyth weren't exactly the greatest things either and nor are some of the Solo's SR's floating around with GNE either.
The Dennis Tridents need a mention aswell as they were awful, forgot about them tbh.