(04 May 2018, 6:17 am)RBZ 5459 wrote Special events over summer too, Tall Ships etc. Not many spare deckers in the fleet now, not many scholars deckers to use for a busy summer. A fair few deckers expected I believe, and be interesting to know if all will be retained.

The first thing I thought about when seeing the photos, was whether they were to supplement a seemingly ever shrinking fleet or to replace vehicles within that fleet.

Most of us can remember the state of play a few years back, when scholars services were lost/not retendered and deckers were cascaded and disposed of.
It took quite a while to bring the decker fleet back up to a decent and reliable complement.
The deckers sourced in the interim (Notts and Dublin Oly's plus London ECW's if I remember right) weren't the most presentable or reliable.

I would hope lessons were learned.

They weren't they only local operator to have had their fingers burnt in that period either.
ANE got a lot of the Hartlepool Tall Ships work and needed to source stock to fulfill operational demand.
Pretty tatty stock it was too.