(31 Dec 2013, 2:24 pm)palatine3833 wrote As far as I recall, the E400 was a loan to cover for a gemini or two that had to go back and have work done on them.
Yawn... I must love repeating myself...
Here's another example instead. My point still stands, because of that example - as I've just said in Post 1877, in response to northtynelinks2.
Point being - a demonstration vehicle does not guarantee a service will receive that vehicle or even investment at all. You ideally trial demonstration vehicles on your most challenging services whilst bearing in mind the service in which that vehicle could serve if it was ever to be purchased by the company. You ideally do that over a longer period of time too (let me remind everyone of just how long the Versa and Streetlite were here for), rather than Arriva's week-long trial of the Versa a few weeks ago... It would have been on familiarisation for longer than it was actually used in service!
For the record, may I step in with my admin hat on and suggest we don't discuss the matter of a fault having developed on the Gemini vehicles resulting in the Enviro 400 vehicle loan? We've had one or two complaints in the past when discussing problems with manufacturers, and I'd like to avoid having that conversation with our GNE reps again!
As far as we enthusiasts should have been concerned, the vehicle was a demonstration vehicle (as per quote from GNE's official "Archive" document below). I remember members of this forum asked employees on the "Open Line" facility, and that's what they were told then - nothing about a fault being developed on buses and them needing to be sent back, so I suggest it stays that way.
"There have been no changes to the vehicle allocation during the week, however, an ADL Enviro 400 demonstrator, registration mark SN61 DFK, is on loan at Washington depot and is being used on service X1. It has been allocated fleet number 9136."