(01 Sep 2021, 12:10 am)mb134 wrote Overall it was an enjoyable day with good company. My initial impressions of Transdev were positive, and had I only sampled the CityZap and Witchway then I think I'd have had my expectations matched. In reality, however, past these core routes, the picture of Transdev Blazefield seems a little less rosy. B10BLEs chugging around on town work seems irresponsible, Y-reg B7TLs being given private plates and put onto services such as Pendle Wizz and Airedale seems off, and the appearance of quite a few of the vehicles certainly wasn't creating any desire (569/X569YUG as a prime example). I find the NE operators come in for, at times well deserved, criticism quite often for issues such as service provision or vehicle standards. We noted at a number of places on our travels today that towns were left with Sunday services of every 2 hours and last buses well before the Mon-Sat counterparts. Then in terms of vehicle standards, to compare to the NE, I often see criticism of ANE using 55-plate B7TLs on peak summer X93 workings - yet Transdev are using Y-reg B7s on things like Pendle Wizz and Airedale without so much as a word said...
I appreciate that all companies have positives and negatives, and don't get me wrong I think Transdev do a lot of things well, but there seems to be a belief in certain enthusiast bubbles that certain companies can do no wrong. Before today, from what I had seen on social media and forums such as this, I had an impression of Transdev Blazefield as being a transport company on the cutting edge. While that is true for a handful of routes, it is also far from the truth for what seems like a substantial part of the network. Having thought about it more, I think I'd honestly take any of the big three in the North East ahead of them.
Couple of points
I have noticed that the cleaning on York's fleet is questionable in places, have seen similar issues with unclean interior, another being the windows externally with clear streaks and dirt down the windows, especially poor when I travelled on one of their E200MMCs with this issue on DalesBus service 825 from Richmond, same can often be said for Harrogate in particular the B7RLEs on the 7.
The two Burnley services you had B10BLEs on (2 & 5) got brand new StreetLites of the same size to the ex Saltwell Parks in 2014 but when they acquired Rosso they were redeployed on their services leaving the B10s displaced off the Mainline by Versas to be cascaded onto the Burnley local services. A 5 Burnley Connect Lite: https://flic.kr/p/2kDvwcU
The old Y reg B7TLs at Keighley are not a good look especially the ones with the old Keighley & District interior with its dark and dingy horrible looking seating that seems to be the same moquette as Arriva Bus & Coach Dealerstock use that let's their them down massively, not too bad in terms of performance however. Burnley's 2706 at least has a half decent interior and can shift, always a joy when it appears on Pendle Wizz in place of the branded examples which now rather tired both internally and with performance. There's a few other bits such as Tridents at Burnley and ELC bodied Tridents at Rosso still in the livery for a Uni service in Nottingham could do with a refresh although both pretty much just do second rate work like scholars and the odd peak run normally.
Whilst I think they do stuff like presentation right (for the most part), they do a fair bit wrong too.