(04 Oct 2021, 8:25 pm)Storx wrote Must have missed the continuous fleet renewal at Stagecoach mind. They're in a worse place atm imo with buses which need withdrawing now nevermind in 5 years and there's nothing planned. Not to mention the majority of the fleet haven't been refurbished since new and are extremely outdated, regardless to what people thought of the Arriva refurbs.

They've also got an awful lot of 08/58/09/60/11/61 buses which will need renewing at the same and since some of them are cheap MAN rubbish they'll need replacing aswell.

Arriva has always ran it like that though, with a similar scenario between 2001 - 2007 where nothing was really ordered except it was much much worse than it is now with the leaking Scania's at Blyth which we're shot, Olympians still in the smartie interior and stuff like this https://farm9.static.flickr.com/8142/763...e9fefc.jpg running on frontline services. People would have a field day on here if it was back then.

Not to mention ex Darts from anywhere they could find them, Metroriders everywhere which were completely shot and Prestige's which the less said is better.

I think the big thing back then was the likes of N3** OTY and P4** CCU and M3** FTY were built to last.

If Arriva had a fleet of B9TLs and E400s (latter not used on any Alnwick X routes or X93), they'd be fine.

GNE have a large fleet of B9TLs and unless the EV bid is approved for the Cobalts & Angel (meaning perhaps StreetDecks cascaded onto the 27 or 56 with some B9TLs cascading elsewhere within GNE or GAG), they'll likely be run in frontline service for 12-15 years.

ANE ordering new vehicles for the X15/X18, X21/X22 and X93 would be a good starting point. Plenty of decent cascades available from these down.

In turn, the cascades would upgrade the X14 (newer E400), X20 (B9TL), 43/44/45 (newer E400) and 308 (E400MMC voith).