(05 Sep 2023, 9:52 pm)Ambassador wrote The Angels have nosedived in reliability and ‘branded’ vehicles since Riverside took over.
Whether it’s the extra time and attention (plus expertise) a smaller depot was able pay to vehicles or just a lack of skills or even basing your flagship route miles away from where it starts and adding more miles to the route (CLS morning services are dreadfully unreliable)
They’re still nice inside, e leather seating and some vandalised tables aside, but they are dropping like flies.
I hope they don’t replace them with some complicated to fix and maintain electric vehicle……
I had to venture out into dangerous territory on the 51 the other day, and to my surprise an Angel Streetdeck turned up!
Mechanically at least electric vehicles are a lot simpler, so they should be more reliable, and when things do go wrong, they should be easier to fix.
The trouble will be if they go for more Chinese vehicles like the Yutongs or the ADL EVs, parts availability might end up being a bigger issue.
At least with Wrightbus they seem to be using more locally sourced parts for their electric/hydrogen vehicles rather than straight up importing the vehicle from China, or just slapping an E200/E400 body on a Chinese chassis.