26 new buses for St Helens to Liverpool services 10/10A

Sunday February 1st 2015 saw Arriva North West introduce a batch of twenty six brand new double deck buses into traffic at St Helens Depot on two of Arriva North West's Quality Bus Partnership routes. This represents part of a £10 million investment in new buses which will hit the roads of Merseyside throughout the first quarter of the year.  Two small launch events for the new vehicles was held on Thursday January 29th at the depot and a public launch on Saturday 31st January in St Helens Town Centre. 

An impressive line up from L to R 4615, 4619, 4602, 4616, 4607, 4603 & 4613

Two of the batch had already entered service on Monday January 15th, those being 4595 and 4596 with the remaining twenty four vehicles of the batch entering service on the 1st and 2nd of February respectively.

4596 in St Helens Town Centre after returning from Liverpool on it's first day in service on 15/01/15

They are the first brand new double decker buses new to St Helens depot since a batch of ten Northern Counties bodied Leyland Olympians were delivered to the depot in 1989 when it was operated by Merseybus. In September 2013 the depot saw a return in the operation of double deck vehicles with the arrival of two former Arriva London London DAF DB250 Alexander ALX400's. These were later replaced with two former Arriva London Volvo B7TL Wright Eclipse Geminis.   

The routes these vehicles are deployed on are high-frequency services 10 between Liverpool and St Helens via Prescot and 10A between St Helens and Liverpool via Rainhill. Since 2009 the route was previously operated by VDL SB200 Wright Pulsar and Wright Pulsar 2 although on occasion other vehicles types were employed on these routes.

The vehicles that will be operating on services 10 and 10A are twenty six brand new Alexander Dennis Enviro400s on the Alexander Dennis Enviro40D chassis. They are powered by the Cummins ISB6.7EV engine and feature a six speed ZF 6HP1203B gearbox - featuring Euro V emissions. The new Enviro400s feature a higher specification from the vehicles that previously operated this service although they aren't quite to Arriva MAX or Arriva Sapphire specification.

Internally the vehicles have Esteban Civic V2 seats with the lower deck featuring three tip up seats and around twenty modular seats which are found over the wheel arches and the back seats of the lower and upper deck. All the 78 seats are covered by a navy blue e-leather whilst both decks have a bright and airy feel to them due to the LED lighting.  They also feature on board free WiFi which is provided by Icomera's Moovbox.  Front, rear and side LED destination equipment is also fitted.

Lower Saloon of 4596

Upper Saloon of 4596

Howard Farrall, the area managing director for Arriva Merseyside said: "Arriva is committed to providing the best possible service for our customers, and we continue to invest in our fleet.

"New buses not only make a huge difference to our passengers in terms of comfort and reliability, but also have an impressive environmental impact. The 10s are an important group of services which link St Helens, Prescot, Page Moss, Huyton and Liverpool, and are part of the Quality Bus Network, so it's great that we are able to invest in new buses for the route."

This batch of Enviro400s follows on from those delivered to Arriva North West's Green Lane depot for service 10B between Liverpool and Huyton. For our readers who may be interested the details of these vehicles are: 4595 SL64 JEO, 4596 SL64 JEU, 4597 SL64 JFA, 4598 SL64 JFE, 4599 SL64 JFF, 4600 SL64 JFG, 4601 SL64 JFJ, 4602 SL64 JFK, 4603 SL64 JFN, 4604 SL64 JFO, 4605 SL64 JFU, 4606 SL64 JFV. 4607 SL64 JFX, 4608 SL64 JFY, 4609 SL64 JFZ, 4610 SL64 JGX, 4611 SL64 JGY, 4612 SL64 JGZ, 4613 SL64 JHA, 4614 SL64 JHE, 4615 SL64 JHH, 4616 SL64 JHJ, 4617 SL64 JHK, 4618 SL64 JHO, 4619 SL64 JHU and 4620 SL64 JHV.

I sampled both 4595 and 4596 on their first day in service and have since ridden nine more and overall I was very impressed with the new vehicles.  The e-leather seating was very comfortable for the length of the journey between each terminus, and the on board complimentary WiFi has worked excellently on all the vehicles I sampled.

I am looking forward to reporting on the launch of sixteen more new double deckers at Bootle depot for use on services 52 and 52A between Liverpool and Netherton at the start of March.

To celebrate the launch of these vehicles, Arriva North West in conjunction with Wish FM ran a "Mystery Rider" competition every day from Monday 9th February through to Friday 13th February where a lucky contestant won a £200 cash prize!