Incoming Solos for Citybus

The Optare Solos are now starting to arrive in Plymouth from Go Ahead North East.

Thanks to Jason Beverly for supplying a few photos of the first few to be collected this week:

For the record the 4 to arrive so far are

GNE647	NL63XZU
GNE649	NL63XZW
GNE651	NL63XZY
GNE722	KY63VTA

It is believed there are up to 15 due to join Citybus. As for fleet numbers to be allocated – its anyone's guess!

Versa

Just seen on Facebook that Go Ahead Group Optare Versa Demonstrator is due in Plymouth for its next tour of duty. Not sure if its physically here yet but apparently its due to stay for a couple of months before going on to another GA group company.

Its very handy that its in all over red livery as it will fit in with the rest of the fleet quite easily with just a standard Citybus fleet name. Maybe it will even get the swoop added?

YJ62FBB by Sean Blair (Creative Commons)

New Solo

A different bus turned up tonight on the X56: X657WYG is a secondhand Optare Solo for Target Travel. Painted in the same all over pink/purple livery that the others are in, its also quite a bit longer than the others in the fleet. It also is fitted with seat belts and what looks like an air conditioning unit which you can just see hanging from the roof behind the driver.

I have the bus down as X657WYG, Optare Solo M850 VIN:SAB19000000000596, Optare 190596, B25F, new 2/2001 to East Sussex County Council. Hopefully I will get external photos soon!

Demo one and Demo two

I did mange to get into town today to try and photograph the Optare demonstrators with Plymouth Citybus. I also managed to get a couple of photos of the buses along with a lot of other bus photos.

I then got home and this evening have been adding them to my Flickr account. It was soon apparent that someone else was also uploading photos of the two buses - and they had a lot more of them and most of the were better than mine!

Demo 1

YJ57EHD Optare Solo SR

©Bristolvrboy

Demo 2

YJ57YCF Optare Solo

©bristolvrboy (Via Flickr blog this)

To see all his other shots of these two buses visit his Flickr account here there really are some great shots both inside and outside of the buses. I just wished I had the time to have a ride and get some better shots myself.

Optare Demonstrator YJ57EHD

The second Optare demonstrator in Plymouth at the moment is this Solo SR which is the new version with the styling from the new Versa. Apparently there is a Versa around too!

Thanks again to Michael Dodd for the pic

Flying Solo

Thanks to Michael Dodd I can now bring you photos of Optare Solo YJ57YCF which is currently on loan with Plymouth Citybus. The last few Mercedes Minibuses will be due to leave the fleet fairly soon so there is a need for a few smaller buses to replace them on certain routes. It remains to be seen if any other buses are due on trial with this in mind although Optare does have the market pretty well sown up. There is the new Plaxton Primo although opinion does seem mixed on these so far.

RIP the 17

No buses out today as far as I know so start the year with a route which never made it into 2006! D513HUB is seen on the last day of service of route 17 from the City Centre to Glenholt. It was always a good route in that First would put just about anything on it - even more so than any of the low floor routes. To be fair to FDC there were hardly any passengers on it whenever I used the service so I am not surprised its going. The fact that Citybus are taking on the other withdrawn routes but not this one does confirm this lack of usage.
D513HUB is one of the Olympians with bodywork built by Optare very shortly after they took over from Roe, and is to the old Roe design. The body number is 28 so it is very early Optare product! New to Yorkshire Rider as 5513 in Feb 1987. It found its way to First Western National back in April 2000 with its sister D514HUB.
As can be seen 34713 is one of the scruffier buses in the fleet at the moment, especially when compared to sister 34714 which was posted to this blog back on 19th September.
didbygraham