November 30th 2015

Information uploaded on November 30th 2015 at 11:30
Regular correspondents Dave Russell & Deric Pemberton have confirmed that five Dart SLFs with Pointer-bodywork have arrived with Stagecoach West from Stagecoach Merseyside & South Lancashire. Whilst 34786/87/88 have transferred as expected, the other two vehicles received by Stagecoach West are 34680 and 34784 (and not 34789/90 as we predicted in an earlier Fleet Ramblings post.
We have received confirmation that further Volvo B8RLEs for Stagecoach East have arrived on the ferry at Heysham and will now go to Ely where branding will be applied and final inspections undertaken by Volvo. It is likely that 21303 will go to Fenstanton depot for driver and engineers’ training and we would suspect that the fleet of ten will enter service in January 2016.
News reaches us from Whippet Coaches that the four Caetano-bodied Dennis Darts received from Tower, ex-Tower 42515-8, (LK03NKH/J/L/M) have been given fleet numbers WS319-22. The Wright Gemini vehicle here, ex-Tower 32499, (LK54FLE) carries fleet number WD435.
We have had a couple of queries regarding use of vehicles from Stagecoach Midlands’ Corby depot on local services in Peterborough. Stagecoach Midlands operates the 23/24 services from Peterborough to Orton Waterville, Lynch Wood, Oundle and Thrapston. On Weekdays Stagecoach East from its Peterborough depot also works peak time services to/from Lynch Wood and on Saturdays it also works the Peterborough-Orton Waterville service. Corby has a small fleet of Tridents for the service but frequently Corby Star-liveried Scania/East Lancs OmniDekkas are used as well as the occasional appearance of a Volvo Olympian. The Peterborough services use a variety of vehicles including MAN/ALX300s, Dart SLFs, Enviro 300s, Tridents and Enviro 400s.