My first chance today to check out the new Enviro 200 buses that Plymouth Citybus have placed into service on route 34. As I mentioned before my weekend away Citybus have taken route branding to a new dimension!
The back three quarters of the buses are plastered with photos of scenes along the route. Because this is in the standard 'wrap' material which covers the windows - and is supposedly see through - it does make the inside of these new buses rather gloomy, which is a shame for the passengers. These buses are better experienced from the outside than from the inside!
The rear end of these buses have a nice aerial photo - which does look good but with almost the whole bus covered like this it does in my opinion seem a bit over the top. The ride of these buses is quite pleasant although it must be said it is not as quiet as the Mercedes Citaro - You do get the creaks and rattles which you dont get on the Citaros. For part of my journey today there was a constant fairly high pitch drone - a bit like a vacuum cleaner in a next door room - which really got on the nerves after a while. I guess this was the heating system of something because it stopped after 15 minutes and then the bus was much more civilised. It sounded very much like the Dart - not surprising really - but still sadly a lot louder than the German built Mercedes buses.
Interior view looking forward. You can see how much brighter it appears through the windscreen than it does through the side windows.
This is the view out through the window!
I did make a sound recording of the bus as I travelled through Devonport this afternoon if you want to get an idea of the noise levels. This did not include the droning noise as this had stopped by this point. This takes us from deepest Devonport up Albert Road and just into Stoke Village and is about 5 minutes long. Sadly the file has now gone - no idea where or why! Wont be using Putfile again!!
Oh dear!
ReplyDelete