"Tim Fenton" wrote:

"Recliner" wrote:

Yes, it was on local TV as well. I suspect it'll be very popular if
enough can be afforded.

Popular where? One hates to mention it, but the original Routemaster only
ever sold fifty vehicles outside London, because you had to have Park
Royal's London spec body whether you liked it or not [1], as well as the
gearbox set up to drive like an automatic, the latter to ease the
transition for Trolleybus drivers.

Other than Northern General (one for Michael Bell land), all other
operators who bought AEC ordered Regent Vs.

And I suspect that operators outside London won't want the BozzaBus
either, when there are more conventional deckers on offer.

Yes, in the UK at least. I can perhaps see there being some sort of world
market for them, but maybe rather more as a novelty rather than as an
integral part of a city's transport system. (Serious question -who/where
might conceivably be interested in buying some for proper, full on
day-to-day use?) Of course there's the obvious RHD/LHD issue - if there was
to be an LHD version, there'd need to be sufficient demand.

You can see my more sceptical thoughts about this in another post on this
thread, but on the positive side of things even if it were never exported
elsewhere (or only in small numbers, as an RHD, as a novelty item), it would
likely assume status as an iconic image of London around the world - or
rather, re-assume that status, taking over from the Routemaster. So from a
tourism point of view, it would enhance 'brand London'. (An obvious point
really I know - oh, and yes, I did type 'iconic' and 'brand London' through
slightly gritted teeth - or sandpapered fingers or whatever the keyboard
equivalent would be!)


What they might have been better doing would have been to cost an RHD
adaptation of vehicles like those in use in cities like Berlin - double
staricase, lots of capacity.

Yes, though the issue with a Berlin style bus in London might well have been
the length - see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Do...achsig_BVG.jpg

Yes, yes, before anyone says it the bendy buses are indeed also longer than
your normal bus, but (without really wanting to stoke yet another bendy bus
debate) pertinently they do, er, bend!