Robert Woolley ) gurgled happily, sounding
much like they were saying :

RMs are pretty much museum pieces for modern operation.

LYNCH THE HERETIC!

Seriously... Are they?

They've all been recently mechanically rebuilt to modern standards.

The extremely low weight means that they are the most economical of all the
buses in services, AIUI.

That economy means that they'll be the least polluting of all in service,
even before you take the environmental cost of production into account.

Now let's look at how appropriate they are or aren't - physically, they fit
FAR better than the bloatibuses - they get round junctions and corners,
they don't hang into the traffic at stops.

The hop-on-and-off-ability means they spend less time at stops.

OK, so they're not perfect. Some people are stupid enough to fall off them,
and that's not good in this era of litigation taking the place of personal
responsibility.

Some disabled users find them difficult/impossible to use - but others
prefer them.

Some complain they're cramped - but others prefer the higher density of
seats.

The conductor means they're expensive to run - but how much has been spent
on the ticket machines at stops? What about the safety benefit of having a
real live staff member in the back of the bus?

If the RM is a "museum piece", then why can't we have a "new RM"?