A 70-Year Chain Broken
Sorry for the delayed post, however the 19th May 2012 commenced a sudden change in the history of the London Bus Route 266. A 70 year old chain was broken of the route being operated by Metroline!
In the Autumn of 2011 it was announced that First Centrewest had successfully gained the contract of Route 266 and will operate it from Atlas Road Garage in the area of Harlesden, North West London. Currently Atlas Road Garage is the latest garage to open within London's operations. The garage opened officially at the beginning of October 2011. The garage currently operates Routes 28, 31, 266, 328, N28 and N31.
First Centrewest's intentions were to operate the newly gained contract with Volvo B9TL/Wright Eclipse Gemini 2's. Which are currently state of the class buses with a full Air Conditioning unit on the upper deck saloon of the bus which is phenomenal for weather of this type! These Volvo B9TL's currently serving route 266 have already had quite a history and are not even a year old (This excludes the 12 Reg B9TL/Gemini's). Reason why I say this is that they were used as temporary buses on Route 23 (First's Flagship in the heart of London) whilst the route was due to gain E40H/Enviro400's from sister garage Westbourne Park in the heart of London.
Once again sorry for the delayed post, all photos were taken on Saturday 19th May 2012. We would also like to apologise for the shortness in this post. Its just that London has so much of the same buses that its almost impossible to write a decent unique post on all types of vehicles we have in our fleet. We need some variety as soon as possible!
The the 266 was fine with metroline but now its terrable with first.
ReplyDeleteThey dont come often.
With metroline it was fine. (kmt)
Yeahh I know what you mean, when we did our first trip the driver got lost and then later the cab door alarm was going off and we had to tell him to isolate the bus and restart it, which I am sure is just basic training.
DeleteI will agree that when I went to do the route the other day I waited at least 15 mins for a bus to even turn up at Hammersmith and then had to wait another 5 for it to go in to service
Bad service is always common when a route has been awarded to a different company was new drivers. Give them a few months and the service should hopefully be back to normal.
ReplyDeleteI knowed the 266 for a long time now and i notice over past few mouths and its very terrable with first today i had to wait 25 mins for one and it was very packed
ReplyDeleteI hate 266 with First Centrewest now, the bus service is terrible. They chose the wrong buses, the buses don't turn up on time and the Lazzerini seats are uncomfortable. I ride the 266 quite often and to tell you what I'm talking about, heres an example:
ReplyDelete- You miss a 266 bus. You check the timetable and it says 1 bus every 10-12mins. 10-12 mins later there's no bus, 30 minutes later, still no bus. 1 hour later 7 buses turn up, one after another. They're all going Hammersmith except the first which usually is curtailed to Bromyard Avenue.
With Metroline, this never used to happen. Everything was the opposite, better buses, Esteban Civic's, E400's, always on time. I hope when 266 goes for tendering in 2016/2018 again, I hope Metroline take the route back.