Welcome to 2019

The Busminder system is being rolled out on Knox and Lilydale based buses, buses I have travelled on from those 2 depots have had the holders installed.

very bad seats on bus number 1037.

So I was visiting Melbourne recently and caught bus 1037. There were only 2 passengers on it, including me.

I sat on the first forward-facing seat behind the three inward facing wheelchair seats. At the first intersection, I fell on the floor.

After this happened twice, I set on the other side.

I noticed that the bottom part of these two seats - the part you actually sit on, was angled about 3 degrees off the horizontal,
with the lowest side at the front. That is contrary to the normal seats which angled with the seats about three degrees
higher at the front.

Those three degrees actually make a big difference when it comes to falling of the seat, or not.

Whoever designed or installed those seats like that is a moron.

Another new "Optimus" Arctic sitting at Volgren Dandenong yesterday. Not sure of the chassis

same dodgy seats on bus 659

Noticed in the fleetlists and on the road a number of transfers of buses between Knox, Lilydale, Croydon and Monbulk.

A lot of 732 trips are now being done by Lilydale drivers and buses (noticed on the running board when sitting behind the driver) and 737 trips being done by Croydon drivers and buses. A driver told me that there was roster changes and sharing of routes between depots in the Ventura Eastern region.

My afternoon 732 trip was done with a Lilydale driver as noted above, who made a mistake leaving Box Hill, exiting to Station street directly, and not via Carrington road, a conversation on the two way later, we turned right into Whitehorse Road, did a U Turn and turned left back into Station street and back onto route. Things should settle down as drivers get used to their new routes. I saw one driver go on his break at Knox this morning and emerge from the newsagency with a nice new Melways street directory!!!!

The navigation app was quickly put into use, us passengers who sit in the front half of the bus can hear it, in my opinion it is a good help to the drivers, even if the American accent grates after a while.

B10BLE wrote:The depot sharing of routes is interesting, having witnessed it myself.

Yesterday I was waiting for a bus to Springvale, Dandenong B7RLE Optimus 1065 operated the 824 to Parkmore (I live close to Parkmore so waiting for the same bus didn't take long) however, the return trip was operated by a Moorabbin B12BLE. I think it works by one bus doing one trip each way with the other waiting to take its place, at least to my knowledge on the 824. I'd imagine 1065 did its trip to Moorabbin, on the return to Keysborough, the Moorabbin based bus waits for its arrival, once 1065 was empty, it either went back to Dandenong or was in lay-over in the Cheltenham Rd service road, rinse and repeat.

Stay tuned as Oakleigh will be joining Dandenong and Moorabbin sharing in the near future too

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Will this mean that there will be transfers between these depots as well,the same as the eastern depots?...Also on another note is the bus fleet list page part of this forum,if no who runs it?...The Transdev page does not mention Thomastown depot and it's allocation or Sunshine depot and it's allocation it still lists Airport West,Footscray,Reservoir and ?....please fix.

You can email the Victorian list co-ordinator using the link at the bottom of each list. However its worth saying that Transdev depot allocations are essentially meaningless, especially on the orbitals as its quite usual for a bus to stay Monday night at Thomastown, Tuesday at Keysborough, Wed at Sunshine etc etc. The same will be increasingly true for Ventura within its regions as a bus that was at Lilydale last night might be at Knox or Monlbulk tonight and so so. Its a new world.

1whoknows wrote:You can email the Victorian list co-ordinator using the link at the bottom of each list. However its worth saying that Transdev depot allocations are essentially meaningless, especially on the orbitals as its quite usual for a bus to stay Monday night at Thomastown, Tuesday at Keysborough, Wed at Sunshine etc etc. The same will be increasingly true for Ventura within its regions as a bus that was at Lilydale last night might be at Knox or Monlbulk tonight and so so. Its a new world.

And just increase the complexity of running their businesses immeasurably when the old systems worked just fine.

1whoknows wrote:You can email the Victorian list co-ordinator using the link at the bottom of each list. However its worth saying that Transdev depot allocations are essentially meaningless, especially on the orbitals as its quite usual for a bus to stay Monday night at Thomastown, Tuesday at Keysborough, Wed at Sunshine etc etc. The same will be increasingly true for Ventura within its regions as a bus that was at Lilydale last night might be at Knox or Monlbulk tonight and so so. Its a new world.

Please don't encourage him!

Thanks for the replies regarding my query on the Transdev allocations,i didn't realize that everything is so complicated now as far as bus fleet allocations go.Can we maybe have the on paper base allocations then of what is supposed to be at each depot even though the reality is different sometimes,such as M.A.N 500-510 are at Sunshine.On another note i saw a Volgren Optimus with the fleet no.5071 running for Kastoria in Craigieburn yesterday.

Transdev theoretical allocations have been published in Australian Bus Panorama on several occasions in recent years - usually after a major reorganisation.

timmy1966 wrote:.On another note i saw a Volgren Optimus with the fleet no.5071 running for Kastoria in Craigieburn yesterday.

From the fleet lists for Broadmeadows:

71 BS01AL Volvo B7RLE YV3R6R624FA169347 Volgren "Optimus" VG3924 1.2015 B42DW

A major revamp of the three Northern fleetlists was done on the 10th of March.

This was also noted:
504 5946AO Mercedes Benz O500LE WEB63422021000275 Volgren "CR228L" VG2097 1.2006 B39DW [ex #4]. So the fleet might be being merged to have a cross business fleet numbering.

504 has been numbered as such just after Dom Sita purchased the Broadmeadows business.The 3 fleets remain numbered in their original sequences and their has been no attempt to introduce a fleet wide numbering system.The system in place at the 3 companies must work for them.

Thanks for this information. In the last week I have seen 993 (The only CB80) of Croydon Depot on the 737; and then 858 (Lilydale's only Designline) at KnoX City; thought it was on 737 but quite possibly the 732.

Actually I have for a long time thought that they needed some changes; too many empty buses running up and down Scoresby Road over the years; then today I saw three in the space of a few minutes'. Two going north, other going south. Coming from London; where in the 1960's the then longer routes were often shared between two Garages. Privatisation has seen the end of this and far more 'Not Taking Passengers' buses are seen.

neilrex wrote:very bad seats on bus number 1037.

So I was visiting Melbourne recently and caught bus 1037. There were only 2 passengers on it, including me.

I sat on the first forward-facing seat behind the three inward facing wheelchair seats. At the first intersection, I fell on the floor.

After this happened twice, I set on the other side.

I noticed that the bottom part of these two seats - the part you actually sit on, was angled about 3 degrees off the horizontal,
with the lowest side at the front. That is contrary to the normal seats which angled with the seats about three degrees
higher at the front.

Those three degrees actually make a big difference when it comes to falling of the seat, or not.

Whoever designed or installed those seats like that is a moron.

On a similar note, I have noticed the same thing with Custom CB60s (including C-Max and Evo 2) since forever but never thought to mention anything, it always feels like you're travelling downhill on the seat immediately behind the rear door (the angled window "armrest" on a CB60 doesn't help either). The CB30s I used to catch many years ago on the 302/304 (the original 304, Ringwood to Crown Casino) had the same thing. I don't notice this in a Volgren/Northcoast/Designline/Gemilang, or D class trams which have the same seats near the articulations.

Last Saturday morning I used the 670 from Croydon Station to Chirnside Park; being operated by a Designline out of Knoxfield Depot. The driver told me it was her first run on that route.

I had Croydon based 1000 on a 737 Monash service out of Knox City, likewise it was the first day that the driver had done the route, he asked me which way to turn out of Knox.

Been very interesting riding on some of the different buses from the other depots, on my regular trips like ex US Volgren L94UB's, one of the original 2000 batch of CB60s Scanias I have not ridden in for ages , Voith gearbox B7RLE's and the lone CB80 K230UB 993.

Seen today at Knox was 363, Scania L113CRB(formerly (T)318 and 44) in it's role as a driver training bus. Nice to see the old girl around it's old stomping ground. Brought back memories of my youth when I used to ride that bus fairly often in it's heyday in the 90's and early 2000's when the world was very different(stable government, no smartphones,no social media), makes me feel old.

873 has a new white LED desto seen at Knox tonight doing a 664.

I noticed an early CB60 (the first shape with the full size windows behind the rear door, numbered 11-hundred-and-something) on a 670 outside Ringwood station two days ago but I didn't have a camera with me - it didn't really matter though as it had driven off by the time I got to Maroondah Hwy (Eastland side) and was coincidentally blocked by another early CB60 (a Transdev Merc) so the photo would have been useless. While Lilydale used to have a CB60 (just the one?) back in the Invicta days, it was 794 which is apparently at Oakleigh these days according to the fleet lists (and probably still retains its Invicta seats and orange handrails).

Nothing to do with Ventura but still Custom Coaches, but I've recently seen a few Transdev Custom 550s going around in plain white. What's the deal with that? I understand they are ex-SmartBus livery (and apparently still SmartBuses internally) but can't they afford the plastic wrap?

And a couple of other things were forgotten about the 90s/2000s. The Pacific Peso (the AUD was not even worth 50 US cents) and having a fleet of non-air conditioned buses being the norm (in fact, even Ventura's newest low floors still lacked air conditioning, as did Invicta's numerous Dennis Dart "LoRider" fleet).

Heihachi_73 wrote:
Nothing to do with Ventura but still Custom Coaches, but I've recently seen a few Transdev Custom 550s going around in plain white. What's the deal with that? I understand they are ex-SmartBus livery (and apparently still SmartBuses internally) but can't they afford the plastic wrap?

In terms of Transdev’s older 550’s, some are being downgraded to spare/rail buses as new buses arrive. Some 550’s are already withdrawn and don’t be surprised if more of them go in the short term as new Scania’s arrive

burrumbus wrote:And just increase the complexity of running their businesses immeasurably when the old systems worked just fine.

The latest Road Runner magazine from Ventura mentions that Lilydale's allocation of buses has been reduced from 92 to 46. Clearly in terms of dead running, the former allocation of routes to depots was not optimal. Croydon now has more buses, and to facilitate this it has been redeveloped. The Google maps view shows the former layout. The two buildings on the right hand side of the depot have been demolished, and new workshops and admin facilities have been built on the north side of Windsor Road opposite Haig Street. The Rowville telebuses have been moved to Knoxfield depot.

There was limited route sharing previously with the 688 being worked by Croydon and Monbulk depots. Presumably this worked OK, and Ventura decided to extend this concept.

Regards,

Dennis