Volgren Discussion / Observations

[385BUZ]

I thought I would create these threads for discussion and observations of the body builders in Australia as there is currently no particular place for this.

[385BUZ]

Scania Hybrids for Ventura on Volgren bodies

https://www.busnews.com.au/industry-new ... en-hybrids

[1whoknows]

Question whether delivered or not yet as they've certainly not been sighted in service. But I guess by the time the printed ABC magazine comes out it will be so. They are reported to be based at Dandenong depot. Nos 1453 and 1456.

[BanksfielderIdiot823]

First thing's first; 385BUZ, what a ripper idea and thanks for getting this thread started.

Second; I'm not sure if Malaga's milestone had been metioned already somewhere in the board, but now I can get this into one post:

Dandenong's 5000th: November 2019 (Ventura #1419)
Malaga's 2000th: December 2020 https://www.busnews.com.au/industry-new ... transperth
Eagle Farm's 2000th: Unknown/Not yet (as far as I know...)

[tonyp]

RIP Tomago. The thought that we got over 700 Bustech instead is just sickening.

[385BUZ]

First thing's first; 385BUZ, what a ripper idea and thanks for getting this thread started.

Thanks !

Eagle Farm's 2000th: Unknown/Not yet (as far as I know...)

Eagle Farm has definitely not made 2000 buses yet. From my approximate calculations, I believe they have made around 650 for Brisbane Transport. Add another approx 50 for other QLD Operators. Around 30 for Canberra, and someone else might need to help me out for the NSW buses made by Volgren in Brisbane!

[tonyp]

All orders for TfNSW and the four Nowra Coaches artics come from Eagle Farm I believe.

[385BUZ]

All orders for TfNSW and the four Nowra Coaches artics come from Eagle Farm I believe.

How many would that be in total (approximately). 150? 200?

[BanksfielderIdiot823]

Hope this might help to start that Brisbane Volgrens in NSW count...
[No. of VQ Volgrens/No. of total Volgs from the entire batch]

CDC NSW's CR228L Futurebus Volvo B7RLEs
90/167 (or 108/189 if you want to include the ex-Westbus buses)
- Westbus now with either TSA or Busways: 18/22 (10 from Bonnyrigg to TSA, and 6 from St Marys to Busways)
- Hillsbus: 66/128
- Hunter Valley: 24/39

* None of the CDC CR228L Scanias were built at Brisbane; they were either from Dandy, Tomago or Malaga.

Sydney State Transit Authority's Optimus B8RLEs
15/64 (The 64 includes the 11 VGs that have gone to TSA). The VQ's fleet numbers are 3041 to 3055.
(That 64 excludes the 9 now-TSA Scanias, as well as the other B8RLEs which were delivered straight to TSA, all of which are Dandenong VG Volgrens)

So there's 105 VQs from those two areas...

RIP Tomago. The thought that we got over 700 Bustech instead is just sickening.

Yep, I think VT only got as far as 271.

[385BUZ]

Ok! So the counts at approx 800 for QLD, ACT and NSW

[tonyp]

All orders for TfNSW and the four Nowra Coaches artics come from Eagle Farm I believe.

How many would that be in total (approximately). 150? 200?

You might have to do hard yakka on Fleet Lists here and add them all up, operator by operator. That assumes that all NSW Volgrens have come from Brisbane and none from Melbourne.

[Fleet Lists]

I dont think that would be a very valid assumption.

[1whoknows]

Plenty of NSW Volgrens are from Melbourne. Probably more than from Qld!

Also if counting Volgren Qld production, don't forget all the straight deck, twin deck and double deck coaches produced by the original Volgren Qld operation back in the 1980s.

[385BUZ]

Hmmmn, might have to be a Christmas - New Year break project!

[tonyp]

This Volgren infographic below, output from all their factories by October 2020, gives a pretty good summary including the figure for Eagle Farm. Perth has reached 2,000 since then and Melbourne and Brisbane figures would now be higher.

Of the 271 from Tomago, I deduce that 141 were artics, the rest rigids (?). Beyond that, it's almost impossible to discover how many of their buses in service in NSW came from Brisbane and how many from Melbourne.

I am suspicious about the 210 estimate for the number of artics built, so I did a tally from Fleetlists of how many Volgren artics are operating around Australia (this doesn't tell us which factory they originated from of course). The numbers are:

NSW: 141 TfNSW, 5 Nowra Coaches = 146
ACT: 11 Transport Canberra
Queensland: 40 Brisbane Buses, 4 Clarks = 44
Victoria: 29 various operators, mainly Ventura
WA: 101 Transperth

Total: 331
(By comparison, Custom have built 284 artics, mostly for SA.)

That's quite a difference from Volgren's figure, so I don't know what's going on there.



[Update: artic figures corrected]

[385BUZ]

Queensland: 20 Brisbane Buses

Brisbane Transport Actually has 40 Volgren Artics (1631 - 1670)
And Clarks LCBS has 4 Volgren Artics

Also, I wonder if the Volgren infographic includes buses assembled by Brisbane Transport in their workshop at Toowong. There were 619 (all Scanias and MANs plus the 6 B10s)

And than there are 420 buses (Volvo B7s and B12s with CR228L Bodies) Where some were assembled in Volgren Eagle Farm and some by the Brisbane Transport workshops at Toowong.

[BanksfielderIdiot823]

There is actually an indicator as to what factory the individual buses were built. It's the two letter prefix of their body number; as I was using earlier in my last post.

VG = Volgren Dandenong (the VG just stands for Volgren)
VT = Volgren Tomago
VP = Volgren Perth (Malaga)
VQ = Volgren Queensland (Eagle Farm) (The twindecks came from a separate plant in Acacia Ridge)
VM = Volgren Malaysia (Supportrans in Johor Bahru)

But then there's also these two rare codes...

VU = United Arab Emirates (From a very brief partnership with Hafilat in 2008. There were some CR228Ls made from here for Grendas)
VNZ = New Zealand (That was a very short-lived plant from around 2000 that's been closed down for a long time now.)

Yeah, there's a whole load of NSW Volgrens that were born in Dandy. Including; and not limited to, all of the 164 Optimus B7s with CDC NSW. (Including the 5 StationLInk rebels that went to TSA Tempe.)

EDIT: Corrected a minor mistake; body code for the Emirates-built buses is actually "VU", not "VUA".

[tonyp]

Brisbane Transport Actually has 40 Volgren Artics (1631 - 1670)
And Clarks LCBS has 4 Volgren Artics

Thanks, I've updated the figures in my post. Any feedback is certainly appreciated.

[stajourneyman]

On a different ‘topic’ ... what’s with many of the Optimus bodies often having the previous models tail lights ??

[385BUZ]

Thankfully none outside of NSW.

Why is that anyway? Another odd TfNSW requirement?

[Lt. Commander Data]

Volgren seem to have always had a random box of tail lights - Adelaide’s CR224Ls have 2 different styles, both of which are different to the CR224Ls in Brisbane. Then there are 3 different tail lights used on CR228Ls

[BanksfielderIdiot823]

Volgren seem to have always had a random box of tail lights - Adelaide’s CR224Ls have 2 different styles, both of which are different to the CR224Ls in Brisbane. Then there are 3 different tail lights used on CR228Ls

The older models are forgiven, since the tail lights are pretty interchangeable. The Optimus however has its own fancy set of tail lights, which...

Why is that anyway? Another odd TfNSW requirement?

...it's probably an order option, since some NSW operators such as Hillsbus back in those days (and Busways) opted to ditch them for the older lights; while others such as STA and TSA R6 ordered them straight with the Optimus tail lights. Funnily enough, I just looked at a rear-end photo of Forest #8063, and looks like CDC NSW is continuing the enslaught against the Optimus tail lights!

Thankfully none outside of NSW.

You can throw VIC under there too, since some of Ventura's newer Scanias (including Dandy's 1374 which left me scratching my head when I saw them) are sporting those older tail lights.

EDIT: A reason that has popped into my head somewhat before midday is that maybe the operators who already have a stack of CR228Ls might find it easier maintenance-wise to order their Optima with the older lights, so that the parts are still interchangeable. That's just a speculation of mine though.

[Mitch]

I had the same thought. But AFAIK, none of CDC Victoria's Optimus buses have that taillight set up and I would say easily 75% of their fleet pre-Optimus have those Hella/Narva light units.

VUA = United Arab Emirates (From a very brief partnership with Hafilat in 2008. There were some CR228Ls made from here for Grendas)

If you end up in Abu Dhabi, you may see some Volgren units running around. Halifat produced some of the SC222 units for a local operator and one (possibly more than one) CR228L that is used as an ambulance.

Thanks,
Mitch

[ScaniaGrenda]

Heh Mitch I was about to come in and comment on said Ambulance and says It's probably one of the few known Volgren buses to be LHD instead of right, I can find very few photos for the Volgren ambulance bus but a few for the Citaro they also have.





For those who want to read about the Ambulance bus, here you go, doesn't mention nothing about the Volvo Chassis or Volgren
http://scientificme.net/ambulance-bus/

I didn't know about an local operator having an SC222 tho, I know the bus enthusiast scene is probably non-existent over there but I'd love to see a photo of an actual LHD SC222 Volgren.

Edit: There's some promotional images they use of their SC222's on Hafliats own website, on some sort of Mercedes-Benz Chassis which I'm guessing would be a local equivalent of the OH1830L
https://www.hafilat.ae/

[Off The Rails]

As sighted on the Volgren Facebook page, Volgren Queensland has built their first artic, a Optimus artic for Ventura on (possibly) a K360UA chassis.

Cheers!