Lothian Country's 1048 (LXZ 5436) Rocking the New Livery

Lothian Country's 1048 (LXZ 5436), a ZF Ecolife Volvo B9TL Wright Eclipse Gemini 2, drifting through Uphall on the service X18 to Edinburgh.

 

 

1048 was new to First Centrewest in October 2010 as their "VN37890" and was registered as "BF60 UUA". 1048 predominantly operated the service 18. The 18 operated, and continues to operate, between Sudbury and Euston.

 

UUA was later sold to Metroline in *2013, due to the demise of First Capital. VN37890 then was acquainted the new fleet number of "VW1842".

 

 

In 2017, Metroline lost the contract for the service 18 to RATP London United, RATP being a multinational operator also operating in Paris France. RATP stands for "Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens", which essentially means it's a state owned operator of Paris, very similar to what is seen with Lothian here in Edinburgh.

 

RATP used, and still continues to use, Volvo B5LH Wright Eclipse Gemini 3s since their takeover of the 18.

 

As a result of losing the service 18, numerous Gemini 2s were withdrawn. This, in turn, saw Lothian purchase 48 of them, in the same batch as 1049, and 2 from Go Ahead London.

 

After their purchase, the 48 of them that were in the Metroline batch were sent to WrightBus in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, to receive an extensive refurbishment to high-quality Lothian specifications.

 

The other two from Go Ahead, now 1001 and 1002, were refurbished at Thorntons in Ashington, England.

 

Once refurbished, all 50 of them received private registrations, which appear as "LXZ 53××" or "LXZ 54××".

 

 

25 were sent to Lothian Buses Central Depot, and all started working in Edinburgh between June and September 2018. The other 25 were sent to Lothian Country, which started working West Lothian local routes in August 2018 from the Longstone depot. This was until the purchase of the Livingston depot in March 2019. I'll discuss more later on.

 

 

The Gemini 2s from London were mostly bought of Metroline, which were previously owned by First Centrewest. Two of them from the first batch, 1001 & 1002, were previously owned by Go-Ahead London. These were purchased to upgrade their fleet as well as to provide Lothian Country with buses to operate their new, at the time, West Lothian services; X27, X28 and 275, which commenced operations on Sunday, 19th August 2018.

 

The first batch was 1001 - 1050. They began entering service in July 2018. The following two months saw the rest of the ex Londoners entered service. Lothian Country's ones were the last ones that were required to enter service. They started entering service in August 2018 and were all in service by late September 2018.

 

These buses are rather unique to Lothian Buses for a couple of reasons. They have a shorter body than the usual double deck vehicles found in Lothian's native fleet. In Lothian's double deck fleet, their vehichles usually range from the lengths 11.3 - 11.5 meters, whereas the ex London B9TL's are only 10.8 meters long. Additionally, they have a ZF transmission instead of a Voith, which all Lothian's Volvo B9TL Chassis had.

 

Out of the 50 buses:

The 25 that found themselves at Lothian Buses Central Depot were 1001 - 1002, 1005 - 1012, 1014 - 1027, and 1050. The remaining 25 found themselves at Lothian Country. These were 1003, 1004, 1013 and 1028 - 1049.

 

The next batch of ex London B9TL's entered service in May 2019 (1000 and 1141 - 1153), these are different than the previous batch as these have an exit middle door, minus 1000. These have so far remained their entire Lothian Buses life the the Marine depot in Seafield apart from 1000 which was sent to Central in 2019 then transferred to Longstone in 2020 then subsequently back to Central in 2021.

 

One thing to note, in 2021 we saw 1031 be off the road for many months to have its gearbox replaced.

 

 

Notes:

1029 was withdrawn in July 2019 following a collision with a low hanging bridge in Fauldhouse. 1029 was subsequently scrapped. 1029 was housed in Livingston prior to this.

 

 

This photo was taken at Uphall's East Main Street on Monday, 12th of December 2022.

 

As of the date this was uploaded (12/12/2022) 1048 1048 has returned for repaint into the new Lothian Country livery, shared with East Coast Buses. Currently 1037, 1043, 1045, and 1048 have all returned from repaint and are back to operating services around West Lothian. Sent away and yet to return from paint are 1036, 1039, 1047 and 1049. The rest are yet to be sent away. 1035 has now moved to Marine to be moved to Seafield for repaint preparation.

 

Thank you for reading. Have a wonderful week, and stay safe! 😊

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