Heroic Failures

The recent failure of Scania’s bio-ethanol double decks at Reading Buses is just one in a long line of miserable attempts at moving away from diesel. Remember all of these?

• London’s hydrogen fuel cell bus trails from 2004 were somewhat ahead of their time. May be this technology will bounce back as development continues. It certainly isn’t ready quite yet.


• Mersytravel’s early Optare Solo hybrids in 2004 were destined for an inner-Liverpool loop. Buses proved troublesome and were almost immediately replaced by hired diesel Darts.


• Merseytravel’s Tecnobus minibuses using batteries had limited range, spent a good deal of their working lives at First’s Rock Ferry Birkenhead garage, substituted by Varios. The Tecnobuses oft required a midday recharge.


• Oxford tried a battery powered Metrorider or two. No one ordered any others.


• LPG or compressed natural gas found themselves under trial in Merseyside, in Southampton, Bristol… and Reading in the 1980s, without much or any real success.


• Three gas buses entered service in the mid- to late-1970s, for Cleveland Transit, South Yorkshire & Ribble. MPG averaged between just 3 and 4.


• In 1975, NBC converted a unique Leyland National, complete with battery trailer. Destined for the Runcorn Busway, I’ve never seen a picture of it actually in service other than in publicity shots.


• SELNEC PTE introduced its Silent Rider, an early battery bus. This only ever operated at peak periods as it needed the inter-peak to recharge.


• Bournemouth Corporation, always seemingly keen on electric traction, tried a battery powered minibus in 1973 on a specially created town centre circle. The vehicles were monster heavyweight and the design was dropped, though the route remained, thereafter with *petrol*-operated vehicles!
  

Which then leads us onto the post Merseyside modern hybrid era, to come. Could it be that we have actually found an intermediate solution to soaring cost of diesel, one that can tide us over to fuel cell technology? Thanks to TfL announcing that all new orders from 2012 would need to be hybrid, all the main manufacturers are taking hybrid technology seriously, even if some recent attempts have faded away.