It’s not unprecedented but it’s certainly unusual. Close a bus garage in a large organisation and what do you do with the buses? Unless the closure’s associated with major cuts, you spread the vehicles around other garages to cover the work. After that, you usually cascade the best around existing locations, the second best to other subsidiaries within the group concerned, and then sell the remainder.
The auction publicity featured a stretched "Optair Solo Solo"
But when it comes to National Express West Midlands, there may be plenty of alternative garages but there’s no appreciable group left outside the midlands, in terms of bus subsidiaries. And we already know by its own admission that NXWM carries a higher than average spares ratio, higher than is necessary, probably unacceptably higher. This NatEx group management wants and needs to address.So, following July’s closure of Birmingham’s Lea Hall garage, having moved vehicles into Lea Hall, NXWM offered over 60 surplus buses at auction, most of which came directly off service. Aside from the last of the redundant Metrobuses, there were far more modern stock, most of which were SLFs: Volvo B6LEs, B10Bs, Scania N113s, examples of its replacement model the N94, and Opatre Solos. Post auction, there are but a handful of vehicles left for sale. You can now make the auctioneer an offer.
Let’s take a look at the Optare Solos. Within the auction, there were 18 available, from its fleet of about 45, or about 40 per cent of its Solo fleet. Perhaps vehicles of this size have a limited post-free travel appeal in an urban environment. As far as I know, Lea Hall wasn’t known for its Solos.
The auctioneer sold 14 of the 18. Like the other vehicles, the split in terms of takers was operators and dealers, both in search of bargains. Interestingly, a number of them had recently been re-engined. But although the Solos were S- and T-reg and therefore 12 years old or more, their body style and design hasn’t changed one bit. A fresh lick of paint, a private plate and with their new engines, an operator can easily pass this evergreen vehicle off quite happily as more up to date than they might seem. Given that the Solos (and all other buses) are likely to have been well maintained, we suspect that they were bargains indeed.
2 comments:
I guess that besides a lick of paint, an interior refit or at least some freshening up whould be needed to pass them off as newer buses. In my impression, the interiors of Solos seem to look more scruffy than other buses of similar age, or maybe it's just that with the space being smaller that the eye is more attarcted to details.
I would have been nice to know what prices the buses achieved!
Would it be fair to assume the unsold vehicles were the worst of the bunch in terms of condition?
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