please empty your brain below
These don’t appear to be Enviro bodies but standard Tridents.i believe some have a partial roof.

Barry arnold | 02.05.18 - 7:22 a.m. | #

They are Alexander (or TransBus or Alexander Dennis) ALX400s, not Enviros. Sorry.

Wolf | 02.05.18 - 7:30 a.m. | #

Fixed, thanks.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 02.05.18 - 7:34 a.m. | #

Isn't the current thinking that you inhale more exhaust fumes inside a vehicle because the pollutants become more concentrated? - so open top should be more lung friendly.

As far as value for money is concerned, its hard to do comparisons, as many of us buy stuff we don't really need anyway.

The overheads should be low, as they are modifying buses they already own and operating them from an existing garage which is otherwise used for TfL work - other operators may have to fund these items solely from fares revenue.

Still Anon | 02.05.18 - 8:40 a.m. | #

Excellent timing! We have a foreign visitor arriving this week and was thinking of sending her off to do the sightseeing bus alone because why would we wan to pay to do that too!

Cornish Cockney | 02.05.18 - 9:18 a.m. | #

If everyone on the bus sits upstairs, doesn't this make the bus rather unstable?

Blue Witch | Homepage | 02.05.18 - 9:22 a.m. | #

Why does the the picture of King Henry III have a £2 notice in the front window ?
Several windows downstairs are covered with advertising. I travelled around Barcelona in a tourist bus on a 24 hour ticket in torrential rain with everyone sitting downstairs, and couldn't see anything due to the stickers over the windows. The only consolation is that we could hop on and off.

kev | 02.05.18 - 9:52 a.m. | #

Double deckers are tested not to tip over (or they were...) see https://www.britishpathe.com/video/bus-tilt-tests

Chris L | 02.05.18 - 9:56 a.m. | #

It did make me smile that their map lists 50 places of interest, but number 5) is the Houses of Parliament and number 8) is the Palace of Westminster...

Philip Brown | 02.05.18 - 10:17 a.m. | #

The tilt test is done with the worst-case arrangement - empty bottom deck and a full top deck (using sandbags rather than people). The absence of a roof will help slightly. The minimum to pass the test is 28 degrees for the chassis - the body will tilt a bit further because of the suspension.

The test is still done. [photo]

timbo again | Homepage | 02.05.18 - 10:41 a.m. | #

I've never been on a bus tour, mainly because: a)the cost, b)I must have already passed by / seen most of the places in one form or another. The only time I can see myself going on one is if the price was right and I was with a visitor showing them the sights.

So many things these days have ridiculously expensive turn up and go prices, but make a big thing about how cheap it is if you book up in advance.

Judging by how many empty seats with reserved tickets there are on the Liverpool St - Norwich trains for example, I wonder how many people actually turn up after booking and paying in advance. A big win for the company concerned - they have your money whether you're there or not.

Generally, I would see a tour bus more as a turn up and go type attraction. Who really wants to book a trip when it might be raining when the bus turns up? How many visitors are going to plan a trip in advance?. Still, at least if you have the option of phone booking within minutes of the bus turning up, that's not too bad.

Rogmi | 02.05.18 - 10:48 a.m. | #

Thanks Chris and Timbo, I have always wondered about the physics of double decker buses!

Blue Witch | Homepage | 02.05.18 - 11:08 a.m. | #

Rogmi - trains are plagued by the situation where people buy a flexible ticket however have a reserved seat on only one train. I suspect most of the journeys are made, just in a different train.

Messiah | 02.05.18 - 12:22 p.m. | #

Messiah - ah, that makes sense and was something I hadn't even thought of. I remember a friend buying an off-peak day return to Bournemouth online. Although it was a flexible, he had to specify a train before he could actually book the ticket!

Rogmi | 02.05.18 - 12:51 p.m. | #

Aha! I'd spotted a few of these coming in and out of Bow garage over the past week and thought I'd not seen them before!

Moogal | 02.05.18 - 1:24 p.m. | #

The C4 logo sculpture is cool. Careful timing of the photo there.

drD | Homepage | 02.05.18 - 2:52 p.m. | #

Many years ago I was a night bus driver on the N11 and N2 service based at Victoria Bus Garage in Gillingham Street, we also ran the "London By Night" sightseeing bus from our garage and as overtime we were allowed to drive a London by Night sightseeing bus around before we signed on for our night bus duties, it was a very well paid and enjoyable shift to work on although we were not officially allowed to give a commentary I used to bring my own microphone along and plug it into the jack plug socket, but that was soon stopped due to complaints from Blue Badge Guides who were quite rightly very protective of their jobs.

fishislandskin | 02.05.18 - 4:07 p.m. | #

The only downside I've noticed with the booking page is that it looks like you have to book each ticket individually, rather than being able to book all the people in your group at the same time.

Obviously they get x times the number of booking fees that way, but it could be problematic if the slot fills up with only half of your party having booked!

Cornish Cockney | 02.05.18 - 4:31 p.m. | #

You can book more than one ticket at a time...

...but you can't buy multiple tickets for £1. Two tickets seem to cost a minimum of £4, with three tickets £5 and four tickets £8.

£1, £4, £5, £8, £13, £14, £21, £28, £37, £46...

diamond geezer | Homepage | 02.05.18 - 4:42 p.m. | #

I once witnessed a young rascal of a lad toss a half full water bottle up in the air to land on a group of tourists riding in an open topped bus one afternoon in London. I stepped up next to him and said "Don't do that again". He ran. It was fun to think that a middle-aged American could scare off a teenaged London punk. The teenaged American punk inside of me felt quite satisfied.

Steven | Homepage | 02.05.18 - 4:46 p.m. | #

This'll be the same Megabus that was taken to taks recently for advertising "fares from £1" for their long distance buses when they usually only had 1 seat avilable on each bus at that price?

Naughty Megabus!. Go stand on the naughty step...

Agent X | 02.05.18 - 4:59 p.m. | #

Remind me again how booking fees were supposed to be banned? Oh wait, the legislation that came into effect in January mysteriously excluded fees charged for booking tickets. How curious...

Agent X | 02.05.18 - 5:02 p.m. | #

A while back I saw a Megabus coach that had come from Germany and was still offering fares starting at a euro.

Sprout Eater | 02.05.18 - 10:01 p.m. | #

Surely open top buses should be called Anne Boleyn and King Charles I.

Sprout Eater | 02.05.18 - 10:04 p.m. | #

This seems like a logical extension for Stagecoach - their Cumbria operation has a big fleet of open top buses, all run on normal routes but with tourists in mind.

I'm just surprised though that they've converted the bus and not left any shelter on the top deck. Seems a strange decision.

But blimey, isn't the tour market going to be bit saturated now with Big Bus, Original Tour, Golden Tours and now this?!

Andrew Bowden | Homepage | 02.05.18 - 10:19 p.m. | #

Sprout Eater's coach is more likely to have just come from Ireland or Malta, where they drive on the left.

Malcolm | 03.05.18 - 1:16 a.m. | #

Yes, the Advertising Standards did ban Megabus from advertising 'from £1' for their long distance coaches as there were virtually no tickets available at that price. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43562112 and elsewhere.

The Agency told Megabus "to ensure in future that when using 'from £1' price claims a significant proportion of the advertised fares were available at £1, so that consumers would have a reasonable chance of obtaining the products at the advertised 'from' price."

In reply Megabus said "the number of fares available at £1 for any given route varied due to many factors, such as the number of intermediary stops and the number of tickets booked for the partial and full routes. The £1 fares were generally available if the booking was made more than four weeks in advance, but this depended on the route."

I wonder how this applies to the new round London service.

ActonMan | 03.05.18 - 1:26 a.m. | #

The predominantly males names do at least redress the balance with the Duck Tours vehicles, all nine of which are named after female Shakespearean characters. (Sadly the services have been suspended since September as the slipway has been requisitioned for work on the Thames tideway tunnel)

timbo again again | Homepage | 03.05.18 - 11:37 a.m. | #

@Malcolm

Megabus Europe (now passed to Flixbus)only ever operated in the UK and the European mainland - not Ireland or Cyprus. The "1 euro" bus was more likely to have been on one of their cross-channel services.

timbo again again again | Homepage | 03.05.18 - 11:45 a.m. | #

I'd definitely give it a try some 20 days later when I am there.

Patrickov | 03.05.18 - 1:26 p.m. | #

I'm on board. I have a 7 years old son who is mad about buses and trains and always, ALWAYS asks to ride on the open top ones, but I'd never pay those prices.
Now I've just booked ourselves a seat for £11 (2 tickets + fee) which I think is a very reasonably price for a treat. The boy is going to be happy.

Renata | Homepage | 15.07.18 - 10:36 p.m. | #











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