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2018 60' Articulated Bus Order


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2 hours ago, briguychau said:

There are at least four more buses wrapped and parked at HTC, presumably entering into service this week. From the 410 I see 18015 and (I think) 18020 ad wrapped... It's orange and blue and the back might have a giant football? (The front is pictured)

IMG_20190226_101643~2.jpg

Those *might* be for F&G financial

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With the 239 being upgraded to a RapidBus Route, and the 701 turning into a full rapidbus route in September, i still dont see how its possible that every D60LF gets retired before September? It's already april with no news of any further artic orders. That being said, I guess we only need approximately 20-35 more artics to fulfill the service improvements?

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2 hours ago, cleowin said:

With the 239 being upgraded to a RapidBus Route, and the 701 turning into a full rapidbus route in September, i still dont see how its possible that every D60LF gets retired before September? It's already april with no news of any further artic orders. That being said, I guess we only need approximately 20-35 more artics to fulfill the service improvements?

On the Buzzer in November or December they mentioned 110 new XDE60s coming "within the next year or so", which implies 47 more have been ordered. And looking at the Board Meeting Report from October, indeed it says that 47 artics have been ordered for 2019. It's possible that not all the D60LFs will be retired by September, but this batch of XDE60s will probably be sufficient to finish them off.

Screenshot_20190302-140259.png

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34 minutes ago, briguychau said:

On the Buzzer in November or December they mentioned 110 new XDE60s coming "within the next year or so", which implies 47 more have been ordered. And looking at the Board Meeting Report from October, indeed it says that 47 artics have been ordered for 2019. It's possible that not all the D60LFs will be retired by September, but this batch of XDE60s will probably be sufficient to finish them off.

Screenshot_20190302-140259.png

Just waiting on the press release from NFI to double-confirm everything

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4 hours ago, Stormscape said:

Just to clarify, while the 239 is being cancelled, the 701 will remain in place as local service, as I understand it, due to the Maple Ridge B-Line not detouring via Harris Road.

Yes the 701 will remain as the local route for the Lougheed Highway B-Line.

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4 hours ago, cleowin said:

Is it going to be Bae XDE60’s? Would be nice to see XD60 or XN60, though i know neither is going to happen

Either XDE60 or XN60. Translink is currently focused on their Low Carbon Fleet Strategy, and is the reason we had those 11 additional buses converted to Diesel-Electric hybrid, and 10 additional Novabus BAE hybrids/47 XN40 instead of an order for 57 diesels.

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XN60 won't happen as far as I know, not powerful enough for our needs from what I've heard.  When the artic order was announced last year, it was noted that they were going to have a few XD60's including one with a newer engine than what the others would have come with.  Considering that was decided to be a test of the new engine and they converted the entire order to XDE60, I doubt they will be going with XD60's either at this point.  While the XD60's are cheaper, I believe they get some sort of climate credit for ordering the XDE's and the new BAE's fit into their plan of having a more fully electric fleet in the future if the decide to go that path.  

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3 hours ago, Brando737 said:

XN60 won't happen as far as I know, not powerful enough for our needs from what I've heard.  When the artic order was announced last year, it was noted that they were going to have a few XD60's including one with a newer engine than what the others would have come with.  Considering that was decided to be a test of the new engine and they converted the entire order to XDE60, I doubt they will be going with XD60's either at this point.  While the XD60's are cheaper, I believe they get some sort of climate credit for ordering the XDE's and the new BAE's fit into their plan of having a more fully electric fleet in the future if the decide to go that path.  

Am I the only one who thinks that going fully electric is a bad idea? I'm speaking from these points:

1) The cost of maintaining an electric fleet will be astronomical considering the life span of most electric buses is just 12 years,

2) The initial captial investment is more expensive than diesel and or hybrid / CNG variants

3) IF we go all electric, say good bye to fleet variety. One thing I have always admired about Translink is the mix of different fuel technologies and different buses throughout the region

4) We will need a much higher spare fleet ratio because of the shorter range of Electric vehicles.

Now with that being said, I am happy to order electric buses, I just dont want to see Translink completely abandoning non-electric vehicles.

I also think that TL should be ordering diesel only buses for BTC & WVTC simply because of the hills.

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In the present day yes, but who knows where battery electric will be when it comes time to replace the LFRs. I don't think anyone's saying they're going all-electric right now. It'll probably be a few years with the test buses before they even consider next steps.

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On 3/3/2019 at 5:32 PM, WillieTL said:

And how'd you figure that?

They would probably do way better than Allisons because they're driven by the electric motors. This means better performance than the already somewhat small engines in the Allisons taking a hit from the CVT with a minimal amount of electric assistance.

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On 3/3/2019 at 12:58 PM, Brando737 said:

XN60 won't happen as far as I know, not powerful enough for our needs from what I've heard.  When the artic order was announced last year, it was noted that they were going to have a few XD60's including one with a newer engine than what the others would have come with.

I find that to be a poor excuse from TransLink in my opinion. It's not like the current hybrids do any better on the hills... And some big-name transit agencies (HSR, MTA New York, RTA Las Vegas) have already bought a bunch. I can see the New Flyer XE60 or XN60 model having a great amount of potential in Surrey or on the 701 / Lougheed Highway with their mostly flat terrain.

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