Talk:New Routemaster

A fact from New Routemaster appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 30 December 2008, and was viewed approximately 3,800 times (disclaimer) (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that a design competition for a New Routemaster bus received 225 entries in the "Design" category and 475 entries in the "Imagine" category?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2008/December.

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page title

firstly, god that picture looks terrible. At any rate, "new" bus for london seems too vague because another new bus may come in 2 years, 5 years, 15 years or even 6 months. can't this be either merged with London bus or some other title?Lihaas (talk) 23:44, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

New Bus for London is seemingly the common name, (look at the sources, both primary and secondary), presumably because Wrightbus or Tfl have not come up with a model name yet, and as the project has gone on, it looks less and less like a Future Routemater (the old title). It won't cause confusion with other 'new' London buses, because they are no different, apart from minor spec details and having a middle door, from the design of new bus models delivered all over the UK every few months. That is kind of the whole point, and why it is the "New Bus for London", not to be confused with simply a 'new bus for London'. MickMacNee (talk) 14:20, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The name is definitely "New Bus for London" at the moment. It was to be a "New Routemaster", but when it became less-and-less Routemaster like, it became "New Bus for London", or "NB4L". There has been some lazy reporting in the recent days when the designs were released, calling it a new Routemaster. But it certainly isn't one. All the official TfL PR spin calls it a New Bus for London. Arriva436^{talk/contribs} 15:16, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The plates on the rear platform of the first set of buses called it the New Bus for London. More recent productions come with a plate calling the bus the New Routemaster. [User:Urban469|Urban469] 11:15, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

When will the new buses come in use in South London? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.97.113.222 (talk) 21:04, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Does this sentence work?

Hi. This sentence:

The hybrid drivetrain, with a front mounted continuous rev-ing hydrogenised petrol engine charges front mounted batteries, which power the rear wheels through rear mounted electric motors.

- seems difficult to follow. I think a few hyphens (e.g. front-mounted) and one less (revving not the ungainly rev-ing) might help legibility but even so I still find it difficult to follow. Is this, taking out a couple of chunks, the structure of what is meant?

The hybrid drivetrain charges front mounted batteries, which power the rear wheels.

I find that odd - does a drivetrain charge batteries, or power wheels? Our Drivetrain disambiguation page says "group of components in a motor vehicle that generate power and deliver it to the road surface" which does not match this sense. If, nevertheless, that IS what is meant then maybe this is better:

The hybrid drivetrain, with a front-mounted continuous-revving hydrogenised petrol engine, charges front-mounted batteries, which power the rear wheels through rear mounted electric motors.

- but if it's more like what I think it is, where the drivetrain is the whole thing including delivery to the road, then maybe something like this:

The hybrid drivetrain has a front-mounted continuous-revving hydrogenised petrol engine; this charges front-mounted batteries, which power the rear wheels through rear mounted electric motors.

or

The hybrid drivetrain has a front-mounted continuous-revving hydrogenised petrol engine charging front-mounted batteries, which power the rear wheels through rear mounted electric motors.

Sorry to waffle but do you see what I mean, and which is it please? The only thing I am sure of is that the current one, if not actually wrong, isn't easy to read. Cheers, DBaK (talk) 07:48, 12 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry to rush in and edit in a hurry - I should maybe have left this for a full year. In the absence of any view being expressed on this, I'm changing it to the second-from bottom suggestion above. Do please feel free to discuss. Thanks and best wishes, DBaK (talk) 07:18, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Bus weight and capacity

There seems to be a revert war brewing with user CourtneyBonnick about my editing to correct the bus weight - I'd like to put my case openly for why the original weght of 11.8t based on a Daily Mail article is incorrect:

Go and look at the side of a bus, just in front of the middle passenger door. Clearly says 12650kg. I have seen this for myself but also had someone tweet me a picture
I put in a Freedom of Information request, which was answered, for the weight, capacity and delivery date of all pre-production vehicles. This also says 12650kg. This is the evidence of which CourtneyBonnick says in his last revert 'a news report is more notable than someone's email'; however an FoI response is not 'someone's email' but a legal requirement on a public body to disclose information on request. I therefore contend this is more accurate than a newspaper report, particularly when taken with the physical evidence on the vehicles themselves.

Furthermore, the capacity of the bus has now been accepted by TfL to be below the 87 target. This is actually a consequence of the high weight as there is a maximum gross vehicle weight of 18000kg and an allowance of 68kg per passenger leaves (18000-12650)/68 = 78 passengers. TfL have actually corrected my FoI response to say 77, the bus itself says 78 (63 seats/15 standing) on a placard in the cab not visible to passengers. I'm willing to listen to opinions on what the capacity in the article should say, but it's not the 87 it currently says.

Finally, there's an article in a recent Buses magazine interviewing TfL's Leon Daniels, who knows a thing or two about buses, in which he categorically states that the bus does not have an official name, so perhaps the entire article should be renamed the 'LT class', rather than the 'New Bus for London' (which is the project) or 'Borismaster' (which is a nickname) or 'New Routemaster' (which it categorically isn't).

No mention of cooling problems?

I'm surprised this article doesn't mention the well-documented (by the Evening Standard, at least) problems these buses have had in the recent hot weather in London, with the failure of the air conditioning leading to the nickname 'Roastmasters'. Does anyone else think that's worth including? Robofish (talk) 15:31, 10 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have any links? —Sladen (talk) 21:13, 10 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

[1], [2], [3], [4], and [5]. Tentinator 22:03, 10 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I can't view the FT article, and I can't see the word "Roastmaster" used into any of them. Do you have a citation for the specific term "Roastmaster"? —Sladen (talk) 10:40, 5 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The FT article uses it (use this link to view the contents). I've also found an article from The Huffington Post that uses it. Tentinator 13:32, 5 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

London Omnibus Traction Society uses the term in its August 2013 magazine (link here) and the Evening Standard here. Tentinator 13:46, 5 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Article name

Now that Transport for London are officially referring to the NB4L as the New Routemaster per [6] & [7] and having confirmed that it has adopted this name when asked in the trade press, (Buses Magazine January 2014), is it now time to rename the article? The NB4L name was always going to have a limited shelf life, given that there are probably already newer designs in service in London. Mo7838 (talk) 08:44, 5 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Mo7838, so what are you proposing? —Sladen (talk) 10:00, 5 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

New Routemaster Mo7838 (talk) 10:04, 5 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Don't we need a link to Articulated buses in London

Nowhere in this article is the bendy bus mentioned that was the much talked bus that this bus was to replace. I could not come up with an nice way to write about them, maybe somebody else can. (at least here is the link to them :) ) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.205.229.248 (talk) 02:36, 28 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Table

I have moved the rear deck opening time column. This fails WP:NOTGUIDE and is excessively detailed. Perhaps it could be included in a more compact form in the prose. Looloo18 (talk) 03:26, 26 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Agree is not required. Is adequately covered in the prose section. Castroex (talk) 05:41, 27 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for removing the one-person operation timings from the table. Which category of WP:NOTGUIDE do you think this falls into? If so, most of the detail on this page should be removed. PVR is less important than OPO/TPO. As a compromise, and as you suggested, I have moved the detail down into the prose. Let's not turn this into an edit war, if you think the format should be changed, let me know and I'll be happy to do it. Urban469

Left side

It is a bit of a short-coming, that not a single one of the photos here shows the left side of the bus.Lathamibird (talk) 21:31, 31 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Number plates

I am somewhat surprised that the article does not mention the number plates of these buses. All these buses appear to have been granted some form of exemption from The Road Vehicles (Display of Registration Marks) Regulations 2001 inasmuch as the registration mark does not conform to paragraph 13(i) of the regulations (basically requiring numbers to conform to the new format for British registration numbers - in the form XX99 XXX). All the operating New Routemaster buses seem to have been granted an exclusive registration number series of the form LTZ 9999 (where the 9999 is the fleet number plus 1000). These are not recycled previously issued plates, but newly generated numbers.

I understand that this was a previous practise with London buses, but am unable to find any reliable sourcing (beyond the usual WP:FANSITEs). Someone has suggested to me that the number format matches the XXX 9999 format used in Northern Ireland, but that this particular series (LTZ) is not due to be issued there yet. The article should cover this and confirm whether the buses are registered in Northern Ireland using not due to be issued numbers or registered with the DVLA using non standard (and technically illegal) format numbers. –LiveRail < Talk > 12:12, 2 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The plates are obviously legal (come on, don't you think there would have been a mass outcry by now if they weren't?). They are indeed Northern Irish issued plates, which are of course entirely legal to use on vehicles elsewhere in the UK. This is nothing new, even for London buses (Wrightbus models of the 90s). TfL did indeed have to apply for special permission to use the LTZ series (but maybe not the whole lot?), since as you say it was not due to be issued quite yet, but they evidently received it. This was all covered in the industry press at the time, but I have no idea what specific issue no. etc. IIRC it took most people by surprise, so look for mentions on or about the time the first LTZ plated bus was seen. It should also be noted that the first 8 prototypes (LT1-8), and indeed four of the first production buses (not the numerical first four, but LT10/11/12/16), did initially carry plates of the usual GB format, but these began to be re-plated with their corresponding LTZ number in time (don't know if all have been). Horatio Bell Son (talk) 21:42, 20 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Incidents and accidents section

Does this article really need an incidents and accidents section? I'm bothered by the feeling that it is not quite appropriate, or undue weight, or something ... but I am not a bus articles expert. DBaK (talk) 22:54, 11 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Of the incidents mentioned, only one qualifies, in my view:

*In September 2013, three people were seriously hurt when a New Routemaster on route 11 crashed into three other buses and some parked cars on Chelsea Bridge Road. ^[1]. It later emerged that there was a computer failure which caused the brakes to fail. ^[2]. The bus (LT62) was damaged beyond repair and written off

The rest seem to be generalised road traffic collisions with no ingredient that incriminates the New Routemaster or its design and, in my view should be expunged. BushelCandle (talk) 00:42, 12 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it does need this section. The New Routemaster has been involved in more accidents than any other London Bus in the past year, so it should be mentioned which is why I added them, but I added the Notable ones. Another one happened yesterday, which suggests to me somethings wrong with these buses. As long as they are notable, I don't see any reason why this is an issue. I think Wrightbus may have to recall some of them when TfL publishes its investigation into the latest one. Class455fan1 (talk) 07:51, 12 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It does seem to me that that incidents in the article as it stands have nothing to do with the specific type of bus, and so shouldn't be included. The article on, say, Renault Clios shouldn't be expected to include every report of an accident featuring the particular car, only if there are a series of related incidents and that a RS discusses this relationship. The same should apply to the New Routemaster article. Ilikeeatingwaffles (talk) 12:46, 7 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ "New Bus for London crash: Three people seriously hurt". Retrieved 11 January 2016.
^ "http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/runaway-bus-drivers-terror-as-he-desperately-battles-to-steer-out-of-control-routemaster-10180349.html". Retrieved 11 January 2016. {{cite web}}: External link in |title= (help)

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Volvo SRM

A two-door design of the New Routemaster had been unveiled last month. This new design uses the Volvo B5LH Chassis.

The name SRM means 'Son of Routemaster'. Currently six of these are brought by RATP-Dev for use on route 13 by September.

Here's some articles of the SRM.
http://www.transportengineer.org.uk/transport-engineer-news/wrightbus-and-volvo-launch-srm-hybrid-bus/116868/
http://www.busandcoach.com/news/articles/2016/london-launch-for-new-wrightbus-srm-on-volvo-b5lh/
http://www.busandcoachbuyer.com/son-routemaster/

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Route table

Do we really still need the route table? There are a large number of routes using this bus type and the PVR and start date sources are questionable. To be fair, this is fancruft and there are plenty of other fansites to find out which bus routes use it. Ajf773 (talk) 08:35, 31 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Technical description?

I am surprised that an almost 68 kB article on a bus (i.e., a motor vehicle) totally fails at describing the technical characteristics of said motor vehicle… --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 21:29, 17 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

[1] "New Bus for London crash: Three people seriously hurt". Retrieved 11 January 2016.

[2] "http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/runaway-bus-drivers-terror-as-he-desperately-battles-to-steer-out-of-control-routemaster-10180349.html". Retrieved 11 January 2016. {{cite web}}: External link in |title= (help)

[1]

[2]