The Vehicles
ENGINE: Cummins Euro 2 B160
BRAKE HORSEPOWER: 160
GEARBOX: Fully automatic Allison World Series
LENGTH: 1076cm
WIDTH: 250cm
HEIGHT: 295cm
WHEELBASE: 535.5cm
FRONT OVERHANG: 26.8cm
REAR OVERHANG: 27.3cm
Using welded steel the chassis and bodywork were integrally built by Optare, these eight Optare Excel L1070’s were non-standard (1070 referred to the length – 1070 centimetres or 10.7 metres) and were a pre-production batch of vehicles, which were registered N201LCK up to N208LCK and were given matching fleet numbers of 201 to 208.
These fleet numbers had last been allocated to the 1949 built Leyland PD2's registered DFV101-108 which were withdrawn in the late '60's.
Prior to these vehicles Optare had built an L1000 (10metre) vehicle – N330EUG as a demonstrator, which spent a brief period working the 44 route in 1998. N201-4LCK became the first Excels delivered to any bus company.
When 201-4 were delivered they worked route 44A until 205-8 were delivered, allowing nearly all the 44A and 44B duties to become worked by low floor buses.
Important features on the vehicles at the time were the 135cm (or 4ft 6inch) wide entrance door, the capability of accepting wheelchairs and pushchairs without the need to fold them and to place these in their own area clear of the normal seating and the centre aisle.
Also once aboard the bus there were no further step until just forward of the rear axle, giving access to 18 seats without climbing further steps. Further to this there were two seats directly behind the drivers cab, and one behind the entrance that were positioned above the front wheel arches. To sit on these a single step had to be climbed.
From a driver’s point of view the front and rear overhangs were almost the same, giving improved manoeuvrability, and a semi circular dashboard with easily visible controls and gauges plus a novel digital gear display – telling the driver what gear he was currently in!
Simply pressing a button near the parking brake lowered the front axle.
Blackpool Transport promoted the route under its “Handy Bus” banner, used for its mini bus services, but the 44 used an extended version of this title: “Easy Access Handy Bus”.
Perhaps it was unfortunate that the name Handy Bus was used from an enthusiast point of view, as Handy Bus was a name long associated with small mini buses and was an injustice to the well designed “midi-bus” Excels.
In line with the Handy Bus name, the vehicles were painted in an all over yellow livery. The Handy Bus livery had been black with yellow skirt so these vehicles were certainly standing out in their all over yellow, relieved by a blue section promoting the locations served by the route, although the route number was not mentioned on the bodyside.
The “Easy Access Handy Bus” title was proudly printed on the windscreens in bold yellow stickers, and on the side and rear of the buses in black stickers.
Also in the bottom right hand corner of the rear window was a small sticker proclaiming “A LOW EMISSION BUS”
The entrance to the vehicle was 32cm above the road, and the MAN built front axle lowered the entrance step to 23cm if required, this is roughly the same as pavement level!
After passing the drivers cab, passengers had to pass between the front wheel arches to get to the wheelchair/pushchair bays and the rest of the seating.
The width of the front entrance was 135cm and the gap between the front wheel arches was 90cm, wide enough to fit a twin pushchair, and easily enough room for prams and wheelchairs, and standing passengers.
The front entrance door was an air operated two-piece example in common with other modern buses. Roughly 210cm high, but unusually each section of the door was a different width, the front ‘half’ was 75cm wide and the other part was just 60cm to allow more room on the near side in the saloon when the door was open.
,,,,,,,,drawing……………
The design internally was excellent, light, airy and spacious, and a novelty on these vehicles were the sideways facing seats over the rear wheel arches, giving a more roomy appearance inside. These sideways facing seats were one of the seating options that Optare provided on the Excel’s.
The large tinted single glazed side windows were bonded to the frame of the vehicle.
The seat moquette was of a design not previously seen in Blackpool, and currently never seen again. It was of a similar design to the current standard “graffiti” pattern with similar colours but arranged in a different pattern. Hard to describe from memory!
………..Copies of drawings……….
There were 30 standard seats, plus an additional 6 “tip-up” seats, in the area where pushchairs etc, or indeed standing passengers could be accommodated.
During busy periods the elderly or those loaded with shopping would fold these seats down, increasing the bus to a 36 seater but reducing standing or pushchair space.
If the tip up seats were not in use then a total of 36 passengers were allowed to stand using the extra space along with the 30 seated if the bus was full, but when the six seats were folded down, the standing figure was reduced to 23 people allowed standing in the vehicle plus 36 people seated.
This was debatable, the L960 (9.6metres long) and the L1070 (10.7metres) both had the 160hp engine, the L1150 (11.5metres) had the more powerful 215hp example, and having ridden on both the L960 (in London) and the L1070 (the Blackpool examples) with the same engine - you could feel the difference as the Cummins engine struggled to propel the extra weight of the Blackpool 10.7 metre version, its turbo screaming and engine revving high as the driver floored the accelerator as usual on the tight schedules given on the 44 route to make the service appeal to new passengers, and of course to keep the existing customers returning.
Finally, this was the final nail in their coffins.
Reliability was often terrible with up to FOUR out of traffic at once, and towards the end of 1998 it became clear that NINE new buses would be on order to replace the existing eight.
Replacement vehicles would come in the shape of T210-218HCW in late summer of 1999, phased in to traffic slowly to replace the original batch.
Click 'notes' on the left to view dates these entered traffic, and the later dates of the 'N' reg batch and some of their daily allocations.
Website Copyright Shaun C 2008