The elusive 1153
I would say that this is probably been the hardest bus to get my camera to despite still having about 300 buses yet to capture this one has had one of the weirdest histories in recent Lothian history with 3 significant layoffs already and that is on top of it having only been with Lothian since the summer of 2019.
So, back to the summer of 2019, Lothian bought themselves 14 more Ex Londoners 1 standard bus and 13 this time with exit door still in tact to go alongside the 50 they had purchased the previous summer. Originally basing them at Marine depot for usage mostly for the service 4. Fast forward just shy 9 months and the pandemic of Coronavirus hits. So, here comes 1153s first layoff (like the at some point the whole fleet) for approximately 3 months as buses were on a critical timetable with about only 20% of services running.
Then for about 2 years there isn't too much to report for 1153 as it runs standardly until summer of 2022, when their is a timetable change and leaves only 1143 in service and puts the others into reserve, the likely reasoning behind this is that due to the exit door downstairs there is a significant reduction in seating downstairs which means that capacity is significantly less and they struggle to deal with a full load of passengers.
Yet again it returns in September 2022 this time based out of Longstone primarily on service 33 duties as it requires slightly less capacity however, this change shall we say was short lived as 2 months later poor old 1153 found itself yet again in the reserve team at the back of Marine looking rather miserable with the talk being that 1153 would never return to service and would be sold off which would have made it one of Lothians' shortest lived buses in the fleet as through service changes it still did not return and I genuinely thought I wouldn't even manage a ride on it (I like to get a ride on each bus).
However, in yet another change in the tale of 1153 on the 1st of July it decided it would return to service and made its appearance back for the start of the summer season due to an increase of one bus being needed so the call up finally came.
And i finally got a ride on 1153 taking absolutely no chances in this life of it, and just as I got off I thought I could get a pretty decent capture and with a touch up to brighten it, I think it looks pretty epic. So, here we see at last Lothian Buses 1153 terminating at Ocean Terminal on a service 35 as it waits to go back to Heriot Watt university as it embarks on a the student route on a rather miserable Thursday afternoon in September.
The elusive 1153
I would say that this is probably been the hardest bus to get my camera to despite still having about 300 buses yet to capture this one has had one of the weirdest histories in recent Lothian history with 3 significant layoffs already and that is on top of it having only been with Lothian since the summer of 2019.
So, back to the summer of 2019, Lothian bought themselves 14 more Ex Londoners 1 standard bus and 13 this time with exit door still in tact to go alongside the 50 they had purchased the previous summer. Originally basing them at Marine depot for usage mostly for the service 4. Fast forward just shy 9 months and the pandemic of Coronavirus hits. So, here comes 1153s first layoff (like the at some point the whole fleet) for approximately 3 months as buses were on a critical timetable with about only 20% of services running.
Then for about 2 years there isn't too much to report for 1153 as it runs standardly until summer of 2022, when their is a timetable change and leaves only 1143 in service and puts the others into reserve, the likely reasoning behind this is that due to the exit door downstairs there is a significant reduction in seating downstairs which means that capacity is significantly less and they struggle to deal with a full load of passengers.
Yet again it returns in September 2022 this time based out of Longstone primarily on service 33 duties as it requires slightly less capacity however, this change shall we say was short lived as 2 months later poor old 1153 found itself yet again in the reserve team at the back of Marine looking rather miserable with the talk being that 1153 would never return to service and would be sold off which would have made it one of Lothians' shortest lived buses in the fleet as through service changes it still did not return and I genuinely thought I wouldn't even manage a ride on it (I like to get a ride on each bus).
However, in yet another change in the tale of 1153 on the 1st of July it decided it would return to service and made its appearance back for the start of the summer season due to an increase of one bus being needed so the call up finally came.
And i finally got a ride on 1153 taking absolutely no chances in this life of it, and just as I got off I thought I could get a pretty decent capture and with a touch up to brighten it, I think it looks pretty epic. So, here we see at last Lothian Buses 1153 terminating at Ocean Terminal on a service 35 as it waits to go back to Heriot Watt university as it embarks on a the student route on a rather miserable Thursday afternoon in September.