Lothian Country's 844, MXZ 1754, on service 275

Lothian Country's 844 MXZ 1754, a Voith/ Volvo B9TL Wright Eclipse Gemini, on service 275 Broxburn via Uphall Station and Uphall.

 

The 275 has since been withdrawn and has been withdrawn since Sunday the 5th of June 2022. The new service 276 acts like a partial replacement for the 275 which has been rerouted to serve the following areas: Pumpherston and Ladywell, Ash Grove in Blackburn and some of the Wester Inch estate in Bathgate.

 

844 MXZ 1754 was new to Lothain Buses as 848 SN57 DDU along with 840 - 843 and 845 - 875 in 2007.

 

In 2018, 841 - 850 were withdrawn from service to be refurbished for use in there Lothian Motorcoaches fleet which operated a mixture of private hire services and coach trips to locations such as Ibrox, Parkhead, Falkirk and England.

 

In November 2019, 844 - 850 were all reintroduced into service and were sent to Lothian Country to increase the capacity of services 275 and 280 which were predominantly ran by single decker vehicles at the time. 844 - 850 operated various Lothian Country services with Lothian Country advertisement around the front and rear destination displays.

 

In March 2020, 844 - 850 were taken off service again due to the Coronavirus lockdown because they did not have driver protection shields so they needed to get fitted.

 

In July 2020, they all re-entered service with Lothian Country with their driver protection shields and were predominantly used on service 275 and X17.

 

In early August 2020, 841 - 843 were transferred to Lothian Country from Lothian Motorcoaches and were painted into Lothian Country's livery, these were repainted prior to the Coronavirus lockdown and were intended to enter service in April 2020 and 844 - 850 were planned to get repainted too but due to the pandemic it made the idea of them being repainted obsolete.

 

In late August 2020, 844 - 850 were transferred from Lothian Country to East Coast Buses (another subsidiary of Lothian Buses) and were initially used on the school run until eventually entering normal daily services such as the 104, 113, 124, 139, and 140.

 

In September 2020, East Coast Buses 942 (SN10 DKO) had returned after a repair from a low bridge collision resulting it a deroofing at the Western General Hospital in July of 2017, this resulted in one of ex Motorcoach B9's becoming surplus and one was temporarily transferred to Lothian Buses and operated service 48 between Fort Kinnaird and Gorebridge.

 

In October 2020, 850 returned to East Coast Buses from the very temporary transfer.

 

In May 2021, 841 - 843 were all transferred to East Coast Buses to aid increase capacity of the school buses, this was originally intended as a loan but Wright Eclipse 2's 171 - 175 were transferred from Lothian Buses to Lothian Country in turn making 841 - 843 a permanent member of the East Coast Buses fleet (until their inevitable withdrawal).

 

This is a list of the ex Lothian Motorcoaches B9TL's and including previous registrations:

Fleet No. - Regi - Previous Regi

841 - MXZ 1751 - SN57 DDK

842 - MXZ 1752 - SN57 DDL

843 - MXZ 1753 - SN57 DDO

844 - MXZ 1754 - SN57 DDU

845 - MXZ 1755 - SN57 DDV

846 - MXZ 1756 - SN57 DDX

847 - MXZ 1757 - SN57 DDY

848 - MXZ 1758 - SN57 DDZ

849 - MXZ 1759 - SN57 DEU

850 - MXZ 1760 - SN57 DFA

 

UPDATE LOG, Jun22 - Jul22:

841 and 842 still remain in Lothian Country livery with Lothian Country fleet names, this is subject to change.

843, 844, 845, 847 and 860 have all been repainted into the new shared livery between Lothian Country and East Coast Buses (with ECB fleet names).

846 and 848 are currently getting prepared at Seafield for repaint at Ferrymill.

849 is the only remaining Gemini, out of this batch of 10, to still carry the Lothian Motorcoaches Livery, similar to was 844 is displaying here minus the Lothian Country branding.

 

The information I've provided above is correct from the date of upload, Friday the 8th of July 2022.

 

This photo was taken on Saturday the 8th of August 2020 at Pumpherston Turning Circle.

 

I'll link photographs by other photographers of the other buses in this batch in the comment section in their current state from 08/07/2022 and their original state from 2007 (when in the Harlequin livery) and a few of when they were painted into the "swoops" livery for some variety.

 

V Disclaimer V

Do not use any of my photos for any purposes, e.g. editing or just reposting, without my full consent, thank you! 👍

 

Everyone, take care and stay safe out there! 😊

Done