National Bus slashes orders
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1y CM reporter L TOTAL of 907 vehicles are sted in the vehicle orders for 976 lust released by the lational Bus Company—a drop 233 on this year's figure. lost surprising is a drop in he numbers of coaches orderd from 201 in 1975 to 55 in 976.
Of the 1976 vehicle intake 68 will be Leyland and Bristol hassis, with 30 Ford R1014, ix Alexander-Ford Midi Buses, nd three Bedford YRTs.
The bulk of the order is for 92 Leyland Nationals and 257 ristod. VRTs—hardly .surprisig since the NBC has a 50 er cent shareholding in both hese companies. Of the NaionaIs 462 are the bus version (419 11.3m and 43 10.3m) and 30 are the 11.3m dual-purpose version. All the Bristol VRTs have Eastern Coach Works bodies specified as do the 56 Bristol LH 9m buses.
Only 55 coaches feature among the orders and at present only the three Bedford YRTs have the make of body specified—in this case by Willowbrook.
The only new model mentioned is the Alexander-Ford Midi of Which Hants and Dorset will have four and Southdown Will have :two.
The demise of the Leyland Atlantean, Daimler Fleetline and Bristol RE is underlined by their disappearance from the list of orders.
• This fall in the total vehicle intake reflects the financial difficulties faced by the NBC and also the late delivery of vehicles ordered in 1975. The latest 'batch of .vehicles delivered-20 .Bedford Willowbrook coaches—were in fact leased from a finance company to help NBC's cash flow rather than purchased outright.
Although senior NBC engineers are in favour of an .annual vehicle intake of around 1,500 to reduce the problems caused by retaining and rectifying old buses beyond their planned life the financial pressures prevented this. Predicted figures for NBC bus intake sup plied to the Confederation of British Road Passenger Transport for future years did in fact predict a small dip in 1976 —but not of the size actually cut, These figures did reveal a tendency for the constituent companies to replace vehicles after their planned life rather than following a regular national ordering policy.
It is also possible that the drastic cuts in services threatened by NBC in the absence of adequate operating subsidies could be a contributory factor in the low orders— although this could not 'account for the drastic reduction in the number of new coaches acquired.