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LT goes for MCW
Page 6
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LONDON Transport has announced that it has ordered another 100 Metrobus double deckers from Metro-Cammell Weymann.
This was widely expected as London Transport needs to find an alternative source of buses following the Leyland announcement that the Park Royal Titan bus plant will be closing next year. The 1979 LT order for Titans was for 250 of the integral buses. To date, with just 10 weeks of the year left, only about 90 have been delivered.
Leyland has told LT that the balance of the 1979 order will be fulfilled by the time the Park Royal plant closes in June next year. But this still leaves a 1980 LT order for a further 250 Titans which will not be met and must be directed elsewhere.
West Midlands PTE lead the rush for the Metrobus, also ordering 100 to replace Titans that will not be delivered. Said Dr David Quarmby, managing director of London Buses: "The Park Royal closure, in spite of short term measures taken to fill the bus-buying gap, has serious implications for the longer term and London Transport is now reviewing its overall bus buying strategy."
Apart from ordering more Metrobuses, the other obvious avenue open to LT is its XRM project, its own design of bus which follows in the footsteps of the RT and Routemaster that proved so successful in London.
LT hopes that the XRM could become the standard bus of the late 1980s but plans for its manufacture are not yet known. An LT spokesman would not comment on the suggestion that the Park Royal closure throws extra emphasis on the speedy progress of the XRM into the production stage.
It certainly could not become a reality soon enough to help the immediate Titan shortage of the next two years.
Dr Quarmby said: "If production of the Titan ceases altogether, we shall lose one of the foundation stones for restoring London Transport's bus service performance in the 80s." This could indicate that LT still clings to the hope that Titan production will be switched to another plant when Park Royal closes next June.