TA1, LX18DGF

"Nigel Road"
Peckham Rye

Tri-axles from abroad, specifically Hong Kong, have made their way into London and tested on few main routes such as 5 or 29, buses in question being Enviro500s. Though it was until April 2018 when we had a set in stone official news of a TfL approved hybrid for London. The BCI Enterprise 2HD, designed with a total capacity of 130 with 78 seats. Of 12.5m length. Includes phone holders and USB ports.

Initially it was to run on the Russell Square to West Croydon express X68, but issues with it's routeing deemed it infeasible at the time, so the other option was fellow garage member 12. The one that runs from the lesser heart of Dulwich through residential Barry Road, to Peckham, Camberwell, run-down Elephant and into Central London via Big Ben and Trafalgar Square to where it terminates at Oxford Circus.

Tri-axles, buses with 8 wheels at bare minimum. This is the second to gracefully traverse London in normal service after the Leyland Olympian the 123 saw in the 90s. Excluding tour services.

Camberwell Green

Anyways, at first Ensign were the only ones to have the BCIs, them being the only ones to export the Enterprise model. The diesels both normal two-axle and tri-axle are respected. Heavy duty, fast, capable, durable. Possibly even cheap. A success for all, or win-win as they say. I myself haven't had the leisure to try Ensign's BCIs so I don't have much to say on them.

Rear, Camberwell Green

Back to the London one, it's a hybrid that uses Vantage technology. Previously, the Vantage hybrids didn't exactly fare well. The likes of VLA99/100 had breakdowns often and thus off road. The likes of WVL94/5 didn't seem to have as bad issues on the other hand. To say the least, it wasn't the intended path to the future as it was hoped to be. It was a nice idea, that said.

Obviously, with the former old buses converted to hybrid, success rate of this tri-axle didn't seem quite high for enthusiasts. My own speculation of it's operation was it going off-road now and then. Especially as the thing often returned to the workshop over and over. The wait is finally over. It is here now and in service. It's done well to enter service in the week until the Westminster Bridge diversions.

Capacity.

As briefed above it is more than capable of taking loads, taking up to more than half of the usual up-to-90 capacity. This helps in two aspects. Less buses required to run a service means less operational cost. Less generally implies worse, but an upgrade in capacity nullifies the negative impact. It's essentially killing two birds with one stone. More capacity with less buses.

There is a concern in this though. By reducing the number of buses to match it's previous overall capacity with the larger tri-axles, you reach the conclusion of having longer wait times. In this climate, reductions to frequencies are being made in every corner possible albeit more precisely and not exactly randomly.

Therefore, introducing tri-axles now isn't necessarily bad in my opinion, if the pros and cons are weighed well. Give or take the 12's frequency is now every 6 minutes, reducing it to every 7-8 isn't the end of the world. That is modest though.

Performance.

I like measuring and comparing one thing to another in terms of power, speed, you name it. The engine used is the same as in an E200MMC. The Cummins ISB4.5 Euro 6 rated at 185bph, enough power to propel a 9.7m single decker. In a serial hybrid, the same engine is not used to propel the bus but rather transfer power to the batteries. The battery powers the hybrid drive system which propels the bus. If you want concrete explanation just Google it. I still couldn't find the power rating for the hybrid drive but no loss. I'll go with what material I have.

It can casually accelerate from naught similar to an E40H whilst lightly loaded. Given it's mass I'd assume closer to the 300kW/400hp mark given the E40H is 260hp.

Electric mode. On an E40H it barely lasts about running speed but on a healthy start TA1 can manage up to 20mph which is the high range for the parallel hybrid B5LH.

Ride quality. I find it okay, not spectacular but not bad. It's smooth.

Other: I notice the engine makes a racket whilst on, combined with the driveline I naturally assume it's similar to an LT, the New Routemaster. The LT uses a ZF driveline, perhaps TA1 also has a ZF driveline?

   The horn. It's eerily loud. It's as if you're right by a train track in the suburbs. The number of people who were shocked by the horn weren't low.

I didn't get to test the USB port as I didn't have the correct charger with me.
Damned advanced technology.

All in all, it's a nice creation. I'd like to see it on the X68 one day, so I can see it's performance up hills, plus X68 is local to me. I'd also like to see TfL move on with tri-axles if it's a success, whilst we don't have trams swarming in the city like other cities in the world, tri-axle buses are a step closer to solving some issues. Long wheelbase buses are a thing of the past unfortunately. Newest double decker ones we had were the Stagecoach Enviro400s for 61, at 10.8m length.

Thanks for reading and stay safe!

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