As electric buses start to enter London tick and fast, Stagecoach are part way through introducing a large batch of Wright Electroliners onto routes 86 and 199 out of North Street (NS), Lea Interchange (LI) and Catford (TL) garages.
It's certainly been a long time coming for these buses and their entry into service, with the tender award for route 199 being in October 2022 and the tender award for the 86 being in November 2022. While we knew that brand new electrics were on the way for the retains, Stagecoach and other sources remained tight lipped for a few months until it was announced that both routes would be recipients of Stagecoach's first batch of Wright Electroliners, a departure from Stagecoach's usual orders from Alexander Dennis, but notably not their first order from Wright as they had previously placed an
order for route 53.
These buses were to be the first for Stagecoach that were going to be specified to 'high spec', and Stagecoach were also the last major operator which were to introduce the new spec. The buses were spotted on delivery towards the end of summer 2023 before eagle eyed enthusiasts noticed that the standard Stagecoach interior was not present on these buses, followed by the revelation that the interior present on the buses wasn't a Stagecoach themed interior at all but was actually the TfL specified interior that had been seen on Sullivan Buses, CT Plus' buses and Arriva's E40H Citys. Did this signify the end of the famous and much loved Beach Ball interior? Quite possibly. These buses were unique in being the only batch of buses in London specified to the new specification interior, but having blinds on the front of the buses as opposed to LED displays.
I went out in November shortly after the buses made their debut on the 199 to take a ride on the vehicles to get an impression for them. Following a very long wait due to a protest in Lewisham an Electroliner eventually turned up and I made myself comfortable on the upper deck. The new specification for buses require a digital LCD screen displaying next stop information on both decks. TfL have a standard format that they use across all routes but it needs to be programmed. When I rode the bus Stagecoach and/or TfL had not managed to do this yet and the next stop information was being displayed on the standard McKenna Brothers software, which actually isn't much use as it can only display the final destination and not the next stop information. Thankfully this problem has since been fixed and the next stop is now displayed in the standard TfL format alongside the final destination on all routes that these buses operate. The floors on the vehicle are a wood effect - laminated flooring and not actual wood and the seats have leather headrests with priority seats having a 'Priority seat' sign on them so that passengers know whether they are sitting in one or not. The new bus specification also required a rear facing iBus display so that passengers in the wheelchair area can see the next stop information without needing to turn around, although on Stagecoach's vehicles these are to a slightly lower quality than the forward facing screens.
The rear facing display has the slightly annoying quirk of not being centred, and the righting is slightly offset towards the right. The display also does not have the ability to scroll text (yet), which means longer destinations and stops often get cut off. I would imagine this will get solved in a future software update, but at the time of writing this post that is yet to happen. The buses also have the standard bells and whistles of USB charging points and up lighters on the stairs.
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| 82006 seen at Canada Water Bus Station |
As I alluded to earlier in the post, the 199 and 86s batches of buses were ordered as one big batch. With the 199 getting the earlier buses (82001-82014) and the 86 taking the later buses (82015-82048). The batch for the 86 suffered a bigger delay with getting into service due to Romford garage (NS) facing delays with its electrification and the introduction of a partial allocation at Lea Interchange (LI) as well to ensure that all the buses could be accommodated. It wasn't until 2024 that buses started entering service on the 86. While I'm writing this post, the full batch of buses is still yet to enter service on the 86 and it's a really slow process due to the various restrictions at the garages that the route is running from. The buses otherwise are identical to the batch that is found on the 199.
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| Old and new at Ilford, 19807 and 82025 |
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| 82045 seen at Stratford Bus Station |
While these were Stagecoach's first order for Wright Electroliners, they certainly aren't the last. A second batch of Electroliners is currently in the process of delivery for the recent acquisition of route 242 from Arriva, this newer batch have even more features such as a sky light and LED destination blinds. Alongside this there are also brand new MCV bodied Volvo BZL single decker buses arriving for routes 276 and 314, some new MCV bodied Volvo BZL double decker buses for routes D7, 58 and 277 and Switch MetroCity EV buses arriving for route W11. There are certainly exciting times ahead for the company!
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