A Special Treat on Service 1

Following the blog earlier this week on the strange looking double deck bus at Fleetwood Ferry - on test - the ever present camera of Tony Armitage caught it

in service on October 1st on the Promenade service 1 to Fleetwood.

Loading here at North Pier - perhaps this is a portend of Blackpool Transport's new fleet to replace the early Tridents as they come up for renewal. No doubt all will be revealed in due course subject to the results of the current test vehicle from Balleymena. It will make a striking counterpoint to the ten Citaros working Service 5 to Victoria Hospital. These buses have already made a positive impact for lucky residents and users along this important route. Word has it that more are in the pipeline.

However Germany is not known for double deck buses, other than Berlin which found London's every early open top double deckers to be worth copying in the formative years of the Berlin transport bus system. So perhaps we will be seeing Citaro single deck buses from Germany alongside new double deck vehicles from Northern Ireland in 2016? All this is needed now is a new bus garage for BTS to complete the makeover. What's good for the trams must be good for the ........

A pity the destination (blinds) do not show up as sharply at those on the Citaros. Service 5 has the strongest visibility of its digital screens of any buses in Blackpool. Possibly lessons could be learned?

Both Images Copyright Tony Armitage