LDN and.. the very first E400 as it is now

Amongst the hundreds of identical E400 tridents being delivered to London over the past few years, it is good to remember the very first E400 to enter service in 2005- following the 7/7 bombings.
It was delivered to stagecoach as 18500, and remained so as the Stagecoach sold their London operation to Macquarie Bank; but after buying the operation back, the vehicle was renumbered into 19000 to avoid duplication in the national fleetnumbers, and repainted.

throughout it's career, the bus retained the name 'the Spirit of London'; it was always a 'special', and, mechanically it has more to do with tridents than with the current E400 product.

Here it is, making the first ever recorded appearance on route 106 three days ago. This is curious, as the route is operated by the longer Scanias on a regular basis.
The specific issue with 19000 are the blinds- a lot depends on the specific blind set fitted to the bus, as it had to be specially made, because the blindbox is narrower than the normal standard blindbox.

The bus can be found on some of WH routes: 15 115 69 257 241, although the 69 & 257 seems to be the favourites!

regards

Yoram

The length of this prototype is slightly longer than her sisters (Diesel & hybrid variants). It is a unique vehicle and monumental to 7/7.The vehicle fleet number is better than 18500 anyway.

19000 is 10.6m long- the same length as the trident it replaced.
Stagecoach actually ordered some standard 10.6m long E400 for route 61 in Bromley [19131 onwards].

the London standard nowadays is the shorter 10.1m long bus, as the new bodies design manage to squeeze in the same number of seats as the previous models which were 10.6m long. the price of course is discomfort to the passengers. this applies to the E400 bodies and Wright bodies. but it does save money - to the bus companies of course- the shorter buses are cheaper...

regards

it was renumbered from 18500 to 18900 in a few days before 19000 ....

due to " slight misunderstanding"