East Lancs OmniDekka
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| East Lancs OmniDekka | |
|---|---|
Optare MetroDecker |
The East Lancs OmniDekka (later sold as the Darwen OmniDekka and Optare OmniDekka) is a
History
Collaboration with Scania
Scania was late in bringing a low-floor double-deck chassis to the market, having previously only sold low floor single deckers mainly bodied by Wright, which included the N113CRL/Wright Pathfinder (also with East Lancs MaxCi bodywork), the L113CRL/Wright Axcess-Ultralow, the L94UB/Wright Axcess-Floline, the L94UB/Wright Solar and then latterly the integral OmniCity product on CN94UB chassis. It had however worked with East Lancs some years prior in 1995 to produce a high-floor step entrance double decker on the N113DRB chassis, this being the Cityzen.
In 2002, East Lancashire Coachbuilders bodied a batch of short wheelbase N94UB chassis with Myllennium bodywork (at this point still with the original design) for London Easylink. The OmniTown midibus was to be a further development of this product, modifying the front end panelling to resemble that of an OmniCity. A year later in March 2003, the OmniDekka was finally unveiled - the first examples (being of the 10.6m short wheelbase and of dual door layout) going to Metrobus in south east London.[3] A near identical batch for Brighton & Hove (only differing in being single door) followed this in the May, along with the first 11.9m long wheelbase examples, which went to Nottingham City Transport in the September of that year.
Eventually, the OmniDekka became commonplace across the UK, being featured in the fleets of numerous London operators, as well as the provincial operations of
From this point onwards, the OmniDekka was not on general sale, subsequent vehicles generally only being built for existing customers.
Darwen takeover
With the collapse of
Customers
Many of its original customers became repeat buyers, most notably
End of production
Shortly after the
The spiritual successor to the
See also
Competitors:
Other Scania buses sold in the UK:
- L94UB(single decker chassis)
- OmniCity
References
- ^ "Optare product information". Archived from the original on 17 August 2008. Retrieved 13 January 2009.
- ^ "Olympus brochure" (PDF). elcb.co.uk/. Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 December 2006.
- ^ "Scania and East Lancs tie-up". Bus & Coach Professional. April 2002. Archived from the original on 9 August 2002. Retrieved 6 December 2023.
- ^ Pye, Cathrine (20 January 2012). "Blackburn's 80-year bus manufacturing era set to end as Optare moves to Yorkshire". Lancashire Telegraph. Archived from the original on 2 June 2019. Retrieved 2 June 2019.
- ^ "Gates at Blackburn finally close - new era for Optare". Optare. 25 May 2019. Archived from the original on 2 June 2019. Retrieved 2 June 2019.
