Lothian invests in maintenance

Time capsule

When the last load of concrete was being laid in an area of the depot floor just in front of the offices, the opportunity was taken to put in a time capsule containing artefacts including current timetables, images and company communications as well as tickets, RIDACARDs, drawings and even a piece of seat cover fabric. It was buried by three of the youngest members of the team, engineering apprentices Ryan More (17), Connor Niven (18) and Craig Jardine (18). The idea is that it will be dug up and reopened in 50 years time, so I’ll put that in my diary.

Bill commented, ‘We are constantly striving to do the best for our customers and staff, and sometimes it is easy to forget how far our business has progressed over the years.  For us to be able to provide future colleagues with an insight into how we currently operate, ensures that the hard work and dedication of our current staff is never forgotten.’

Seafield

Longstone’s old workshops are being stripped out ready for conversion to the home of the bodybuilding workshops which will move from Sealand

With the new maintenance workshops complete, the project continues to its next stage which will see the total transformation of the older maintenance workshops at Longstone to create a new bodybuilding and painting workshop to replace the existing facility at Seafield, a few hundred yards down the road from Marine depot. Seafield currently employs around 30 people on both coachbuilding and training activities and will gradually be run down over the next 12 months as operations transfer.

Bill showed me around the current Seafield site and the capability it has is considerable. A Scania OmniDekka was being rebuilt after extensive fire damage and nearby one of the hybrid Volvo 7900Hs was having new nearside panelling applied after accident damage. Typical of Lothian’s long term thinking, rather than just replacing it with a single piece of metal, they were developing new sectional panels that will make future repairs easier, providing of course that Bill is happy with the appearance of the multi section alternative. Other buses were also receiving attention. ‘We have a zero tolerance policy on accident damage and vandalism,’ said Bill. ‘We repair everything straight away.’

Part of the new main workshop which has five pits at one end and four at the other with two lift equipped hardstanding bays in the centre

Vehicles were also being stripped ready for painting and internal retrimming, a process that all Lothian buses go through every five years. Although paint preparation is done on site, the actual painting is carried out elsewhere. Livery detail including the eyecatching ‘Zoom to the Zoo’ and ‘Go Edinburgh’ schemes are applied with vinyls because they are easier to replace sections of and the experience is that wear from constant mechanical washing is better than paint.

Apart from the main workshop transformation at Longstone, work is continuing in the main garage area to remove the former drive-through pit area and wash facilities as well as the refuelling bays which continued to be required while the rebuilding was going on in order that the premises continued to function. When these have been removed the area available for parking buses will be increased.