Are TIBS Hispanos 0405s aging very fast?

TIB1186Z SG

Today, I suffered a breakdown on TIB584P on service 804 ( cameo from Svc 811, the one with the svc 969 ad behind the driver's seat ), and I took 40 minutes to return home instead of 15 minutes from Yishun Interchange. The experience made me think that ZF buses tend to break down in a similar manner, and in the light of the numerous incidents, that TIBS Hispano 0405s could not stand the test of time as well as their SBST counterparts, or is it negligient and slip-shop maintainance?

Well, for those who dun know or unsure what I mean as a "Classic ZF breakdown", here is the last few minutes of TIB584P before it gave up, and the cause, which I'm damn certain, a very faulty ZF gearbox.

( Timings are approximate )
1800: Bus arrives at berth to pick up passengers. Nothing wrong, except after I realised that the usual high pitch whine of the gear in NBS is missing.

1803: 584 is packed to the brim with pax ( And BTW TIBS, where r the Bendys? Or why is low pax load still used as a reason for not extending svc 806 hours ?) First sign of trouble: The first gear was not caught, and the engine had to rev up for 2 seconds before the bus suddenly lurched forward and accelerated .

1804: Bus reaches junction, and the retarder came on, but it was very rough and felt like scraping metal from the noise.

Bus travels at first gear slowly

1806: Reaches the major junction, and the bus again, have to rev up and then lurch forward as it turned, throwing many off guard. the second gear kicked in later, not before the bus declerate quickly and then lurch with a loud whine. Pax start complianing that bus driver had no license.

1807: Pull into the bus stop along Yishun Ave 2, again the retarder sounded damn weird, no distinct kicking back of gears but a loud growl.

1808: Bus starts off again, but it took longer to rev up and "explode" into 1st gear, and the 2nd gear " exploded" into place about 10 seconds later. Pax are really complaining now, and I feel sorry for the driver.

1809: Reaches the Yishun Ring Junction, sailed through the light and met up with the slope at low speed and at first gear, and the trouble starts

The gear basically dropped into neutral as the bus could not generate enough power to cause the gear to hold ( It should not be the case in the first place )and the bus slid backwards. There were fortunately, no cars behind. Driver applies the brake and pulls the park brake.

Driver attempts to release the brake and get the bus to move, but it went back along the slope. The park brake was applied again

This went on for 4 more times, each time the bus sliding back about 1-2m along the road.

Finally, the bus driver got smart and held the parking brake while applying full throttle to the engine, and release the park brake ( I guess the needle was reaching red already ). The bus shot forward on the slope due to the forward momentum ( Lucky its 0405, cun imagine what if 584 was a Lance 211 Razz But a Scania would do much better ) The gear caught on briefly but it was enough to pull the bus out of the slope and cruise over the junction.

1815: The ac had stopped working and the bus vibrated and lurched in short hops towards the bus stop, and the gearbox noise was terrible, it was like coughing and died when the bus reached the bus stop.

1817: Driver attempts to open the doors, but all he got wwas the psst psst for the front and no response for the rear. He gets out of the seat and presses the emergency door release. The door refuses to bulge and he applied brute force, but it still remain closed (Damn it for the door stay closed feature ). Driver restarts the bus, and tried again. Failed. Pax get panicky, and he valiantly used all his force to pull one half of the front door to its open position, and announced that the bus had broken down, and asked pax to get down.

1824: Another packed 0405, TIB812G arrived at the scene and pax from 584 starts to fill it to the brim. Again, the bus was stuck there for 5 minutes as the front door of 812 could not close due to overloading. Some pax voluteered to get out and the bus started to speed away. By now, the driver of 584 had opened the rear hatch to ventilate the engine, though the real cause was the gearbox. Pax start to accuse the driver of 584 for not checking the bus, but how the heck do you expect the bus driver to know it will break down and how to check the gearbox ?!

This account is true, and the features, like a choking gearbox and the doors that could not open, are that of a ZF breakdown. My experience with a breakdown in a Lance 211 early this year is also similar, but much less harrowing as the gearbox does not change gears and die explosively.

What do you think?

AntiDennisLance SG

Bus breakdowns are rather commonplace - and generally the quality of maintenance of both TIBS and SBST buses leaves quite a lot to be desired.

Try not to be dragged into the illusion that SBST's O405's are better maintained than TIBS's. When 171 was still in SBST's hands, there was once that I took SBS278S from Bt Timah back to Yishun - and guess what, the same problem you described. Engine stuck at 1st gear all the way back and it took me 2 hours instead of the usual one hour. And then SBS95C which overheated and the driver had to stop at every 3 or so bus stops just to let it cool down (wonder why didnt he declare a breakdown and let the next bus come and scoop us up).

And I doubt a Scania can out-power an O405. Scania's sound so soft while an O405 uses brute force.

As for your question on "where are the bendies", 804 is getting bendies - all the 806 bendies plus some current free agents. 806 will be canned when Yishun St 41 opens and everyone will have to take 804.

SBS9818A SG

The TIBS L113CRL buses have 1300Nm of torque, more then enough to power the bus. It would have been much better had a L113CRL been in the same "shituation". SBST and TIBS maintainance leave lots to be desired.

TIB1186Z SG

So sad, another "victim" of the street directory. Do you know that there is Yishun St 91 also? You know the access road that is besides Northpoint that is unnamed? And there is Yishun St 31 , BTW, the carpark entrance that is below my block. Now do you believe that there is a Yishun St 41?

FYI, if you have been living in Yishun in the first place, then you should know that Yishun St 41 is just a 12m long patch of asphalt for svc 804 0405s to U-turn........and on the other side is sort of a "grass-growing area " by a construction company that is featured in the papers? Well, maybe LTA wants to declare a muddy path withmus and grass the first " off road " in Singapore, and TIBS wishes to deploy half a million buck a piece of equipment as an all wheel terrain vehicle, then I've nothing to say.

Try removing svc 806 and you can have a good look at the svc 804 queue in the evening.........ecen now, Bendies every 5 mins and 0405s every 5 mins could not prevent the queue from snaking all the way back to the other berth, and oh, consider the boarding time too.

BTW, svc 520 had 2 Pinninfarina Bendies deployed on it during its last days, and the control office told me that there is at least one Bendy deployed during the morning peak daily. You are most welcome to re-confirm it. Very Happy

SBS9818A SG

Originally posted by TIB1186Z:

So sad, another "victim" of the street directory. Do you know that there is Yishun St 91 also? You know the access road that is besides Northpoint that is unnamed? And there is Yishun St 31 , BTW, the carpark entrance that is below my block. Now do you believe that there is a Yishun St 41?

FYI, if you have been living in Yishun [b]in the first place, then you should know that Yishun St 41 is just a 12m long patch of asphalt for svc 804 0405s to U-turn........and on the other side is sort of a "grass-growing area " by a construction company that is featured in the papers? Well, maybe LTA wants to declare a muddy path withmus and grass the first " off road " in Singapore, and TIBS wishes to deploy half a million buck a piece of equipment as an all wheel terrain vehicle, then I've nothing to say.

Try removing svc 806 and you can have a good look at the svc 804 queue in the evening.........ecen now, Bendies every 5 mins and 0405s every 5 mins could not prevent the queue from snaking all the way back to the other berth, and oh, consider the boarding time too.

BTW, svc 520 had 2 Pinninfarina Bendies deployed on it during its last days, and the control office told me that there is at least one Bendy deployed during the morning peak daily. You are most welcome to re-confirm it. Very Happy
[/b]

True, on a Sunday Sv. 804 queue is unbelieveably long. Even O405s arriving every 6-7 minutes cannot cope as once one bus leaves the queue starts forming again.

Indeed the Mighty Minds road directory is rubbish.

AntiDennisLance SG

You call yourself a neighbourhood 3/4 dweller? Try going to that U-Turn at the end of 804 route and see what I mean, if you dont believe me.

Bendies on 520 for one day dont mean bendies for 520 everyday. And BTW bendies on 520 during that VERY LAST WEEK in service is due to the coincidence that service 106 was cut hence freeing up 8 bendies.

I dont own a streetdirectory nor do I have the kind of time to look at areas on the whatever online map which I dont go. I dont know what is Yishun St 91 too.

TIB1186Z SG

Then I musta be very blind and could not see the signpost that says Yishun St 41. FYI, I go through that U-turn every wkend and last Sunday, I still dun see the street coming on. Maybe they are slow, bout I reckon svc 804A will be withdrawn once that "st 41 " is completed, and I will try to say that this is a fine example of LTA wasting public money of building a road through barren land.

BTW, the Bendies on svc 520 are not from svc 106 but taken from svc 851. Svc 851 also din have extra bendies on those days.

If you find it hard to believe Yishun St 91, it is just as hard for me to believe Yishun St 41.

And given any thoght to how the 804 load will cope? Perhaps suggesting bi-airticulated double decks may work. But before that, withdrawing 806 is pure bull and don't forget that svc 806 was used to a small extent in the last elections as svc 307 in CCK

Windy_hates_B10TLs SG

This is what I had posted into another (more user-friendly Razz ) group, which this thread was posted to...

The maintenance at TIBS is still far more superior than that of
SBST.

In the case of the NBS not audible, the driver may have applied the park brake or Bus Stop brake, and taken his foot off the brake pedal, thus the NBS wouldn't come on.

When the a/c stopped working and what not, I guess it was a partial electrical system failure, possibly associated with the alternator.

And, regarding the failure of the emergency override on the doors, that is a fault of the body manufacturer, and the safety inspectors for failing to detect such a defect.

However, the whole saga is not necessarily related the gearbox. The failure for the doors to open, the engine cutting out and overheating and it's inability to climb up a hill are not related to the gearbox at all. Some ZF's are susceptilble to staying in neutral, but that is only when they are under excessive strain, and as I have said repeatedly, it is due to the buses being governed to 60km/h.

AntiDennisLance SG

851 did have some extra bendies (1098, 1099, 1096, 1147 etc) on those days. Thats why they could afford to cut some over to 520. Anyway bendies on 520 is quite a waste during that last week. Ridership in the evenings were pathetic.

The idea of a "supplementary" service to a main service seems to be dropping out of favour with TIBS. 520 was a supplementary to 851 which was dropped. And in this same way 806 is a supplementary to 804. To them, there are several disadvantages to operate high capacity routes in this way:

1. One extra service planning overhead
2. One extra set of service statistics to collate
3. One extra planner
4. One extra berth taken at the interchange
5. More planning efforts involved to direct buses away on days that the supplementary service dont operate
6. Other costs involved

The favoured way seems to be to saturate the high capacity service with buses during the day and remove some buses after dark. That is what is has been happening to service 190 all along and now with 851 too. If there really is going to be a Yishun St 41, that is probably going to be how 804 will turn out - the 4 bendies in current 806 plus the 6 or 7 O405's already in 804, making up 10 or 11 buses (for one feeder service) in all, with a headway of 2 to 4 minutes during peak hours.

This operation model was used extensively before in 804 during the 90's. Buses had been purposely bunched together. The probable reason why they decided to implement the 806 model was because 804 could not have bendies when the bendies were made available. Once 804 can hold bendies, their original plan (to use bendies on 804 to solve the load problem) will probably take over.

TropicalSQ744 SG

what!!!!!!! No way 806 is gonna be removed!!!! The residents here are simply gonna [email protected]#$%^&* at TIBS and the MPs! I'm one of them too! After seeing how much convenience 806 has brought to residents of the area (me included), I'm 99.99% sure they WOULD mind if it is removed.

But another alternative is that they could admend a trunk service to serve the 806 route, including Sundays and public holidays and full time on normal days. Probably 851 or 854 would be best suited but I wouldn't mind if 857 was the one simply because i can take it direct from school Wink

AntiDennisLance SG

Heh. This is the so called "streamlining" and "economies of scale". Actually the more sensible approach would be to cut 804 and leave 806 while having another feeder service visit neighbouthood 4 where 806 cant reach via Yishun Ave 11.

Divert a trunk to N4? Not likely, coz the rest of the people waiting at Yishun Ave 2 would complain loudly especially for 851/854/857/969. But then again, 965 can be diverted, since it is the lowest load trunk service serving Yishun and I dont see a hell lot of people boarding it from Yishun.

As the PTC definition puts it, "A trunk service should take the quickest way out of a town", plus we have not seen any TIBS trunk service making elaborate rounds in the neighbourhoods for all the whole 18 years or so of TIBS history in Yishun, i think we would probably see service 85 restored before we would see TIBS trunk services making rounds in the neighbourhoods.

SBS9818A SG

Oddly enough that PTC definition for a trunk service doesn't seem to apply to SBST, look at Sv. 28, Sv. 39, Sv. 161, etc. Seems that winding through Tampines N4 is the fastest way out for Sv. 28, huh?

AntiDennisLance SG

The definition is only a guideline. TIBS seem to follow it stricter esp. in Yishun. Some of TIBS trunk services do wind around in Woodlands too, like 856. Perhaps Yishun is not big enough or complicated enough to have any trunk merry go rounds. Or if Yishun Ave 1 have not been a dead end and leads into TPE/YCK, maybe there could have been a trunk going that way.

TIB1186Z SG

Hmmmm...If I'm not wrong that only applies if and only if that is a rival trunk service operating in the territory, like svc 39 in Yishun and svc 161 and 168 in Woodlands going straight out, and not to the homeground.

And...since when is Yishun Ave 1 having a dead end? It leads to the junction with Lentor Ave and continues up to Mandai Rd which then leads to the BKE. However, I agree that the pax using the Ave 1 route is too low.

Acoording to PTC and LTA guidelines, the number of trunk services is given as 1 per 50000 residents, and 1 feeder for 20000 pax. N3 has more than that as Singapore's largest single seat constituency at approx 123 000 pple.

I would not mind if a trunk service is placed there....what about converting the highly popular NR1 service to a full day one?, though prospects are a bit low as it duplicates the MRT line, and how I wish the 162M is also a full service, and not a festive nite owl.

SBS9818A SG

However N3 is also under Sembawang right, so Yishun has SIX MPs. The Yishun Ave 1 dead end is near the Lower Seletar reservoir dam.

AntiDennisLance SG

Cycled over to the 804 u-turn at N4 today. The construction workers have already cut through the grass field from the Yishun Ave 1 u-turn to link up at the Northbrooks Sec Sch U-turn for 804A. They are laying the metal foundation and will pour in the asphalt soon.

So Yishun St 41 (or Lorong Northbrooks, or whatever the new street will be called) is for real. Whether the new street will affect 804/806 and if so, how major will it be, is open to debate, but personally I think it will bring quite a major change.

TIB1186Z SG

I think I will have a look today.......but one thing is for certain: 804A will certainly be withdrawn and 804 will be amended to ply the deserted street ...but the pax at Yishun Ave 11 and Ave 1 will be unhappy as the change will increase their travelling time by 2-5 minutes.

Service 806 will still be in service, dun forget that svc 806 got its Bendys rather late, it only started to have the 4 perms from 2001-end, and TIB1050G only served for less than a year on svc 806 .
TIBS obviously thought that 12m would do the job ( TIB579, TIB747 etc. ) , but the evening crush proved too much to handle, and TIBS was forced to deploy back and convert 806 into a full Bendy service. Even today,it is an undisputable fact that during the peak hours, 806 had replaced svc 804 as the main feeder, judging from the load, and the frequency was further decreased this week to prevent situations where the buses had to skip stops as they were packed to full capacity.

It must be recognised that svc 806 (804A ) started out to "help" svc 804 back in 1997, and thus it was a peak hour service all along, but TIBS saw that 804A is here to stay because of its popularity, hence the renumbering to svc 806 on 1st January 1999. It continued to be a peak hour until 15 Feb 2000 ( I will always remember the date ! ) when an appeal by the principle of Huamin Primary, Mrs Marican through A/P Ho Peng Kee, forced TIBS to make 806 a partial full feeder and call at the bus stop outside Blk 349. That waqs a milestone, and admittedly, the pax during non-peak was pathetic.

However, the load picked up and a permanent bus stop was built at a god-forsaken location before the traffic light, and was called os. Huamin Primary cos the school can be seen, and students can cut through the field directly. However, as time goes by, TIBS realised that the main pax were not the students, but the residents in blocks 349, 350, 351 and 352. Thus, the bus stop was shifted to the present position early last year, and the shelter was the old orange type. The pax began to pick up and residents started to appreceiate a bus stop that is so convenient ( TropicalSQ744 would attest to that fact ).

The bus stop was confirmed and LTA started to replace the bus stop with the current grey type in September last year ( I remember it cos it was during my Prelims ).

Now, that you had the history clear, do you still think the few pathetic 0405s + 0405Gs would do the job? Don't forget the loading time, and bunching would inevitably occur with high freq + high load factor, and soon, pax would have TIBS on the coals again for bunching up buses.

TIB1186Z SG

Hah, pls, any bus service to that dam would lose money fromthe start though its quite popular during the wkends.

Just to correct you, the road isn't exactly a dead end. Cars go by that road to get to the Seletar Gof course ( I know it as my Physics teacher plays golf there ). Very Happy

TropicalSQ744 SG

i suppose the 804 route could be Ring Rd - St X - Ave 1 - Ave 11 - Ring Rd during morning peak so that the peeps at Ave 11 and Ave 1 will not be delayed while the students at Northbrooks don't have to wait for the bus to go one whole round before reaching the school.

Then it will be reversed during evening peak where most people are going to Ave 11 and Ave 1 and not many people going from those places to Yishun Int. The route on non-peak hours can be adjusted according to how many people are going which way. (eg, if more people wanna go to Yishun int from Ave 11/1 then it would be Ring Rd - St X - Ave 1 - Ave 11 and the opposite when there are more students going towards Yishun Int.)

(St X is the one which connects Ave 1 and Ring Rd and bounds Northbrooks Sec Sch, the one under construction)

Just my 2 cents on this prob Smile

SBS3688Y SG

probably not...I think DAF and Dennis Lance tibs buses aged right from the beginning instead!!

perhaps its due to poor maintainence by tibs!!

similarly for SBST, I experienced at least 4 breakdowns during a period of 3 mths, during my travel on svc 97 in the morning! All occured on Leyland and Volvo olympians superbuses.

I feel that its increasingly a common sight of buses breakdown, be it SBST or Tibs, compared to a few years ago, where I believed maintanence was better than now...

maybe the bus companies failed to get their requests to raise fares to their expectations, that's why they cutted back on maintenance.