Transport Designed’s top 8 of 2018

From supersized buses to tiny trains…

It’s been another crazy year in the world of transport, and as 2018 comes to an end, we thought it would be a good idea to take a look back through some of our most read and shared posts from the last 12 months.

In no particular order, here are some of our most read and shared posts from 2018.

Lothian unveils 100-seat monster bus

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Lothian and Alexander Dennis launched their gargantuan 100-seater Enviro400 XLB at the beginning of November. Based on Volvo’s B8L tri-axle chassis, 42 of these colossal high-capacity buses will enter service in Edinburgh from January 2019. Read more about Lothian’s leviathans here.

Serco starts sleeping in style

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Sticking with Scotland, way back in January, award-winning designer and brand expert Sam Jessup wrote about the stylish new look for the Caledonian Sleeper. The sleeper train has long been the most romantic form of rail travel – and we brought you an in-depth analysis of Serco’s attempt to revive the romance of rail. Take a look here.

Illustrating London with Julia Allum

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Julia Allum produced the campaign artwork for this years’ Poster Prize for Illustration, commissioned by the London Transport Museum in partnership with the Association of Illustrators. Influenced by poster art from the first half of the 20th century, Julia uses simple bold shapes to create her colourful, eye catching illustrations. We had a chat with Julia back in July about what makes her tick – check out the interview here.

Harrogate’s Electrics go live

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The UK’s first fleet of ‘next generation’ electric buses went live in the North Yorkshire spa town of Harrogate during July. Transdev subsidiary The Harrogate Bus Company revealed the fleet of eight Volvo 7900e electric buses at a star-studded launch event, attended by the Buses Minister, Nusrat Ghani MP, and local MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough, Andrew Jones MP. Unlike typical electric buses, which need to be plugged in overnight and are often out of juice by lunchtime, these innovative new buses charge between trips, taking around 6 minutes to fully charge by taking power from one of three masts now in place at Harrogate’s bus station. Read more here.

The East Coast Mainline is renationalised

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In an unprecedented move, the Department for Transport relieved Stagecoach of its franchise to run trains on the East Coast, stepping in to take the reigns with a self-appointed ‘Operator of Last Resort’. And as it turned out, the new name for trains on the East Coast wasn’t so new at all, actually. We brought you a sneaky peak of the new look for the ECML – see it here.

We take a look at 5 iconic modern bus designs

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There are plenty of articles out there which gleefully and rightfully celebrate the glorious lines of the Metro-Cammell bodied Leyland Titan PD2, but here at Transport Designed, we unashamedly prefer something a little less…prehistoric. Enter five of our favourite bus designs from the late 1990s and early 2000s.

This trés incredible mini-train hit the rails

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Well, sort of. Those distinctive little pieces of Parisian card are great for getting around the city, but they’re notoriously single use – so, what to do with them once they’re spent? Enter Parisian 3D graphic artists, Noname Collective, and their exquisitely detailed 3D rendering of a rubber-tired MP73 train from Paris Métro Line 6. Check out every stunning little detail right here.

We celebrated the bus industry’s craziest inventions

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Ooh, how we love a disaster movie! When we asked you to help us to find a list of the world’s craziest inventions from the bus industry, we didn’t realise quite how many crap ideas there had been over the years. From the wildly speculative to the downright dumb, take a tour through 5 of the bus industry’s wackiest inventions.

If you’ve enjoyed our articles this year, let us know in the comments below, and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter – @transportdsn.

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