Alexander ALX200

Alexander ALX200

An ALX200 bodied Dennis Dart SLF, in service with Arriva Buses Wales.
Overview
Manufacturer Alexander/TransBus
Production 1996 - 2001
Body and chassis
Doors 1 or 2 doors
Floor type Low floor
Chassis Dennis Dart SLF[1]
Volvo B6LE
Powertrain
Engine Cummins B-series (Dennis Dart SLF)
Volvo D6A (Volvo B6LE)
Transmission Allison/ZF
Dimensions
Length various from 8.8m to 10.7m
Chronology

The Alexander ALX200 is a single-decker bus body built by Alexander of the United Kingdom. It is one of the ALX-series, which accounts for 5 different models (100/200/300/400/500, all except ALX100 featured the same designs on the front and rear panels), built for new generation (mainly low-floor) bus chassis produced since late 1990s.

ALX200 bodied Volvo B6LE with McKindless in Glasgow.
The ALX200 badge.

It was designed by John Worker, and was launched in summer 1996 as a low floor replacement of the Alexander Dash. It was supposed to fill in the gap between the ALX100 minibus and the ALX300 full-size single-decker.

The styling is completely different from the Dash body, with a rounded roof dome (more rounded than the Dash) and deep double-curvature windscreen with plastic mouldings under the windscreen to make it look deeper, and large circular headlights and circular front indicators, it also has a separately mounted destination box. The rear end has 3 pairs of circular lights (with sometimes an additional pair being at the top). There was a choice of bonded or gasket glazing, and was built on Dennis Dart SLF and Volvo B6LE. The design was revised when used to body a batch of short-wheelbase Dart SLF chassis for a London bus operator.

It sold quite well, and buyers included Stagecoach (which includes 90 on B6LE), FirstGroup, Arriva and Newport (which operated some on 8.8m Dart SLF chassis) and many more. Citybus of Hong Kong purchased ten ALX200-bodied Volvo B6LE buses in 1997 (they returned to UK in 2000). Also, a number of ALX200-bodied Dennis Dart SLF had been exported to the Netherlands.

However, with the formation of TransBus International, the ALX200 was phased out, in favour of the more successful Plaxton Pointer in 2001 when production of the Pointer was moved from Scarborough to Falkirk (where Walter Alexander is based).

See also

References

  1. ↑ Devoy, David (2015). Lanarkshire Independents. Amberley Publishing Limited. ISBN 9781445652504. Retrieved 25 January 2016.

External links

Media related to Alexander ALX200 at Wikimedia Commons

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/3/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.