Refurbishing buses is big business. A mid-life refresh can add years to a vehicle’s in-service life. Richard Sharman takes a look behind the scenes to see how the work is carried out at Hants & Dorset Trim, and at a special project that is currently underway
If I said to you Eastleigh, what would you instantly think of?
A town near the city of Southampton? The home of three major bus operators? Or would it be that it is the home of Hants & Dorset Trim? I am pretty sure that most industry people would know it as the place where they have sent their buses to for over 30 years, and within a few short weeks receive them back looking shiny and new.
The mission statement at Hants & Dorset Trim is ‘to provide a simple, honest, on-time, quality service, ensure our customers receive a consistently good service, ensure that there are effective lines of communication with our customers at all times and to lead the way in change, always looking to add value and provide innovative solutions.’ One man is charged with making all that happen, and that is industry stalwart and General Manager Dave Clack.
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Dave has been working with buses all of his life, starting out as a coachbuilder apprentice at London Transport in 1975 and then working his way up, before becoming workshop manager in 1986 after setting up and managing the first garage-based accident repair centre at London Transport’s Edgware depot after the closure of the Aldenham Bus Works.
When London Transport was broken up, Dave took a brief break from buses for five years from 1995 and took up the role of Specifications Engineer for the Metropolitan Police, designing its specialist vehicles alongside a whole host of other innovative tasks.
In September 1999, Dave started out in his current role and has since seen thousands of vehicles pass through the doors of the workshops at the Barton Park Industrial Estate. “Hants & Dorset Trim was not always based on the site we are in now,” he explained. “The business was originally privately owned and the first site only held a total of five vehicles. In 2006 Wilts & Dorset purchased the business and we moved to the current site, which is much larger and has plenty of room for parking.”
New Bus for London
“A big project for us is the New Bus for London refurbishment programme,” Dave continued. “Last year, Transport for London announced that it was to put all 1,000 examples through a full body and exterior refurbishment programme. We currently have 35 vehicles left to do by the end of March, and by that time we will have completed over 120. There are another 300 to be done next year, which we are hoping to do some of.
“Transport for London did the specification for the refurbishment, and this includes full exterior bodywork, repainting and applying new external vinyls, interior refurbishment including new seat foam and fabric, refurbishment of the driver’s seat and the fitting of a new seat riser, replacing damaged seat-back panels, replacing cracked or damaged hand poles, floor repairs, new step nosing, changing up to 20 light fittings that tend to crack over time, applying padding to the handrail in front of the seats by the nearside front wheel arch to stop people bumping their head, and adding new seat covering to the priority seating, with the badge woven in and supplied Camira Fabrics, so that passengers can clearly see it is there.
“Another part that we have found needs to be replaced on nearly every vehicle of this type that arrives is the Transport for London silver roundel that is fitted to the front panel under the windscreen. They either get stolen whilst on the road or damaged and not replaced. We have our own stock of these.
“Additionally, we have designed a brand new one-piece driver’s protection screen in-house and a new membrane between the ticket machine and the screen, meaning that the driver has a completely sealed compartment. All of this work takes around three weeks to complete, and is finished off with a fresh coast of London red paint on the wheels.
Centre door conversions
“A number of 59-plate Scania OmniDeckkas are currently going through our workshop,” Dave explained. “These vehicles are having a centre door conversion, refurbishment and repaint into Cardiff Bus livery, and one example is also being converted into open-top format.
“When we do a centre door conversion here, we don’t just do the job as quickly as possible, we always ensure the vehicle is returned to the customer so that they cannot tell there was ever a centre door there. But it is not just cosmetic, it is done so that if the vehicle is involved in an accident, that section of the body is just as strong as the rest.
“On these OmniDekkas we take the door out, install the ramp at the front of the vehicle, refurbish the driver’s seat, remove the driver protection screen, move the wheelchair bay from the nearside to the offside and put the additional seating in. The vehicle is then cleaned and submitted to the DVSA for a new COIF [Certificate of Initial Fitness], as it has been modified to seat more passengers.
“We also did some of these for Ipswich Buses, who wanted additional seats, whereas Cardiff Bus has gone for some additional seats and a buggy space. We can still source most of the interior panels from Scania directly, but anything we cannot source we can make in-house. The original floor covering is still available too, which means once we are finished the passenger will have no idea that there was originally an exit door there.”
In-house solutions
“We pride ourselves on giving operators quick in-house solutions for operators, that is why we are able to undertake many refurbishment processes on site. This is not just limited to full vehicle refurbishment; we have a small fleet of delivery vans that travel the country and collect damaged passenger and driver seats and bring them to Eastleigh where they get repaired or re-covered and then delivered back to the operator,” Dave enthused.
“The process for repairing passenger and drivers’ seats is that they are first stripped. If the seat needs a new base they go into the woodwork room where we have many different types of seat bases already precut. If its not a common seat type we can easily make one up. When the seat is stripped we also check the condition of the foam, and again we have moulded foam for all of the common seat types so we can replace it where required. Unfortunately, the foam cannot be recycled as it is contaminated with human debris, so has to go to landfill.
“Once we identify if the seat needs a new base or foam, it then moves to the trimming room, where the covering is applied and stitched, with a precut fire barrier where required. We also have a stock of various seats backs, which quite often have to be replaced as they can get damaged or vandalised whilst in service. We have our own moulds and keep the seat backs in stock.
“As well as current seat moquettes, we also hold a number of heritage fabrics and have been able to help operators and enthusiasts with the refurbishment of heritage fleet or preserved vehicles. We maintain a large stores that contains various vehicle type panels, pre-painted panels, hand rails, moquettes, Covid-19 screens, interior trim, and many other consumable items.”
Exterior painting
Having the right equipment is key to doing a good job, said Dave. “To ensure a quality repaint, we have designed and had built three permanent platforms that allow the vehicles to be rubbed down correctly at every height, including the roof level. This is particularly handy for London buses as they also have large operator codes and fleet numbers applied to the roof, which need to be taken off prior to painting and then reapplied once painted.
“We have three paint booths, two full size for vehicles and another smaller one for spraying body panels. Once the vehicle is rubbed down and has had any damaged panels repaired or replaced, it moves into the paint both, where it is masked up and has an undercoat applied, before being baked then the paint applied and baked again, allowing us to complete a full respray in one day.”
Vehicle movements
With a large number of vehicles required to be moved on a weekly basis, Hants & Dorset Trim employs three full-time PCV drivers that are all formerly engineers to move vehicles around the country. For example, the New Bus for London refurbishment programme sees the drivers taking the vehicles back and forth to the London depots. Other customers, such as Cardiff Bus which is currently putting a number of Mercedes-Benz Citaros through refurbishment, choose to drop one off and pick up a completed example.
Pandemic help
“As a business, we did an awful lot to help find solutions to help keep drivers safe during the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Dave. “This included designing solutions for covering gaps in driver protection screens and designing a membrane between the ticket machine and driver protection screen, and then we were approached by operators to find a solution for wedging windows open to increase the air flow and ensure vehicles were ventilated.
“We came up with a solution that meant a bus could be completed in around 10 minutes. The window stoppers were then approved for use, and all the London operators purchased them. We then rolled it out nationwide and to date have sold nearly half a million of them as it was a one size fits all solution.”
Recruitment
As you can imagine, it takes many skilled workers to turn these vehicles around and to that end a local recruitment scheme was launched towards the end of 2022, with adverts asking ‘Do you have the skills to make London’s iconic red buses like new? But want to work locally near Southampton?’
Talking about the campaign, Dave said: “It has been an interesting time for the business. We have had a lot of enquiries from people in their 60s who are looking to return to work from retirement, and we are getting people from companies that are closing down due to the recession.
“There is a massive skills shortage across the country, but we have had some coachbuilders, body repairers, and others are trades that fit in with our kind of work. The problem is that there is no apprenticeships for coachbuilders anymore, so we use a training provider in Southampton which does metal fabrication and welding, as that is the closest we can get, then the coach building skills are being taught here.
“What we have noticed is that people do not want to do shift work or nights, so what we offer is Monday to Friday 0700 to 1600hrs, and we have already seen the benefit of this. We have had a number of new employees join as they specifically did not want to do shift work. On the operational side of the industry you need to have shift work, but on this side of the industry you don’t. The bus refurbishment market is saturated with work but not enough skilled workers to do it, so anything we can do to attract staff we do, and so far that is paying off.
“The advertising campaign was in print, on social media and a radio advert was recorded and played on local stations, which sparked people’s interest and we are nearly back to being fully staffed. What I always say to new members of staff is that once you are in the bus industry you will be looked after and you have a job for life, as people will always needs public transport.
“We now have a team of highly experienced and skilled engineers and are investing in the future by recruiting and training a number of apprentices.”
The small management team that support Dave are all highly experienced and committed bus people, who bring a wealth of knowledge to a part of the business that is often overlooked. With an ongoing high demand for vehicles to be refurbished, the future continues to look bright for Hants & Dorset Trim.
