The East Lancs OmniTown was a

low-floor Accessibility is the design of products, devices, services, vehicles, or environments so as to be usable by people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design and practice of accessible development ensures both "direct access" (i.e ...

midibus A midibus is a classification of single-decker minibuses which are generally larger than a traditional minibus but smaller than a full-size single decker and can be anywhere between and long. While used in many parts of the world, the mi ...

body sold in the United Kingdom by

East Lancs East Lancashire Coachbuilders Limited was a manufacturer of bus bodies and carriages founded in 1934 in Blackburn, Lancashire, England. The company went into administration for a short while in August 2007, before being bought by Darwen Group a ...

and

Scania Scania, also known by its native name of Skåne (, ), is the southernmost of the historical provinces of Sweden, provinces (''landskap'') of Sweden. Located in the south tip of the geographical region of Götaland, the province is roughly conte ...

. It used the

Scania N94UB The Scania 4-series low floor city bus and coach range was introduced by Scania in 1997 as a successor to the 3-series bus range. The 4-series bus range was first presented in September 1996, when the integral low-floor city bus OmniCity w ...

chassis, which is the single-decker version of the N94UD double-decker chassis, with

East Lancashire Coachbuilders East Lancashire Coachbuilders Limited was a manufacturer of bus bodies and carriages founded in 1934 in Blackburn, Lancashire, England. The company went into administration for a short while in August 2007, before being bought by Darwen Group a ...

bodywork. It is sometimes mistakenly referred to as the OmniTown chassis. The confusion concerning the chassis, and indeed the buses, arises due to the complexity of the OmniTown's and other

products' histories.

History

A batch of N94UB chassis were bodied by

. In early 2002, receiving the Myllennium style of bodywork, as fitted to

DAF SB220 The DAF SB220 was a full-size single-decker bus chassis produced by DAF Bus International from 1985. Initially only built in left hand drive, in 1988 a right hand drive version was launched for the United Kingdom market. An articulated vers ...

and

Dennis Dart SLF The Dennis Dart is a Rear-engine design, rear-engined single-decker bus, single-decker midibus chassis that was introduced by Dennis Specialist Vehicles of Guildford, England in 1989, replacing the Dennis Domino. Initially built as a high-floo ...

chassis. These were delivered to London Easylink, then were transferred to

East Thames Buses East Thames Buses was the trading name of London Buses Limited, an arms length subsidiary of Transport for London. In 2009, it was sold to the Go-Ahead Group. History East Thames Buses was formed in 1999 to take over the services operated ...

as the ELS class, and were, in essence, OmniTowns, but lacked the Scania identity, the Scania badges were added the following year. Mayne of Manchester also bought two

s with

East Lancs Myllennium The East Lancs Myllennium was a type of single-decker bus body manufactured by East Lancashire Coachbuilders on DAF SB220, Dennis Dart SLF, MAN 14.220 and Scania OmniTown chassis. It was designed in 1999 as a bus for Millennium Dome routes M1 ...

bodies in 2004. After the acquisition of its bus business by

Stagecoach A stagecoach is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by four horses although some versions are draw ...

, they were renumbered 28506 (YN53GFJ) and 28507 (YN53PCV). The first batch of genuine OmniTowns to appear in the United Kingdom were delivered to

Nottingham City Transport Nottingham City TransportCompanies House extract company no 2004 ...

in 2004 for use on tram feeder services. The bodywork, in common with the OmniDekka, was built by East Lancs but received front and rear panels from Scania, to match the OmniCity/ OmniDekka. The body only differed from the

in terms of the front and rear panels. In 2006, the OmniTown could temporarily be ordered with modified Esteem front and rear panels. This version is currently operating with Metrobus and

Plymouth Citybus Plymouth CitybusCompanies House extract company no 2004966

. The central part of the bodywork was the same as the OmniTown. In 2007 a shortened 10.9m version of the

Scania OmniCity The Scania OmniCity is an integrally constructed transverse-engined low floor city bus that was available from Scania on the European market between 1997 and 2012. The OmniCity was introduced in September 1996 as the first product based on t ...

replaced the East Lancs OmniTown body on the N94UB chassis. Metrobus currently operate 10 of these on the Fastway route 100.

Styling

It is completely different from the

that its front is flatter and has no lump above the windscreen, it has a rounded roof dome similar to the OmniCity with a single-curvature windscreen and a separate

destination blind A destination sign (North American English) or destination indicator/destination blind (British English) is a sign mounted on the front, side or rear of a public transport vehicle, such as a bus, tram, tram/streetcar or light rail vehicle, that ...

. Although its front and rear were based on the

, there are slight differences between the OmniTown and OmniCity, when comparing them, the

OmniTown front (pictured above) is flatter than OmniCity's. The OmniCity also has a lump above the windscreen.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:East Lancs OmniTown East Lancashire Coachbuilders OmniTown Low-floor buses Midibuses sv:Scania Omni-serien