leon to mass (Read 2,556 times)

[vladimer]

leon travel used to be a very good company but after their takeover by mass things have gone wrong

what do you think has happened and how can they get better?

i think they've stopped looking after their buses

www.travelsy.proboards75.com/index.cgi?board=photography&action=display&thread=1169908169

and they've got less ambitous eg: leon travel used to operate some of first's main routes on sundays but now mass don't

[mattw]

Lets get a few things clear about the best bus company operating in Doncaster, what ever they want to call thier selves this week (MASS Transit, Leon Motor Company, Mass Leon, Bright Bus, Doncasters Own, MASS Special Engineering, MASS Group LTD - the list can continue ...)

We dont need to think what has happend to them - we KNOW what has happened to them
they have gone from bad to worse and are now getting even worse.

You may think they have stopped looking after their buses - they have never looked after the buses and people dont need to think about that its a clear fact, just like they have over 20 different liveries applied to a bus (and i saw an orange bright bus the other day!).

Unfortunatly MASS cannot and will not get better in the short term as they quite simply dont care! They have low floor buses but never use them in service and use 30y/o titans from London instead. Before they can even start to improve they need to agree on "ONE" livery (the green, white and red one isnt too bad), arange for some proper destination blinds, even if its yellow ink printed on a black background in the destination board place (compare to thier scrap paper in the window under the dashboard). They need to run their services to time and not 20 minutes early!

please dont let me carry on about this topic as you know what it led to last time! The MASS Leon Powells Bus Company weekly livery award and the MASS Leon Driver Training videos! Anyone for MASS Leon Driver Wayfarer training?

[Tom B]

Leon seemed to have a "couldn't give a toss" attitude in their later years, they cut some services and withdraw from Sunday work in 2003.

However MASS are useless. They wont get anywhere without a big reform, new management. Some of the drivers are alright, but hate the company, others are atrocious.

[vladimer]

yep leon used to operate 81/82, 52, 19 on sundays

[manontheinside]

Perhaps its worth considering that 99% of MASSs work is schools based. Perhaps the real problem is reflected in their commercial operations in Doncaster, and maybe they shoud just give these up.

[donnytom]

Could be. There's also the issue that MASS-Leon isn't the same as other MASS.

Their Tridents aren't bad buses, and they seem to take decent care of those two... The Titans are a bit grotty, but for half the fare of another operator, it's perhaps not surprising!

With the preference for schools work, I'm surprised that they sold/scrapped Leon's old Tigers...unless they are hiding with the Excels somewhere!

[humberside]

manontheinside said:

Perhaps the real problem is reflected in their commercial operations in Doncaster, and maybe they shoud just give these up.

And First's 91 would probably benefit

[vladimer]

leon's old atlanteans were better looked after than mass's titans

[donnytom]

Possibly, but at least Leon had a more constant livery, apart from one white Tiger.

[vladimer]

at least they've got a website for what good it is

www.leonmotors.com/

[mattw]

vladimer said:

at least they've got a website for what good it is

www.leonmotors.com/

Thanks for bringing this website to my attention ... (as i have a few comments about it)

• The website was last updated in 2004!
  
• The timetables are incorrect and serve the wrong destinations (i.e. 191 goes to Robin Hood Airport - i think not!)
  
• The domain name should have been changed to www.masstransit.com or similar and not still use the old Leon address.
  
• They used Yahoo to create the website - yes a free site builder - we have done better than that with this forum!
  
• The colour scheme on the website in no way reflects the company (unless they have another livery not brought to my attention)
  
• On the whole a 2 year old could do a better job!
  

[maxtom115]

The website was originally www.massengineering.co.uk and served the Lincoln and Grantham operations, that's what the colour scheme is about - there was even a matching yellow and purple uniform towards the end (and the driver's in Lincoln wore it too!). The purple/yellow colour scheme was based on the Galaxy adverts applied to some of the Titans, apparently Mr S thought it looked better than the Green and Red so it was applied to much of the Lincoln based fleet.

[Tom B]

Might I make a few comments about the website?

I know the guy who made it. It was formerly the Leon website and was very good, run by someone with connections to the company. Very informative and interesting. No the website was HTML coded. AIUI when MASS took over they weren't too interested in the website and thus didn't take much care of it, so it was simply "slimmed down" and uploaded to some Geocities space. Please dont criticize until you know the full facts.

[yorks06]

Thats true about the old Leon website, went on it once or twice and i remember it having stuff such as timetable info, company contact details, company history, pictures of buses/fleetlist & a part with details/ pictures of every bus operated by the company. But same as everything else Mass didn't give a toss and like said above let it run into the ground and be out of date, pritty much like their bus operations really.

[mattw]

Looking at the timetables buses now serve a disabled car park in Doncaster Town Centre (yes the south bus station) think they forgot to update it to Doncaster Frenchgate interchange - wonder if thier timetables still state that.

The 191 serves Robin Hood Airport though does not stop anywhere near the terminal. Would suspect if a passenger boarded they would charge them - not issue with a ticket of course - and drop them off at nearest bus stop where the bus stops, passenger has no ticket to prove what happened so cant do anything!