SBS Transit ordered 51 Volvo Super Olympian B10TLs in 2001 and the first B10TL to come out is SBS9800A went into service in 2002 and worked together with the demostrater unit SBS9888Y on Service 80, which came in to service in 1999. The next 49 examples rolled out in 2003, to form the 98xx series in the SBS transit Registration Roster. These production units used Volgren bodywork, similarly used with the demosrater. SBS9888Y started service on Express 502 which then ran from Boon Lay - Hougang. Since the withdrawal of Express 502 old route, it was put on Service 80 running between Sengkang and Harbourfront. It was transfered over to Ang Mo Kio Depot in 2004 and was deployed on Service 154, a student shuttle route from Boon Lay to Eunos ad more recently, redeployed to Service 133 loop service, running from Ang Mo Kio to Marina Centre and back. The production units are based in Ang Mo Kio Depot initially until 2004, where some were transfered to Bedok North Depot to run the then, Citybuzz tourist routes in 2004 - 2006 till the services were withdrawn due to low demand. Today, the production units can be found in Bedok, Tampines, Ang Mo Kio and the City Centre areas serving a variety of routes from Townlink 222, an intra-town service in Bedok till the long 2 hour intertown route of Service 30 from Bedok to Boon Lay
Basically, 1 chasis from the original 51 was given to Comfort Delgro Engineering to build a demostrater and thus, borned SBS9889U. It is meant to demostrate to SBS Transit their proposed bodywork to be used in future buses and this was the inspiration for the bodywork of 200 Volvo B9TL Olympians that came in to service in 2006-2007 with a revised Comfort Delgro Engineering Bodywork not suprisingly.
The bus underwent major reconsiderations during it's assembling process which spans a 1 year period of 2004-2005. The bus finally made it on the roads to join it's fellow brothers in 2005 on Service 147, which was under the control of Bukit Batok Depot. After a year in service, it was redeployed to Service 166, running between Clementi and Ang Mo Kio. We will take a ride on the demostrater as it make the trip from Ang Mo Kio to Clementi.
Tags: SBS Transit Volvo B10TL Super Olympian VSO Singapore Bus Buses
