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Post by wirewiper on Sept 10, 2020 12:30:56 GMT
That's interesting, a woman heading up one of the major passenger transport groups. James Freeman is also retiring from the bus industry next year. A lifelong busman, he is currently CEO of First West of England having also spent a few years at the helm of Reading Buses in recent years.
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Post by MoEnviro on Jan 4, 2021 17:37:14 GMT
69387 is one of four Volvo B7RLE Wright Eclipse Urban's now active at Slough featuring the new Route 4 orange branding. Unfortunately when the photo was taken the bus was on the Route 7 and not even reaching Heathrow.
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Post by MoEnviro on Feb 3, 2021 20:11:14 GMT
64020 becomes one of two Citaro's left remaining at Slough as all others have now moved onto Worcester.
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Post by TNL33036 on Feb 18, 2021 18:52:13 GMT
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Post by bus12451 on Feb 22, 2021 17:18:24 GMT
Today it has been announced that First Bus is to trial the Arrival electric bus. www.firstgroup.com/about-us/news/arrival-and-first-bus-confirm-start-zero-emission-bus-trialsarrival.com/news/Arrival-and-First-Bus-confirm-the-start-of-zero-emission-bus-trialsThe trial will involve multiple buses, produced at Arrival’s research and development facility in Banbury, Oxfordshire. They will be trialled on First Bus routes across the UK from Autumn 2021. The new partnership comes just seven months after First Bus announced their commitment to purchase no diesel buses after 2022 and to operate a fully zero-emission fleet by 2035. If you aren't familiar with Arrival, they are a global electric vehicle company headquartered in the UK and the USA. Last June, Arrival unveiled their electric bus, with a passenger seating capacity of 36 across the entire flat floor, a spacious layout for "coronavirus-era social distancing", and a price tag similar to a diesel bus.
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Post by wirewiper on Mar 2, 2021 16:46:07 GMT
Meanwhile, over in Devon and Cornwall, First South West has registered a number of leisure routes. The start date for all of these has now been set at 16th May, and their launch will be accompanied by a new website and publicity with the theme "Adventures By Bus".
The routes are:
Atlantic Coaster: St Ives - St Agnes - Newquay - Padstow (replaces A4 and A5)
Land's End Coaster: Penzance - Land's End - St Ives (replaces A1 A2 and A3)
Dartmoor Explorer: Plymouth - Tavistock - Postbridge - Moretonhampstead - Exeter
Exmoor Coaster: Lynmouth - Porlock - Minehead - Dunster - Watchet - Doniford
There also appears to be a series of routes (numbered D1-D10) designed to bring visitors from various tourist locations around Cornwall to the Eden Project.
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Post by TNL33036 on Apr 24, 2021 16:18:15 GMT
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Post by LondonNorthern on May 14, 2021 22:19:43 GMT
First Group have certainly been buying lots of tour buses over the past year for their new services in and around the south west but also 1 in the East - T509/510SSG - X579EGK - T819/8??RFG - SN57DBY/DCE - LK51UYE/LN51GMF - LX53AYY First are certainly fans of keeping old stock alive
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Post by mej111 on May 15, 2021 15:06:39 GMT
First Group have certainly been buying lots of tour buses over the past year for their new services in and around the south west but also 1 in the East - T509/510SSG - X579EGK - T819/8??RFG - SN57DBY/DCE - LK51UYE/LN51GMF - LX53AYY First are certainly fans of keeping old stock alive the other Lolyne acquired is T820RFG, i've been told it's arriving next week but 819 has already arrived.
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Post by wirewiper on May 15, 2021 15:18:15 GMT
"Adventures By Bus", First South West's new website for its tourism and leisure offerings, has now gone live. www.firstbus.co.uk/adventures-busAs well as the Atlantic and Land's End Coaster open-top services, there is a new hop-on-hop-off tour for the Lizard Peninsula and a new Falmouth Coaster. These all start on 17th May, as does the new Daytripper network of routes to and from the Eden Project. Also starting on 17th May is the Dartmoor Explorer. This consists of a daily return journey from Plymouth to Moretonhampstead, and a daily return journey from Exeter to Tavistock. The journeys are designed to fit between college contract journeys and it is possible that more journeys will operate during the Summer Holiday period. The Exmoor Coaster now starts on Saturday 29th May, with six return journeys from Minehead to Lynmouth using part-open-top Scania OmniCitys cascaded from Scotland. There are feeder journeys from Watchet serving holiday camps in the area and the historic village of Dunster. This service will be operated by Buses of Somerset and Taunton Depot will be responsible for maintenance. Discover Exeter begins on the same day and is an hour-long circular tour of Exeter with an audio commentary. Over in Dorset, First Wessex is making changes to its Jurassic Coaster services from 17th May including a seasonal X52 which will operate between Bridport, Weymouth, Lulworth Cove and Monkey World and supplement the X53 and X54 services. It does seem a pity that these could not have been included in "Adventures by Bus" - maybe they will be in future?
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Post by wirewiper on Jul 11, 2021 13:44:39 GMT
Following the rebranding of its Ipswich-based services as "Ipswich Reds", First Eastern Counties is to rebrand its services in Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft as "Coastal Reds", using a very similar colour scheme.
"Reds" recalls the former tendency of Ipswich residents to refer to Eastern Counties buses as "The Reds", to differentiate them from the Corporation's buses which were "The Greens". Presumably folk in Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth, which at one time also had their own municipal fleets, would have done the same.
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Post by MetrolineGA1511 on Jul 11, 2021 18:33:32 GMT
Following the rebranding of its Ipswich-based services as "Ipswich Reds", First Eastern Counties is to rebrand its services in Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft as "Coastal Reds", using a very similar colour scheme. "Reds" recalls the former tendency of Ipswich residents to refer to Eastern Counties buses as "The Reds", to differentiate them from the Corporation's buses which were "The Greens". Presumably folk in Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth, which at one time also had their own municipal fleets, would have done the same. Although Great Yarmouth did have a municipal until, I think, the late 90s, I didn't know Lowestoft had its municipal bus company. A claim to fame Lowestoft did have was of course the ECW factory based there.
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Post by LondonNorthern on Jul 23, 2021 9:37:04 GMT
21 ALX400s branded as Trainers, Bath Unibus & generic First Livery are now for sale at Ensignbus from the South West operation.
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Post by snowman on Jul 23, 2021 10:46:58 GMT
21 ALX400s branded as Trainers, Bath Unibus & generic First Livery are now for sale at Ensignbus from the South West operation. Bath now has a low Emission zone, so probably got rid of older buses which weren't worth upgrading
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Post by LondonNorthern on Jul 23, 2021 12:09:42 GMT
21 ALX400s branded as Trainers, Bath Unibus & generic First Livery are now for sale at Ensignbus from the South West operation. Bath now has a low Emission zone, so probably got rid of older buses which weren't worth upgrading No they were transferred to Kernow last year to replace the MMCs that were on loan to SPS. However now the MMCs are returning they got rid of them.
I'm really confused what SPS do however.
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