First Bus - Potteries

[Ashley]

Part of me reckons a few omnicities will go into the new nx inspired livery, is there a name for this livery? IM assuming 60171 has been debranded or is a repaint candidate also

[PM]

Does anyone know if there are plans to colour code any of the other buses for the other routes? Other than the darts/geminis and omnicities I reckon the rest will go without repaint at all as it's pretty old now!

I wondered if geminis could also receive the route branded/colour coded livery?

[cheshire exile]

As I said in an earlier post I took a trip to Hanley and Newcastle yesterday to see how things were settling down after the recent changes to the network. My first comment is that there seemed to be more Arriva vehicles around at both places though I suspect that is because there were fewer First buses. That said Hanley Bus Station was busy with the normal jams as incoming vehicles could not get to their stands because of reversing departing buses. I do think it could have been designed better!

The entire Potteries First network has been recast from 22 July with a considerable amount of route renumbering. It soon was evident that the ex London Darts 41492 to 41540 with gaps are no longer used on the Bentilee routes 1 and 2. 8 of them had been heavily branded for these routes and I saw 7 of them on pretty well every other route other than the 1 and 2. Also - and it took me a while to realise this - the 1 and 2 no longer serve the Bus Station. Looking at the timetable they stop over in Lower Hall Street which is the other side of the old Bus station. as I did not have a lot of time I did not venture out of the BS but caught up with some of the 1s which now work into Newcastle.

The two main routes are the 3 and 4 which are termed 'The Cherry Routes'. The 3 is a joining together of the old 20 to Crewe and 25 to Keele University whilst the 4 is pretty well the old 34. The 3 is every 10 minutes from Keele to Kidsgrove with every other bus going through every 20 minutes to Crewe and Leighton Hospital. The 3s that terminate at Kidsgrove work back to Newcastle and Hanley as 4s. I have no idea what the pvr for these two routes is but i reckon I saw 38 buses working the two routes. Newcastle depot still operate all workings on the routes. The backbone of the allocation are the red or cherry painted Eclipse Volvos from both Manchester and Leicester. From observation the following are in the new livery  which is the new Firstbus one but with the front half of the bus painted like NX current livery - 65705/06, 65727/8, 65730 -3, 66302 -9, 66311 - 4 (66314 now here ), 66838/41/43/45/49 and 66962 - 4. I did not see 66306 which has been reported earlier as repainted nor 66840 or 66847. 65729, 66310, 66839, 66842, 66851 and 66852 are definitely just in the new FB livery, no colour coding. There were a few other buses on these route including DDs including 37159 and 34311, a 20 year old Olympian on a short 3 from Keele to Kidsgrove. Not what one would expect on a flagship route but at least it ran....... I did not have time to walk up to Newcastle depot .

On the DD front I saw in service only one to the ex Leicester Volvos, 32055 was on the 9 along with 37159. Of the Geminis there were 3 on the 32 and 3 on the 101 along with Omnicities. All non-repainted Omnicities, 65001 - 5 and 65039 - 42 have been de-branded from the 32 and 101 and were working the 6 and 7 as well as the 5 on the 101 and 3 on the 32. I did not note any further repaints into the new livery apart from the Cherry Line vehicles. Although all routes in the new network have colour references there is no move to use these colours on the vehicles apart, again, from the Cherry 3 and 4.

The only ex Eastern Counties Scanias that i saw in service were 65561, 65564 and 66572.

I hope this is of interest.

[Ashley]

so 65572 has been reinstated again then?

[cheshire exile]

so 65572 has been reinstated again then?

Yes. It was on the 18 to Leek Haregate.

[mikestone]

I thought it was absolutely appalling that there did not appear to be any "where to catch your bus in Hanley" information given the number of routes not serving the bus station, in some cases in one direction only.

[Tony]

It's not the end of the Leyland in the Potteries yet.
Amazingly 30031 has just been MoT'd again and will be kept as a 'spare' bus for the next term

[DD12]

Someone in the Yahoo  First-Group-Fans  group, has reported that 4 Olympians are now in a Barnsley scrapyard, including  two in the new livery!
He has listed 34285, 34286, 34288, and the other one must be 34158.

If anyone knows different, please let us know!

If you enter -  Express Motors P658UFB   into Flickr,  you will see how smart this now looks !

SO why didn't First send this one down to Cornwall -  ie  ready to replace a more grotty one when it has an expensive component failure ??

[Ashley]

40137 was sold via the above mentioned online auction to linburg, sheffield

[Ashley]

It would seem that Eastern Counties are also painting their vehicles into the same livery currently being rolled out at Potteries, if this is of interest to anybody, so far Ipswich based B7RLE's 66950 66981 and 69008 wear the new livery. I know its not Potteries related as such but I thought it may be worth a mention

[Cheese]

It would seem that Eastern Counties are also painting their vehicles into the same livery currently being rolled out at Potteries, if this is of interest to anybody, so far Ipswich based B7RLE's 66950 66981 and 69008 wear the new livery. I know its not Potteries related as such but I thought it may be worth a mention

Various vehicles are in the new livery at Ipswich, 3 E200s (44517-9), 8 B7RLEs I think (66850, 66950/9/81, 69007-9/11) and 2 B7TL deckers (32487/90) although 32490 hasn't returned yet.  Best liveried vehicle by far at Ipswich is B7TL 32479 in Eastern Counties livery, used to love seeing that livery when on holiday in Norfolk and Suffolk as a child, First have done a really good job of that one.

[Ashley]

65578 reinstated at AG

Also an OmniCity in new livery but didn't get the number

[winston]

First Potteries Streetlites are now rolling off the production lines, two here are already at Heysham Docks

63172 - http://malsfotofile.smugmug.com/HeyshamDocks/First-Group/28199298_xDfKFr#!i=3534961028&k=ZPhK5XF&lb=1&s=A
63173 - http://malsfotofile.smugmug.com/HeyshamDocks/First-Group/28199298_xDfKFr#!i=3534960999&k=MMWsR5q&lb=1&s=A

[Bob]

What route are the streetlites intended to go on anyone know?

[47609FireFly]

What route are the streetlites intended to go on anyone know?

Match the colour of the front part of the bus to the colour on this site: http://potteriesbuses.com

I'd say "Raspberry Line" 6 / 6A / 6B