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Friday 05/11/2010

Merseyside Dennis Dart Website
10th Anniversary
05/11/2000 - 05/11/2010

• Well we've finally made it, the Merseyside Dennis Dart Website is 10 years old today! Thank you to absolutely everyone who has provided news, photographs, posted on the forum and guestbook and simply to everyone who has viewed the website over the last 10 years. Without any visitors there wouldn't be much point in the website so I thank you for sticking by the site for the last decade!

For this news update, I thought I'd do something a bit different - As all the 'up to date' news is always much more accessible on the forum, I thought I'd do a review of the local bus scene during the time the website has been online, but for completeness, I'll include all of the year 2000! This review may not be 100% accurate or complete, but hopefully shouldn't be too far from the mark at any point! This also provides a great opportunity to use some of the older photos on the news page, some of which are even scanned "real" photos, pre-dating digital cameras!

2000

Back in 2000, the local bus scene was very different, MTL North was still with us, albeit only just, CMT Buses was doing well (and still operated some Leyland Nationals!) Arriva only had one Merseyside depot, First PMT two depots and Stagecoach didn't have any at all! Smaller operators at the time included A1A Travel, A2B Travel, Avon Coaches, Chester City Transport, Citybus, Greenbus, LMS Buses, Norbus, Halton Transport, Merseyline Travel & Supertravel.

In January 2000, MTL had just registered the final few Dart SLF/Marshall Capitals, including 7675 V675 DVU which was to become its last new bus ever. Amongst the last few delivered (albeit in this case in October 1999) was 7647 V647 DVU [photo:buses7675] seen with its very short lived route 79 branding. It was announced in January that the company was intending to be sold off and by the 18th February 2000 Arriva had purchased the entire of MTL Trust Holdings Limited.

Within days all buses had 'Arriva serving Merseyside' branding added over the MTL North branding, such as in this photo of 7603 T603 JBA [photo:buses7675] whilst repaints began very quickly with 7675 also reportedly the first bus to be repainted. Initially all repaints retained the MTL North, Green Lane address before the O disc was re-registered as Arriva Merseyside at the Ormskirk Road address.

Not long after the sale, the Competition Commission announced that Gillmoss depot would have to be sold off by Arriva. Darts 7601 T601 JBA [photo:Simon Ackers] & 7606 T606 JBA had already been repainted by this point and so were hastily repainted back into MTL livery. Arriva also chose to sell off the Heysham Travel depot, which was bought by Stagecoach, who soon merged it into their own local depots.

Quite a few routes were swapped between depots in April 2000 so as to help streamline operations and reduce competition between the former MTL depots and existing Arriva depots at Bootle, Skelmersdale, Haydock & Warrington. The first new vehicles to arriva after the sale were a fleet of 20 Volvo B6BLE/Wright Crusaders that were spilt between Southport and St Helens. Although at the time many of thought these were ordered by Arriva, it later transpired that MTL had ordered at least the B6BLE chassis, thus the first new vehicles ordered entirely by Arriva were the 22xx Dennis Dart SLF/Plaxton Pointer 2 which arrived from October 2000.

Finally in November 2000, the Merseyside Dennis Dart Website was created!

2001

The delivery of new buses at Arriva sadly began to spell the end for many older types acquired from MTL with many Leyland Atlanteans, Leyland Nationals and Leyland Titans being withdrawn. Most of the dual door Titans were reallocated to Gillmoss depot as this depot didn't receive any new buses due to the impending sale, however Arriva ended up owning it a lot longer than initially planned. The former Village Group depot in Speke was also closed during 2001 after an extended parking area on the former MTL Speke depot was built.

Further new buses delivered to various depots included DAF SB120/Wright Cadets, Dennis Dart SLF/Alexander ALX200, Volvo B10BLE/Wright Renown & DAF SB220/ELC Myllennium. In addition to update the Merseyside fleet, various ex London step entrance Dennis Dart moved up North, along with 20 Dennis Lance/East Lancs EL2000. Finally the DAF SB220/Alexander ALX300 and DAF SB220/Plaxton Prestige were reallocated to Merseyside depots from Manchester.

CMT Buses were having a spree of purchasing second hand Lynx in 2001, first to arrive were with many former Halton Transport examples being repatriated, having been in the Isle of Man for many years, the first of which was 2075 F81 STB, following similar second hand ones from Arriva Yorkshire in 1999.

As mentioned earlier, the sale of Gillmoss depot did go through in the end to former MTL MD Dominic Brady who named the company Glenvale Transport. It had been thought at one point that The Go-Ahead Group were after Gillmoss, if it was true, why they ever pulled out was never known. The day before the sale, all of the former MTL Volvo Olympians were moved from the depot to Bootle paintshop for onward allocation to Bootle and Speke depots, and with the Scania N113/Wright Axcess Ultralow already having moved to Green Lane, the fleet that was transferred was entirely Leyland Titans, with the exception of 11 Dart SLF/Marshall Capital 7601 - 7611, 6 Volvo B6/Plaxton Pointer 7245 - 7250 and 2 Optare MetroRiders 7810 & 7811. In addition, and to cover the loss of the Olympians, Arriva transferred in 30 MCW Metrobuses from Arriva Croydon & North Surrey which had all been repainted in MTL red/cream, having had been refurbished in Arriva moquette and single doored for Arriva in 1999. In a similar way when Arriva bought MTL, all Arriva logos were removed and/or covered with GTL ones by the first day in July 2001, as seen on 7605 T605 JBA [photo:buses7675]. GTL did keep the red/cream MTL livery initially so repaints carried on in the livery.

LMS Buses made history in September 2001 with Merseyside's first service low floor double decker, in the form of Dennis Trident/Plaxton President PO51 UGF [photo:Dave Root]. Although Aintree Coachline had Dennis Trident/ELC Lolyne W5 ACL delivered in 2000, this was used purely on private hire work.

2001 also saw the creation of TransBus International, following the merger of Alexander, Dennis (who already were part of the Mayflower Group) and Plaxton. Although initially all remained as was, by late 2001 production of the Plaxton Pointer 2 had been moved to Alexander at Falkirk at the same time the Euro3 Dart SLF chassis was launched. Later in 2002 the TransBus Enviro300 and TransBus Enviro500 were launched!

2002

Arriva's Warrington depot closed in 2002, with most work moving to St Helens depot whilst some other routes were withdrawn altogether. Route H5 was merged with the existing Huyton depot operated route 6 (Liverpool - Huyton), thus extending some journeys to Warrington.

Arriva also made a major change to its management of buses in Wales in 2002 when Arriva Cymru was merged with Arriva North West, to be become Arriva North West & Wales. The entire Welsh fleet was then renumbered into the North West fleet with and all buses legal lettering altered to have the Aintree address.

Marshall Bus went into administration in mid 2002 and while production did continue for a short while during this, the company did close down, despite Warrington Borough Transport still being due 5 buses. The designs and factory were then later sold onto MCV Bus & Coach who completed the buses for Warrington Borough Transport, but they remained the only MCV Capital bodies ever built, although one of them did later get rebodied after an accident, the rebuild was still done by MCV! At East Lancs, the Spryte single deck body (along with the various named double deck versions) were replaced entirely by the Myllennium designs.

2003

In June 2003 as something of a surprise, GTL Glenvale Transport bought CMT Buses, this being surprising as on paper, the CMT Buses fleet was much more modern than GTL's, but in buying CMT, GTL became a much stronger force against Arriva.

Halton Transport started the year well with the first four of its TransBus Dart SLF 11.3M/ELC Myllenniums entering service in early January having been registered in December 2002. These were the first reported Dart chassis to have the ELC Myllennium body built on them, although it was largely the same as the ELC Spryte body with the Myllennium front end. An early photo of one of these, 35 DE52 USB, when they still had blinds fitted, was taken in February 2002 in Paradise Street Bus Station [photo:Karl Sutton].

The MCV Stirling was launched, which although based cosmetically on the the Marshall Capital 2, it was their first 'new' design. The MCV Stirling which was available only on MAN chassis, the 14.220 and later 12.220, a handful of which did operate in Merseyside for Raddoneur. TransBus International launched its not so successful 'original' Enviro200 which other than a few demonstrators none were built, though some of the failure of this design may have been due to the failure of TransBus itself months later. As later turned out, many of the body features made it into the Enviro200Dart.

2004

TransBus International went into administration March 2004, soon after in May the Plaxton factory was sold off to its management whilst less than a week later the remainder was sold off to a consortium to become Alexander Dennis. The Alexander Belfast factory was not sold to Alexander Dennis and so closed down, whilst the former Northern Counties factory in Wigan survived initially, it too closed in 2005. MCV replaced the MCV Stirling design with MCV Evolution which too was only available at first on MAN chassis, but later also the Alexander Dennis Dart SLF.

Arriva launched its Le bus branding, which was prompted by the forthcoming European Capital of Culture celebrations in Liverpool, with many routes including the former Smart 1, 12, 13, 18A, 53, 55 and 79 gaining the original branding.

2005

The big news in 2005 was the sale of GTL Glenvale Transport to the Stagecoach Group, which renamed it as Stagecoach Merseyside. By this time GTL had acquired more Titans and Metrobuses and more recently had begun to buy newer Dennis Dart/Wright Handybus, Dennis Dart/Plaxton Pointer, Dennis Dart/Alexander Dash and Volvo B6/Alexander Dash bodywork, along with 8 former Express Travel Dennis Dart SLF/ELC Spryte the fleet was very much in need of upgrading. Stagecoach set about this quite quickly with deliveries of 75 new Alexander Dennis Dart SLF/Alexander Dennis Pointer 2 starting later in 2005, the first of which was 34741 PX55 EDF [photo:Karl Sutton] along with a handful of other much newer Dart SLFs, resulting in all Titans, Metrobuses, Lynxes and step entrance Darts being withdrawn within 18 months. In addition to these Stagecoach also transferred a number of Volvo B10M/Alexander PS into the fleet, which while not being modern vehicles, they were in much better condition than a lot of other buses of similar age.

In November 2005 a piece of local history ceased to be with the closure of Paradise Street Bus Station, with it being replaced by Paradise Street Interchange Bus Station which was actually on Liver Street! At the time many complaints were that the new station was located too far from the shopping areas, which as hindsight (and planning!) shows wasn't a problem from May 2008! Soon after the original bus station and car park were blown up bring an end to the 1960s construction.

The Alexander Dennis Enviro400 was launched, whilst the Alexander Dennis President production was ended with the closure of the Wigan factory.

Arriva NW&W received its first new low floor double deck vehicles in the shape of 30 Volvo B7TL/Alexander Dennis ALX400 4100 - 4129 for Speke depot. Soon after Speke also gained the 3 ex Blue Bus Dennis Trident/Plaxton Presidents and 7 ex Arriva London DAB DB250/Alexander ALX400s.

2006

The Alexander Dennis Enviro200 was launched, whilst production of the Alexander Dennis ALX400 ceased. The Dart SLF chassis was altered to allow the option of a Euro4 engine for new orders, whilst the Euro3 one was still fitted for existing orders. This also replaced the 'original' TransBus Enviro200 dual door/flat floor bus first shown at the Bus & Coach Show in 2004, of which no production orders were ever seemingly made. At East Lancs, production of the Myllennium body ended, being replaced by the Esteem body for single deckers and Olympus for double decks.

The first operators to use the Alexander Dennis Enviro200Dart in Merseyside were HTL Huyton Travel who used short demonstrator SN56 AYA [photo:buses7675] in late December on route 199 (Whiston Circular) while during the same time Avon Buses has longer demonstrator SN56 AYB, including quite rare use on the Christmas Day 10A (Liverpool - St Helens).

2007

Production of the Alexander Dennis Pointer 2 finally ended, along with the standard Dart SLF chassis, after 16 years since the first Reeve Burgess Pointers were built. All Darts thereafter were built on the Dart 4 chassis. Production of the Alexander Dennis ALX300 also ended, which marked the end of all 'ALX' style buses, with the revised Enviro300 replacing both the ALX300 and original Enviro300. Plaxton was also purchased by Alexander Dennis in 2007, bringing together the former TransBus International companies, with production of the Enviro200 body moving to the Plaxton site shortly afterwards.

East Lancs (ELC) also fell into administration in 2007, however they were soon bought out by Darwen Group so saving the company.

Following the trial of Enviro200Dart SN56 AYA in 2006, HTL Buses subsequently trailed Enviro300 SK07 DYA [photo:buses7675], then long Enviro200Dart SN56 AYB [photo:buses7675] before finally becoming the first operator on Merseyside to operate their own Enviro200Darts, when in December 2007 they received two long examples, DK57 OPY [photo:Karl Sutton] and DK57 OPZ.

In preparation for the Capital of Culture 2008 celebrations, City Circular route S1 was launched in Liverpool on 15/10/2007 by Arriva and Merseytravel using specially branded VDL SB120/Wright Cadets 2516 DK55 FXB, 2517 DK55 FXC, 2518 DK55 FXD & 2638 CX07 CSO. Existing Circular routes S2 and S3 continued to operate with even some of the hybrid Solos coming back into use during 2007 along with even the occasional use of a Neoplan N4009, however most S2/S3 work remained in the hands of Dart SLFs!

ChesterBus was sold during 2007 to FirstGroup, however FirstGroup didn't purchase the entire fleet. Of the former ChesterBus fleet, only the Dart SLFs were bought by FirstGroup and while other vehicles, such as the BMC Falcons were loaned short term from Chester City Council, they were soon disposed of. To compete Arriva enhanced its Chester services by bringing in a number of new VDL SB120/Wright Cadets to launch its Chester Citybus branding and increasing frequencies on many competing routes.

2008

Having been closed for much of late 2007 and until May 2008 Hanover Street reopened allowing proper access to Paradise Street Bus Station once more, which now finally proved its point when Liverpool One opened as it was now right next door to the shops again! A little piece of trivia too is that the bridge over the end of the bus station from John Lewis to Liver Street Car Park is apparently the longest unsupported box bridge in the world!

Darwen Group, who had previously bought East Lancs, went on to purchase Optare and as the Optare brand was considered to be stronger, the Optare name was used for the whole group.

Locally Arriva begin large scale deliveries of VDL SB200/Wright Pulsars replacing many of the older step entrance buses, bus also the pioneer fleet of low floor buses in the UK, the Neoplan N4016s at Green Lane.

As part of the Capital of Culture 2008 celebrations, Arriva reviewed a number of vehicles from other areas to cover park and ride services during the Tall Ships festival, including many from other North West & Wales depots, but also a fleet of Volvo B7RLE/Wright Eclipse from Arriva Yorkshire.

2009

Paradise Street Interchange Bus Station is renamed Liverpool One Bus Station in September to reflect its location and probably to help people unfamiliar with Liverpool City Centre know where it is!

Production of the Optare Esteem ended, with the last few examples being fitted out at Optare Rotherham with the body construction having been done at the former ELC factory in Blackburn. This resulted in the choice of bodies for the Alexander Dennis Dart 4 being down to just two, the Egyptian built MCV Evolution or the Scarborough built Enviro200 body!

Arriva continue to receive VDL SB200/Wright Pulsars, 2929 CX58 FZL is the final standard Wright Pulsar with subsequent deliveries, starting from 2930 MX09 EKK being Wright Pulsar 2s. After many years of 'April Fool' jokes about Cross River services getting new low floor vehicles, this finally happens with a batch of 23 Alexander Dennis Trident 2/Alexander Dennis Enviro400s entering service in January of 2009. Another 12 similar buses are later delivered to Bootle depot to run route 60 (Aigburth - Bootle).

Stagecoach also continue to deliver more vehicles, first with route X2 (Liverpool - Preston), operated by Stagecoach North West receiving 9 Scania N230UD/Alexander Dennis Enviro400s 15466 - 15474 replacing the existing Volvo Olympian/Alexander RL fleet. Of these the first 15466 is given the registration VLT 255 [photo:buses7675] however it was to lose this registration during 2010. Stagecoach Merseyside also invested in new buses, with the delivery of 46 MAN 18.240/Alexander Dennis Enviro300s which replaced a combination of older step entrance B10Ms and some ADL Dart SLFs which were transferred elsewhere.

Supertravel also had some MAN/ADL delivered, however both chassis and body differed to the Stagecoach deliveries. Supertravel received two MAN 14.240/Plaxton Centro in 2009 MX09 CHL & MX09 CHK and seemingly were impressed with a further two delivered in early 2010.

Arriva withdrew its Airport Express route 700 (Liverpool John Lennon Airport - Manchester City Centre) to be replaced by a new route, X2 (Liverpool Lime Street - Manchester Airport, via Liverpool John Lennon Airport and Manchester City Centre), operated by Arriva subsidiary Excel Coaches/Telling Golden Miller using Volvo/Plaxton coaches. Amongst those used was YN54 WWG [photo:buses7675]. Sadly the service was unpopular, possibly as point to point it was far slower than the train from Lime Street and was sadly withdrawn later in 2009. As yet the original 700 sees no sign of reinstatement.

2010

Arriva continued its mass withdrawals of older step entrance buses with yet more and more VDL SB200/Wright Pulsar 2 deliveries, nearly all step entrance Darts are gone from Merseyside while a small number remained at the Welsh depots towards the end of year along with small numbers of Volvo B10Bs, mainly at Green Lane depot. All new deliveries and repaints from late 2009 were in the Interurban livery with this now deemed to the standard UK bus livery replacing the original scheme which dated from 1998.

Arriva trailed a number of Mercedes Benz Citaro O530G articulated buses from Arriva London. As yet no definite depots/routes appear to have been decided for their use, however Runcorn seems the most recent target, it will be interesting to see if they really do start using these buses in the North West.

2010 has also seen some ownership changes of local bus operators with First Chester and Wirral's Rock Ferry and two Chester depots falling under First Manchester control by September and on 22/08/2010, the entire Arriva group was sold to German State Railway company Deutsche Bahn (DB), however at present, within the UK, DB intend to keep the Arriva name and branding as is - time will tell if this remains a long term plan. All in all this means for those on Merseyside our main 'local' bus company has gone from having its overall HQ at Green Lane, Liverpool in 2000 to now having HQ in Berlin, Germany by 2010. I guess this does sort of make Arriva buses state owned, just to the government of a different country, in the case of Arriva UK!

At Halton Transport the most recent deliveries (the newest buses on Merseyside at time of update) are four Alexander Dennis Dart 4/Alexander Dennis Enviro200Darts, their first with the Enviro200 bodywork apparently as MCV no longer produce its Evolution bodywork for the Dart 4 chassis due to them now producing it for the VDL SB180. This means for the first time there is only one body available on the UK on the Dennis Dart chassis!

There ends my rough guide to the last 10 years of local bus news along with some bits of industry news! Sometimes you forget just how much has changed over the years! Thanks again for everyone who has helped with this article and as ever thank you to everyone who posts enthusiastically everyday to the forum!