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672 and 677 are the latest Solars out of the paintshop, in trent barton live and you told us livery respectively, both based at Sutton. These were both on loan to Kinchbus a few months ago.

260 is now withdrawn after its loan spell at Sutton. Joining it as withdrawn are Derby excels 234 (the last full size non DDA compliant bus in the fleet), 262 and 266. The latter two may be heading for the training school.

TM decker' 1109 has been repainted into a two tone green livery for a Chesterfield College Contract

Solo 402 has transfered from Trent Barton's Sutton garage to TM Travel and is in their new livery

Former centrelink solo 452 has been on loan to Kinchbus but hasn't yet been in use. They've bit up tendered work requiring one more bus so this could be a permanent transfer.

Enviro 350H demonstrator SN62 DNJ is here for trial on the Rainbow 1 route

The only excels believed to be in service with trent barton are 265, 255, 257, 261 and 263.

The only former Rainbow 3 excels yet to be sold are 239 and 246. Former spares 234, 254 and 264 are at Langley Mill awaiting to be sold. All others have been sold, a large number to Red Kite of St. Helens.

The two coaches for Notts and Derby have been numbered as follows:

55 - R812 NUD
56 - R813 NUD

55 has been repainted into Notts and Derby livery, 56 is awaiting the same treatment.

This year marks 100 years of Trent Buses, events are being planned and a bus is due to be put into service in a special livery to mark the event.

I wonder whether these remaining Excels will be withdrawn in 2013? They may as well be. It would be brill if they are replaced (even if indirectly) by Enviro 350Hs. Trent Barton could be the first operator outside Stagecoach to pruchase any.

All the excels should have been withdrawn by the end of 2012, however a combination of accident damage and serious roadworks led to three spare scanias being temporarily diverted to Nottingham. Once these are relinquished and fire damaged 826 is repaired/replaced, all the excels should be gone.

Re the E350H, it is being trialled on the Rainbow 1, if the trail is successful and they are ordered, this will cascade Scania/ Wrightbus Solars onto other routes to replace the 03' and '53 batch which should also be gone by the end of the year.

This proved just what a modern fleet Trent Barton has, given that some buses are to be withdrawn after just 10 years. Some could replace older buses within the Notts & Derby and TM Travel fleets.

I am planning to ride to the Peak District and South Yorkshire in February. Any Wellglade buses I ride I shall report here! I have a South Yorkshire Peak Explorer to use up this year anyway.

Optare Excels are only good for around 10 years. Look at the ones at Stagecoach Wigan, they are absolutely knackered as they've been used for longer (and much more intensively) than they were designed for.

Former TM Travel Centro 792 is now in unibus livery. (Photo © The bus parade)

Langley Mill's two Wrightbus/ Eclipse spares, 741 and 751 are at Derby. This is believed to be whilst the Red Arrow coaches are "spruced up" ahead of Yourbus' new citylink service.

Former Rainbow 4 Scania/ Wrightbus Solar 673 is now in service from Langley Mill in the "You told us" version of the trent barton livery. This could be the last one out in use as a spare, as two are said to be for a development project. It is joined at Langley Mill by 680 which has now been returned after its loan to Nottingham depot.

As mentioned in the Premiere thread, after their collapse Wellglade have stepped in in various ways:

All multi trip Premiere tickets will be excahnged free of charge for the Trent Barton equivilant

Kinchbus will restart the Kinchbus9 from tomorrow using the Premiere timetable. Excel 260 was seen near Loughborough yesterday so this could make an appearance

The Long Eaton Xprss has been re-registered, every half an hour to provide a 15 minute frequency between Long Eaton and Nottingham when combined with skylink

Extra journeys have been registered on the Radcliffe Line

The latter two are with effect from the 25th March.

Kinchbus 9 started today using Excels 234, 266 and Solo 452. All are in debranded red

It is expected that eventually the service will be run by three branded 'y' plate excels, although as you can imagine getting three buses ready at such short notice must have been difficult!

The planned Long Eaton Xprss service is being operated from today, albeit branded as Skylink duplicates.

On Shrove Tuesday, Trent Barton will be using CLub Class coaches to run a half hourly service between Ashbourne and Derby at various parts of the day for the Royal Shrovetide football match. The regular swift service is also likely to be duplicated on Tuesday and Wednesday and such duplicates tend to throw up some interesting allocations, which I'll do my best to report! (Swift being my local route helps too...)