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Please bear with the multiple posts, but as you can imagine it's all a bit chaotic at the minute in Nottingham!

Premiere's first real comercial route, the Red1 was perhaps one of its most popular. It ran from Bingham via Radcliffe. It wasn't as quick as the Bingham Xprss from Bingham but it was quicker from Radcliffe than the Radcliffe line, the latter running though West Bridgeford prior to heading to Nottingham.

Therefore, it seems that Trent Barton are taking on the Radcliffe- Nottingham part of the route with a new route, 101 (full info here), running fast from Radcliffe to Nottingham and serving the "city loop", another advantage of the Red1.

Solo 414 and Scania 680 are on loan to Nottingham today and are on new service 101.

Solars 676 and 678 are on the additional skylink journeys. Up until now these two have been spending the day at Long Eaton Green so that they can be fed into Indigo if buses are running late into Long Eaton.

264 has joined 234 and 266 on the Kinchbus 9. All three have at some point been on the Ashbourne to Derby route so it's something of a reunion! They all have partial branding as can be seen here. © Robbie Hadfield

Three Scanias are due to replace them reasonably soon, no idea which three though!

The new init ticket machines have now been installed across the fleet. These bring a number of benefits:

-They show the driver the next stop and the time they are due to be there to improve timekeeping and eliminate accidental early running
-This GPS function is connected to "next stop" screens so all buses fitted with this technology show which stop is next, even those that have never benefited from this system, such as Swift
-From Spring, live departure times will be available from various at-stop information boards and online, thanks to the technology inside the machines
-From the 18th February over 60 bus cards will be read by the machine rather than a ticket being produced to improve boarding times. Combined with Mango, this means 50-75% of passengers won't require a ticket.

The final two former Rainbow 4 Scanias have been repainted, 679 into Zigzag livery and 682 into Trent Barton live livery. 682 is currently operating out of Langley Mill whilst 679 is having an MOT at Derby

Notts and Derby 'decker 35 was on loan to Trent Barton yesterday and was in use on the Swift service, to create a 30 minute frequency during the morning to get people to the Ashbourne Shrovetide football. Volvo 741 is running duplicates today.

Both 682 and 679 are in service at Langley Mill. The depots have the following number of ex. Rainbow 4 Scanias:
Derby 2
Nottingham 3
Langley Mill 4
Sutton Junction 4

Two of the former TM Travel 'freebee' Plaxton Centros are to be used on the short version of Skylink Nottingham, that was introduced to increase capacity between Nottingham and Long Eaton following Premiere's demise.

The two vehicles are still in South Yorkshire PTE livery with "I'm helping out on Skylink" vinyls

I have postponed my Peak District/ Sheffield trip pending new buses for First in Sheffield. However, I have a South Yorks Peak Explorer to use by the end of 2013. In practice I shall use it by October 26th come what may. This is due to the clocks going back not the anniversary of deregulation!

Trent Barton is a very classy and refreshing change from the big boys. Once I have 4 new variations of bus to ride since my last visit to the area last March, I shall come back again.

Excel 260 is now at Kinchbus and is in a red livery with temporary branding for the 9. It is thought that this to replace 234 which isn't DDA compliant which prevents it from using the Nottingham train station stop under the Nottingham SQBP

(16/02/2013 13:07)Metroline1511 Wrote: [ -> ]Trent Barton is a very classy and refreshing change from the big boys.

What you see on the outside isn't always what goes on on the inside!

Centro 1198 is now out in service on the short Skylink journeys between Long Eaton and Nottingham. Sister 1199 is at Langley Mill being prepared for service.

Solars 638 and 639 are in the paintshop being repainted for the Kinchbus 9 service. It is expected that they'll be joined by a third '03 plate Solar, probably one of 634/5/6 from Nottingham. They will sport a 'refreshed look' for Kinchbus.

Eclipses 741 and 751 have left Derby. 741 is currently at Langley Mill whilst 751 is at Nottingham.

A bus is soon to be painted into a special livery to celebrate Trent buses' 100th birthday. It is unknown exactly which bus it will be but it seems likely to be 724 which is currently wearing a livery to signify Trent's 2012 chairty of the year and as such is out of date.