Stagecoach MCSL - Chester & Wirral Depots

[R879 HRF]

RE: First Chester & Wirral
I agree with you there Wirralbus,

Rock Ferry was once a good depot.. especially once the SMART scheme kicked off. I remember them all when i was little, always used to get the 41/42 on the brand new buses to my aunties on a thursday, but anyway... Scanias (SSS) 874-881/810-812 and Darts (cant remember the fleet code of these, think they ended in *DC) 977-981 meant the 41/42 was always a good bus, i loved the smell of them too.. the darts where the only darts ive ever liked, not been on them since they left though but im told 977 at least, is still good. The 41/2 started to go down hill when First started allocating the SLFs onto the 71/72s, then possibly one of the worst moves they made was to transfer them to chester, simply because they L94UBs seated a couple more people and made the fleet look standard.

It was only once we started getting L94UBs from Manchester, Stoke etc, and citybus 223-233/236-237 that things really started to go down hill.. It is a shame to see what has happened, as it used to be a reasonable depot. Even branding up the buses made it look nice, especially for the 1 week after branding where they actually stuck to the branded route, rather than 60113 running the 1 rather than its branded route, as it did today for example.

To this day one of the SMART darts, cant remember which one off the top of my head, is still running around Stoke with the 'SMART High quality bus service' sticker under the drivers cab window (see my signature), and it even had the Merseytravel bus priority sticker on the windscreen until it got smashed a while ago.. the only trace that it was ever here really!

Anyway, on another note 34231 has finally removed itself from the middle of the yard, so its either working and returned back into the shed, or Barnsley have popped in and taken it.. Ill see if I can spot it in RF tomorrow!

(13/06/2012 20:20)mic Wrote:  is 65704 still in advert livery

Yes