• Some rather interesting news is that First Potteries (Wirral) (Or whatever the Wirral part of First PMT is called!), now have a number of ex East Thames Buses Volvo Olympian/ELC Pyoneers at Rock Ferry garage!  Noted so far have been P351 ROO and P352 ROO whilst also noted is ex Armchair London Dart SLF/Plaxton Pointer P684 RWU! Even more recently noted now have been some Scania L94UAs with Wright Solar bodywork, some of which are on loan from Dawsons rentals, whilst another is believed to be on loan from Scania Bus & Coach!

• Arriva NW&W Dart 0801 R546 ABA is now also believed to be allocated to Bootle, having been noted a number of times on Bootle services! John Murray also noted an odd Arriva NW&W working recently, when Wright Handybus Dart 1114 J314 XVX was noted operating the 1 (Chester - Wrexham), in place of a Volvo Olympian!

• Is is now also believed that GTL Glenvale Transport may intend to purchase CMT Buses (or a merger of some type) in the very near future, which really would be odd, as GTL would then end up with five 02 reg Dart SPDs!

• Final piece of news too is that Halton Transport now have had its next two Dart SPD/ELC Myllennium Sprytes delivered, those being 37 DK03 NTD and 38 DK03 NTE - Although no photo is available of these yet, Neil Hilton has provided a photo of another ex Marshall Bus customers 03 reg deliveries, from First London, this is a photo of Caetano Nimbus bodied DHL469 LK03 LMF. Another excellent photo from Neil Hilton is of 7461 P461 DCW seen last Sunday on James Street on the 212 - Interestingly 7461 is I think the only GTL ELC Dart not to have any GTL branding at all!

• As you may have noticed this is the first update for over a fortnight (too much University work!), and so I now intend to make some major changes to the site, and as a result, this will be the very last update of the Merseyside Dennis Dart Website! Fear not though, the site will not go offline at any point, and in three weeks time which is when I intend to update next (after all my coursework is finished), the site will be renamed the Merseyside Bus Fleetlists Website! The main difference of the revised site is that certain features of the site will be removed, as I simply don't have the same amount of spare time I had 2½ years ago, and so the two areas that will be removed will be the main photos sections, and the news will be sorted in a very different way. I intend to still update the fleetlists as normal, and for news, most of it will be attached to the updated fleetlists themselves, and photo news will be on the main page as thumbnail images, and so photos will still be maintained on the site, but in a different way. An archive of the photos will be kept on this news page.

• Thank You to everyone who has supported the Merseyside Dennis Dart Website over the last 2½ years, and remember that we will be back on Monday the 14th April with the new title, still at http://dennisdart.co.uk/, http://dennisdart.com/, http://dartslf.com/ and probably the most appropriate for the new title, http://merseybus.com/!

• All of last week, Arriva have had a huge amount of odd vehicle workings as a result of the Rail Replacement work taking place on the line between Southport and Hall Road.   Amongst the vehicles noted have been many of the Arriva NW&W Volvo and Leyland Olympians, along with Volvo Citybuses and MCW Metrobuses but of note have been Arriva Cymru Volvo Olympian/Northern Counties Palatine 3349 R239 AEY, and interestingly one of the recently acquired Arriva North East Darts, 2607 R607 MHN.  Yesterday I noted Arriva Manchester Leyland Olympian/Northern Counties 3106 H106 GEV and Arriva Cheshire Leyland Olympian/ECW 3037 B197 DTU which, as its home depot, Winsford has only just been transferred to Arriva NW&W control, was still wearing Arriva MN fleetnumber 1914.

• Something I forgot to note last week with reference to Warrington Borough Transport is that they have recently had an Optare Excel II demonstrator on loan, YA02 YRP, in Optare Demonstrator metallic blue livery, so perhaps they are also considering these as an option to further Darts, though the DAF SB120s are believed to be the most likely choice.

• GTL Glenvale Transport have now started to bring its ELC Spryte Darts into service, all of which are in Smart Eco livery still, although they are not operating Merseytravel routes, as I saw 7459 P459 DCW Thursday on the 81 (Bootle - Speke), whist Dave Root noted 7455 on the 26 and 7458 on 86.

• As you may have also noticed, I am now modifying the style of the site again, to make it faster to load, easier to use and be more browser compatible!  Several of the items from the Navigation menu may seem to have disappeared, but they have just moved. Mersey Dart Facts and Dart Facts are now in the Articles section, Overview is now in the Other Fleetlists Page, whilst the Home Button has now moved onto the title bar, so as it, and the back button can be on all pages, including the fleetlists, which don't have the Navigation bar.  The Poll has also been revised, with a new question on favourite bus chassis!

• Warrington Borough Transport have now had all five of its MCV Capital Darts delivered, and these indeed would appear to be the only MCV Capital Darts that ever will be built, as allegedly, TransBus refused to supply MCV with any more chassis, when MCV attempted to order another 20 Darts!   Anyway, as a result it is expected that WBTs next order will be for DAF SB120CS/Wright Cadets, sold to them through Volvo!

• Arriva NW&W have now acquired 9 Dart SLFs from Arriva North East, those being R601 MHN - R609 MHN which are now numbered 2601 - 2609, and although expected to be allocated to Arriva Cymru garages, 2601 and 2602 are at Birkenhead for Rail Replacement duties, whilst 2607 really has gone to Wrexham!  Full details of the numbers of the ex Arriva Cheshire garages are now know, the Dart fleetlist has already been updated, whilst the Modern and Older fleetlists will be done shortly!  There are many Arriva NW&W vehicles operating on Rail Replacement duties this week, as the Merseyrail Northern Line between Southport and Hall Road is closed completely, for one week!

• GTL Glenvale Transport was expected to have its ELC Spryte bodied Dart enter service last week, still in Smart livery, but with GTL logos, as noted in this pic of 7459 P459 DCW, whilst a close up of the rear logo of the same bus can be seen in this photo, both of which were taken by Karl Sutton!

• TransBus Enviro300 demonstrator SK52 USS is currently undergoing evaluation in Liverpool, with CMT Buses, seen it was seen on the 10A yesterday, and the 79 on Monday.  Even for CMT to take this demonstrator for a short while is odd, given that CMT reportedly cancelled the remaining order of 35 Dart SPDs, due to apparent problems with the brakes - Perhaps, and this is only perhaps, bearing in mind the Y-reg Volvos that were meant to replace these Darts haven't arrived either, maybe CMT are thinking of, or have replaced the order for 35 Dart SPDs for 35 Enviro300s!

• Arriva Midlands Norths Cheshire garages (Crewe, Macclesfield and Winsford) were all transferred to Arriva NW on Saturday 1st February, now meaning that Arriva NW has a grand total of 20 garages, and is almost certainly Arrivas largest subsidiary (London will be close), if not in vehicle numbers, at least in the geographical spread of garages and services.

• I am now starting to convert most of the pages on the website from HTML 4.01 to XHTML 1.1, not that this will make much difference to the way you view it (unless you are using a VERY old browser!), just that is there are any times that certain pages don't work for a short while or are offline, it is because I may have altered them.  I am also altering the file locations for the fleetlists, which will now have addresses such as http://dartslf.com/fleetlists/darts/arrivafleet.html instead of all the files being stored in the root directory, so again if a fleetlist appears to have disappeared if you were using a direct link to the old URL, just go to the fleetlists page and find your fleetlist through there - The main reason for doing this is that there are that many fleetlists on the server, if is now becoming difficult to sort through them all!  So far done in this new format are all three A1A Travel and Arriva NW&W lists, which are also the first in XHTML 1.1!

• More, very suprising news has came out over the weekend, is that GTL Glenvale Transport have now acquired 9 Dennis Dart SLF 10.1M/ELC Sprytes, P454 DCW - P461 DCW from Express Travel, all of which are currently in Smart Eco livery!  Karl Sutton managed to get over to Gillmoss at the weekend, and has taken a few photos of the new arrivals, and kindly allowed the use of them on this site!  First is a photo of P454 DCW surrounded by other similar Darts, second is P461 DCW surrounded by GTL Titans, and third is an internal photo of one of the new arrivals, showing the internal fittings!  Big thanks to Karl Sutton for these photo!  Whilst at Gillmoss, Karl was also able to get a photo of the two GTL Driver Trainer Metrobuses, 836 OJD 836Y and 1180 B180 WUL both of which have now been painted in a new GTL Training livery!  Finally a bit more GTL news is that Titan 2952 is now scrapped, whilst its name 'MOLLY' is transferred onto 2733, and another Titan naming is 2884 which is now 'GERRY'!

• Further Dart SLF/MCV Capitals have now entered service with Warrington Borough Transport, those are 30 which is DA52 ZVL, whilst 32 is believed to be DA52 ZVN!  At the moment, it seems that Warrington may be MCVs only customer, as Halton have obviously changed to ELC, whilst their biggest customer, First Capital have now changed to Caetano Nimbus bodied Darts - The first of these First London Caetano Darts can be seen on the news section of the First London website by clicking here!  Warringtons new MCV Darts are said to be almost identical to the Marshall Capital design, just with MCV badges, but it will be interesting to see what MCV do after this order for Warrington, as according to the recent Buses Focus on TransBus, TransBus didn't intend to supply chassis to MCV Bus & Coach - As far as I know, the chassis that the Warrington Darts are being built on were supplied to Marshalls before they went into liquidation, but were never completed.  It is interesting to note too that these Caetano Nimbus bodies have a slightly revised front windscreen - Is this to reduce replacement costs, and as First London is a big enough customer, they agreed to modify is for them?

• Warrington Borough Transport have now had the first of its MCV (Marshall) Capital Darts delivered, the first noted being 31 DA52 ZVK!  This is reported as having LED displays on all sides, instead of the more usual powered blinds fitted to WBT Marshall Darts (Their last Dart delivered 29 DE02 URX had a side LED display as a trial, so assumedly this trail was successful!  So far as I know, these are pretty much otherwise standard 10.7M Dart SLF/MCV Capitals, but further info will be added ASAP.  Big thanks to James McCollom for providing this scoop!

• Express Travel have now finally started to dispose of its Dennis Dart SLF/ELC Sprytes, as Avon Coaches have now taken S509 NFR, T840 CCK & T841 CCK.  Of these, the two T reg are still in Smart Eco livery, S509 NFR is still in Express Travel livery, although all three are expected to gain Avon Coaches livery very shortly.  Fleetnumbers for the three are currently unknown, though going by current Avon numbering, they are likely to become 509, 840 & 840 respectively.  As a result Wright Handybus Darts 613 J613 KCU & 617 J617 KCU are to be sold.  These ELC Sprytes are expected to be used on routes 82/83 (Birkenhead - Heswall) and 164/165 (Woodside - New Ferry), although T841 CCK was on the 122 (Fazakerley - Crosby), one of Avon's few Liverpool routes on Sat 18/01/03, though this could be as one of the existing ELC Sprytes, 821 X821 XCK is reported to have accident damage.  Thanks to P Redfern, A Hogan and Peter Ferrigan for this info!

• Although previously noted in the fleetlists, I have so far not mentioned the surprising new that Arriva has reinstated 'mothballed' Neoplan N4016 6408 L408 TKB - This can be seen in service on the 18A and other Green Lane routes, as per the other Neoplans, but interestingly, there are quite a few differences between this and the others, mainly as this is in 'as withdrawn from Smart services' state - i.e. still with two wheelchair bays and very few seats!  Amongst the noticeable differences, are the fact that the rear and side route number blinds are still complete (although not set, sides were set to 999, rear 000 when I saw it), side destination is not working, but not blanked off as on other Neoplans, and the front destination blind isn't working either!  Just the front numbers that are!

• The livery is slightly different to normal too, as it is missing all Arriva branding, and the yellow strapline.  I have seen this a few times recently, and it defiantly is in service, I can only assume due to the loss of Scania 5304 P304 HEM at Green Lane following fire damage.  I shall try to get a ride on this Neoplan in the near future to look for any other internal differences, but also to get the capacity, as so far as I can see, it will be as it was built!

• Glenvale Transport have now started naming its Titans again, the latest two recipients being 2612 named 'KATHERINE-ROSE' and 2431 which is now named 'KERRY-ANNE'.  The name 'KATHERINE-ROSE' is interesting as it is the first GTL name that I know of to go onto two lines, with KATHERINE- on one line, and ROSE below!  Although 2431 looked fully repainted when I saw it today, it was in a spot of bother as it was failed the the bottom of Brownlow Hill, having been working on the 78!

• Very interesting news to report now is that Arriva Midlands North is now to be split up, with All the Arriva Cheshire garages from Arriva MN (Crewe, Macclesfield, Winsford and possibly Oswestry) are to become part of Arriva North West & Wales (Winsford was part of Arriva NW anyway until April 2000) with the remaining part of Arriva Midlands North to be combined with Arriva Fox County, which will them simply be called Arriva Midlands.  No date is yet known for the transfer, but amongst the interesting vehicles that Arriva NW&W are to inherit are two Dennis Dart/Waddham Stringer Portsdown H192 JNF and J556 GTP, along with Crewe's Air-Conditioned Dart MPDs, many ex North Western ECW Olympians and plenty of Lynxes!

• Other local bus new to report is that fate of Halton Transport Leyland Lynxes 36 - 38 J249 KWM - J251 KWM.  The two MK II Lynxes J249 KWM and J251 KWM have been sold to Merseyline, Garston, whilst Halton Transports last Mk I Lynx 37 J250 KWM is now mothballed in the companys depot.  The reason that this MK I Lynx was registered in the middle of a block of MK II Lynxes, well after production of the MK II had began is because Halton bought a large amount of Leyland/Volvos stock of Lynxes, once it was announced that production of the Lynx was to come to an end, which included that one.

• I have finally got around to adding the Merseytravel Smart Bus Fleetlist to the site, which can be viewed by going onto the fleetlists menu, and then onto Archive Fleetlists, or by clicking here! Currently the list has all 'proper' Smart Buses on it (i.e. those in any of the Smart liveries, but excluding those in standard liveries, even if fully Smart fitted, as this would include loads of Arriva, CMT Buses, First PMT and Halton Transport vehicles!), except for the new Selwyns Technobus Pantheons, as I don't yet have enough details on them.  I have also set up an online Jigsaw Puzzle that you can play, which will be online for the next 7 days or so.  It is of Warrington Borough Transport Dart 1 T201 AFM at the Warrington Transport Centenary Open Day - The puzzle can be played by clicking here!

• No further news is yet known about the status of CMTs Dart SPDs, as to whether the remaining order really has been cancelled or not, though it is alleged that the 12 Y reg Volvos that are said to be replacing the order in part are stored somewhere in Skelmersdale.  The part I find confusing here is, no matter which type of Volvo, who is meant to be selling 12 Y-reg Volvos, as so far as I can see, no one is.  As with so many things, we shall wait and see.

• Happy New Year!  Finally on the 2nd January Haltons first three TransBus Dart SPD/ELC Myllennium Sprytes entered service, registered 34 DE52 URZ, 35 DE52 USB and 36 DE52 USC.

• These have one more seat than the last Marshall Capitals delivered as they are B34F, of which two are the standard offside wheel arch seats, and 8 of which are tip ups, three on the walls of each wheelchair/buggy bay at the front (wheelchair rest is on offside!), and two forward facing tip ups make the front of the nearside row. One other odd thing compared to all other single deck Myllenniums is that these do not have the rear roof pod, and the rear panel is more like the old Spryte bodywork, with small round lights (although theses are LEDs, not bulbs!), and with the rear number box inside the rear window, and not above as on other Myllenniums with pods.  They seem to be VERY well built, especially when compared to the Marshalls, possibly even more so than the good old Pointer 2!  They are fitted with modular seats too, which on the one journey I was on seem quite good, the only problem with them seems to be that they are a little dull inside, as the windows are smaller that those on the Marshalls, and the front cab/bulkhead is dark grey plastic.  To see a photo of one of these, check out Albert Popwells photo on the Merseyside Buses Yahoo Group.  A huge improvement for Halton Transport, though as reported in the guestbook, is is suggested that following delivery of another 8, (1 very soon, 3 in April and 4 in November), Halton are going to try something other than Darts!  MAN 14.220/ELC Myllennium possibly?!

• I personally didn't see many buses on Christmas Day, just HTL Optare Alero YL51 ZTM running out of service, though Peter Ferrigan has kindly provided details of some Christmas Day services, as HTL Optare Aleros were on the 102 (Broadgreen - Walton Hospital) and possibly an Iveco Minibus on service 92A (Crosby - Fazakerley)!  Other odd workings noted by Peter have been Arriva Baby Neoplan 0602 M302 YBG on service 62/219 (Penny Lane - Crosby) on Friday 27th December, CMT Dart MPD 2085 V484 LCW on services 100/200/202 (Dingle Circulars) on Sunday 29th December, whilst more recently I noted GTL Volvo B6 7245 L245 TKA LORRAINE on the 78 (Liverpool - Halewood) on Saturday 3rd January!

• CMT are continuing to repaint its fleet, the most recently repainted bus being Volvo B10B/Wright Endurance 2002 M648 YLV, which is notable now from other B10Bs as it has no Volvo/Endurance branding, and the CMT HIGH QUALITY BUS SERVICES branding, which was above the windows has not been replaced.  Other CMT news is that CMT Dart SPD 2086 PN02 KCA has been out of service following collision damage, though is now back in service!  EXTREMLEY suprising news is that CMT have APPARENTLY now CANCELLED the entire remaining order of 35 Dart SPDs, due to apparent 'slide when braking', especially when wet!  In order to part replace this order, supposing this really is true, it is also suggested that 12 Y reg Volvos (Not known whether these are B10BLEs or B7Ls) are to be brought in very soon - Further details will be reported as I get them!  CMT Volvo B10BLE 2049 W465 CRN was involved in an RTA at 11.30 Sunday 4th January in Paradise Street Bus Station with a Stagecoach Volvo B10M coach.  The coach pulled out of the bus station give way (by the 26 bus stop) and hit the passing CMT in the side smashing 2 side windows (next to the doors) and also damaging the front nearside wheel nuts!

• Both Norbus and HTL are now introducing fleetnumbers (almost certainly because of the new registration system!) Norbus are having small yellow transfers applied to the filler caps, so far noted is 15 on V265 BNV, which HTLs fleetnumbers are being applied on a small square on the rear 'tailgate' on the Aleros, so far noted from HTL is 14 on YL51 ZTM.

• St Helens electric bus service has now finally started up, using Technobus Pantheons, operated by Selwyns Coaches from a small garage in St Helens.  Registrations of the five are DE52 NXU, DE52 NXV, DE52 NXW, DE52 NYX and DE52 NYY.

• Arriva Midlands North now also have had a fleet of Dennis Dart/ELC Sprytes transferred from Arriva London, those being ex Arriva London DSL38/40/41/42/48/49, N238 VPH - N249 VPH, with the rest of the batch (except three at Arriva Kent & Sussex expected to arrive soon - These will be added to the fleetlist when full details of which ones are expected are known.  My Arriva source has also provided me with a detailed Arriva NW fleetlist, detailing all the driver trainers, so this info will be added to the fleetlists soon!