• Arriva North West & Wales now have two of the recently acquired ex London Darts stored at Green Lane.  It is expected that of the recently acquired Darts, which are Dennis Dart 9.8M/Plaxton Pointer 1326 P826 RWU, 1327 P827 RWU, 1328 P828 RWU, 1330 P830 RWU, and 1331 P831 RWU, & Dennis Dart SLF 10.1M/Plaxton Pointer 2296 R416 COO, 2297 R417 COO, 2299 R419 COO and 2300 R420 COO, that all will go to Arriva Cymru garages, along with the three Alexander ALX200 bodied Darts 2277 - 2279 acquired earlier in the year.  Noted and photographed at Green Lane by Karl Sutton were P826 RWU and R417 COO.  One of this batch that has already entered service, believed to be from Rhyl garage, photographed by John Murray in Chester Bus Exchange last week is R419 COO, resplendent in Arriva livery, though notable, without any 'serving Cymru' branding, as this is now to be dropped in all Arriva fleets, even though many recent repaints in Liverpool still have 'serving Merseyside' added!  Also the new Arriva livery noted a few weeks ago is now expected to only be used on vehicles used on long distance interurban services, so most vehicles will retain the current livery.

• First Potteries have now transferred its four ex First London Optare Excels over to First Manchester, and in their place has received four Scania/Wright Access Ultralows, the idea behind this is that now all of FirstGroup's Optare Excels are allocated to First Manchester.

• In order to compete with Manchester Airport, EasyJet has now started a bus service from Liverpool Airport to Manchester Coach Station and Manchester Piccadilly.  This isn't strictly the first EasyBus route (EasyBus, not to be confused with Eazibus, are expected to start running a London - Birmingham service soon!) as it is operated by Selwyns Coaches under contract to EasyJet, and currently uses any of Selwyns vehicles, but is expected to get buses from 'a Yorkshire based bus dealer' soon, in EasyJet livery - Does Arriva Bus & Coach sound familiar, so therefore more DAF SB120/Wright Cadets, or if we are lucky, longer DAF SB200/Wright Commanders?

• Finally referring back to the news that Chester City Transport Dart 62 L62 PDM has now been repaired, Nick Jones has kindly supplied this photo of L62 PDM in service following its rebuild.  It has been suggested that as this bus was quite old, the decision to rebuild it was a bit 'touch and go', but in the end it was rebuilt, and very well by the looks of things, apparently using an ex Arriva Dart as a donor bus!  These photos and all the other recent ones, along with many more will be added to the photos section some time this week - Thank you to all the people who have and continue to send me excellent photos for the site!

• It is now confirmed that GTL Glenvale Transport DID buy CMT Buses last Thursday night/Friday morning!  As a result I have now added a new fleetlist to the Other Fleetlists section, with a complete list of all CMT Buses transferred to GTL Glenvale Transport.

• Arriva NW&W had a severe crash yesterday morning at Chester Bus Exchange, involving DAF SB220/Alexander ALX300 2412 V412 ENC and Dart SLF/Plaxton Pointer 2 2359 V580 ECC. What seems to have happened (and I do not know for sure) is the accelerator on the DAF somehow got stuck down, and thus careered into the rear of the Dart, scrapping the whole offside of the DAF, as well as damaging some bus station signs and a phone box.

• Fortunately, and possibly surprisingly no-one was seriously injured or killed, eight people are reported with minor injuries, and the driver treated for shock.  John Murray was able to get several photos of the incident, showing how severe the damage was, first is this of 2412 showing just how serious the incident really was, next is one of the Dart that was at no fault, just happened to be in the way, 2359, this Dart was incidentally re-registered from its original V589 DJC following an fatal accident that occurred with this bus.   Another two photographs show the scene as a whole and the remains of the phone box.

• A second Other Bus fleetlist also added today is one showing all buses that were transferred to Cumfybus when they bought EMS Bus & Coach, for which all the info was supplied by Mark Haldon, whilst an excellent article about Dennis Darts at Manchester Airport, featuring many photos of them, taken and written by Dave Root, has been added to the Articles section.

• GTL Glenvale Transport reportedly purchased CMT Buses at 07.00 on Friday 13th June!  This purchase is very interesting, as it takes out yet another Merseyside bus operator, resulting in almost all bus services across Merseyside being operated by Arriva, GTL and First!  CMT Buses is expected to remain generally separate from the rest of GTL, at least initially and the Grant brothers who owned CMT are to stay on for a short while to oversee the transfer period.  On the fleetlists, I have added all the CMT vehicles to the GTL lists, but also left the three CMT lists until any idea on renumbering (if any) will be made.  There are no obvious signs on either GTL or CMT vehicles that this purchase has been made, though interestingly in Paradise Street Bus Station this morning there was a GTL Titan parked in one of the CMT layover bays!  The main reported reason for the sale of CMT Buses was that the Grant brothers who has owned it, wished to retire early, as for GTL to buy CMT must have cost a lot of GTL's total value, as although CMT's fleet is much smaller than that of GTL, most of its fleet consists of relatively new buses, some of which (the 5 02 reg Dart SPDs 2086 - 2090) are newer than GTL itself!  GTL's previous newest vehicle was Dart SLF/Marshall Capital 7611 T611 JBA.

• Another GTL Glenvale Transport story is that of their operation of a special Park & Ride service over the weekend, for the Mersey River Festival 2003.  GTL were using its own Marshall bodied Darts on a service from Mann Island - Otterspool Promenade, as huge crowds arrived in Liverpool, whilst the main free car park near to the event, the Albert Dock/Kings Dock car park was closed as some of the events were staged on that site, and some of the car park had tents on it for various other events.  Although I didn't actually ride on this service, one vehicle I did manage to ID that was running it (I did see quite a few others from a distance) was 7601 T601 JBA 'BENNY'!

• Chester City Transport Dart 62 L62 PDM is now reported to have had its collision damage repaired and is now back in service.  John Murray informs me that this collision damage occurred on 18th February when the Dart hit Arriva NW&W 2409 V409 ENC outside the Odeon Cinema in Hunter Street, Chester, a pic of which can be see here.  The rebuild apparently looks to have been done very well, and judging from the photo, it would have needed a lot of work - If possible John intends to submit a photo of the rebuilt Dart soon!

• GTL Glenvale Transport have sadly lost one of its Titans this week, 2656 NUW 656Y which was unique in the GTL fleet in having a Voith gearbox.  Sadly this loss is as a result of a fire being started, allegedly by 'children' setting fire to the back seat whilst the bus was in service on Monday.  Karl Sutton was able to get a photo of the the sad remains of the bus at Gillmoss garage, which can be seen here.  Further to the notes on Monday, there are even more withdrawn buses at Gillmoss, those including Metrobuses 496, 613 and Titans 2147, 2561, 2632, 3042 with even more with undecided fates.  It is interesting that GTL are getting rid of so many buses at the moment, considering they have only owned some of them for less than 18 months, or in the case of Volvo B6 7247 L247 TKA 'HAYLEY' are only 9 years old!  This is the second B6 of the MTL batch 7201 - 7250 to be withdrawn as 7207 L207 TKA was withdrawn a while back by MTL following an engine fire.

• Supertravel have now introduced additional branding on most of their buses, seemingly from today.  It is in the form of a small Supertravel logo above the doors and cab window, and most interestingly, it is on not only the Supertravel livery buses, but also at least two of the 51 reg unbranded Smart Eco Darts!

• GTL Glenvale Transport are now reported by Neil Hilton to have a number of its buses being stripped, presumably for spares.  Those noted in various states of dereliction are Titans 2363 KYV 363X, 3062 A62 THX 'GERARD', Volvo B6 7247 L247 TKA 'HAYLEY' and Dart 7304 H552 XGK 'PETER' - A photo of 7304 taken by Neil can be seen here emphasising that it really is withdrawn!

• LMS have recently acquired more vehicles, those being Leyland Olympian/Alexander F306 JTY ex Arriva North East, still in Arriva livery, Leyland Tiger/East Lancs (though originally Berkhof coach bodied) B109 KPF ex Arriva Midlands North and most surprisingly open top Bristol VR Series 1/ECW DRB 307H!

• Avon Coaches Dennis Lance SLF/Berkof B5 AVN (ex M184 UAN), is now almost ready for entry to service having been repainted and refurbished - The first Avon Lance in service, B4 AVN is looking in good condition and was photographed by Neil Hilton, click here to see the photo.  The third Lance SLF acquired, M183 UAN is not expected to enter service, as it has been a donor bus to the other two.  Interestingly, the photo to B4 AVN shows that it is still a dual door bus, and was not converted to single door as first thought!

• Finally a few buses noted in this years Liverpool Lord Mayors Parade, made especially good as Liverpool, if you didn't already know, actually did win the Capital of Culture 2008 title, included three Atlanteans first was Arriva Alexander open topper, 3980 GKA 449L (ex 1449), Maghull Coaches Roe bodied open topper PRH 257G and finally from the Merseyside Transport Trust at Burscough, ex Liverpool Alexander bodied 1236 BKC 236K!

• Not a lot to report today, but at the weekend, Arriva NW&W were operating a special service from Crewe Alexander Football Ground to Bombardier Crewe Works for the Open Day being staged at the works.  For this a selection of Leyland Olympians were used from Winsford garage, along with some of the Dennis Dominators from Crewe itself.  Vehicles used were as follows:

From Winsford Depot
3007 - GFM 107X Olympian/ECW
3008 - PFM 128Y Olympian/ECW
3026 - A576 NWX Olympian/ECW
3037 - B197 DTU Olympian/ECW
3039 - A139 MRN Olympian/ECW
3049 - B149 TRN Olympian/ECW
3146 - G916 LHA Olympian/East Lancs
3147 - G917 LHA Olympian/East Lancs
3148 - G918 LHA Olympian/East Lancs
3219 - G759 UYT Olympian/Northern Counties

From Crewe Depot
3831 - G801 THA Dominator/East Lancs
3833 - H803 AHA Dominator/East Lancs
3834 - H804 AHA Dominator/East Lancs
3835 - H805 AHA Dominator/East Lancs
3836 - H806 AHA Dominator/East Lancs

• Neil Hilton has also been able to take a photograph of Supertravel's newest acquisition, VU02 TPZ, seen at Belle Vale Bus Station on Friday 23rd May.  It is also now believed that the ex Armchair Dart SLF now operated by Norbus is P697 RWU, though this still needs to be confirmed, though I intend to go to Huyton some time this week, so I hope it will be on the 258 then - These ex Armchair Darts are 10.1M Darts too, and not 10.7M long, as noted in the First Potteries fleetlist!!

• As you can see I have made quite a few changes to the site again in the last few days, in adding a Forum, altering the guestbook and updating the Poll - All three now run properly off this server now, using ASP, and so should in theory be better than any previous 3rd party site add-ons.  Some time this week I shall add another article to the Articles section, on working out the length of a Dart from its chassis number, as although it is easy for the older step entrance Darts, SLF chassis numbers are not quite as simple!

• The results of the previous poll on favourite chassis types are as follows:

1. Dennis Dart - All Variants 15.91%
2. Dennis Trident 6.82%
3. Leyland National - All Variants 9.09%
4. Leyland Lynx - All Variants 11.36%
5. Leyland Titan 11.36%
6. Leyland Atlantean 20.45%
7. Leyland/Volvo Olympian 9.09%
8. Volvo B6 - All Variants 6.82%
9. Volvo B7L 2.27%
10. Volvo B10B 6.82%

Total Number Of Votes: 44

• Supertravel have recently received another Dart MPD, currently unnumbered VU02 TPZ, which was originally operated by Epsom Buses, though has always been in the overall white livery is is currently in.  Thanks to Neil Hilton for this info.

• Following the allocation of First Potteries ex NWFB air-conditioned Darts to Chester garage, at least one of these has operated the 1 (Liverpool - Chester), one such working photographed yesterday by Neil Hilton was of 40039 S389 SUX, seen in Whitechapel, Liverpool, picking up passengers for the return to Chester. It is now also believed that the Wright Handybus Darts that were allocated to Chester have now moved to First Cymru, and not to Adderley Green as first thought, though this does still need to be confirmed.

• Some photos are being added to the photographs section today, but unlike previously added photos, these will be filed by the date they were added to the site, as opposed to by operator, or as at very first chassis type.  Main reason for this is that it will make the files much easier to sort out at my end, as each month will simply have its own folder, but also they should correspond to the news given each month, with the photos featured in the news, plus many more also in there.  Today I will add them for March, April and May 2003, and may later reorganise the existing photographs.

• The website has undergone a significant change this weekend, as the main file store domain of the site, which you are viewing this page on, dartslf.com has been moved from to a much better server than it was previously on, allowing me to use various scripting languages such as ASP, which a lot of the sites pages are now in - Although there is no obvious difference from the HTML version, the navigation in each page is now much easier to update, as every page with the navigation links to a separate file, so if that is updated, every page with the navigation is also updated!

• First Potteries have are still continuing to transfer its buses around, with notable arrivals at Chester garage from Adderley Green are 4 ex New World First Bus Air Conditioned Darts SLFs, 40033 S343 SUX, 40034 S374 SUX, 40037 S377 SUX & 40039 S389 SUX.  As you may know these were all converted from dual door to single door by Marshall Bus in 2001, but genuine Plaxton parts were used for the rebuilds, or at least the glass in the former door bay was anyway!  John Murray was able to see theses buses all arrive as a convoy into Chester and has taken some photos of them, one of which shows S343 SUX at Chester Bus Station, on route 53 (though note the route number box shows 0053!), clearly showing the air-conditioning, tinted glass and even hub caps!

• Further news from the Chester area provided by John is news that all four of the Chester Park and Ride services (currently operated by Arriva, First and Chester City Transport), have all been re-let and awarded to Chester City Transport.  As a result, they have ordered 8 BMC Falcon single deck buses, which are to be assembled in Turkey.  To see some photos of similar buses operating in Malta, see this site, look out for the Marshall badges and Marshall styling, as BMC was one of the many companies that had something to do with the demise of Marshall Bus (UK).  When these arrive, Chester's own Scanias that are currently used on the P&R services will go onto normal services, though it is not clear when First will use its Scanias on, nor where Arriva will use its gas powered DAF SB220/Plaxton Prestiges.

• Norbus now have another Dart in its fleet, an ex Armchair Dart SLF 10.1M/Plaxton Pointer, which was noted operating the 258 (Huyton - Stockbridge Village) on Saturday.  Its identity is currently unconfirmed though, as it was too far away for me to get the reg plate, although it is almost certainly one of the same batch that FirstGroup are operating from their Chester garage.

• It is now believed that the Arriva group may already be changing its corporate livery, after only using the current scheme for around 4/5 years.  Noted operating for Arriva North East has been a DAF/Plaxton coach, 1208 V208 DJR although it has been suggested that the new livery will be applied to all buses, this is not yet confirmed.  To see a pic of the new livery, at Jeff's Bus Lane, click here.

• Andy Rigby has kindly sent in some excellent photos of his recent visit to the depots of St Helens bus operators Ogden's Travel, Nip-On Transport & Lancashire Rose, all of whom share the same depot yard.  All of the photos will be added very shortly to the photographs section, but some of the most notable one are of Nip-On Transports brand new Dart MPD/Plaxton Pointer 2 MW52 UCC, and very, very rare Lancashire Rose Volvo B6/Marshall C33, L83 CNY new to Bebb Travel, Llantwit Fardre in January 1994, it is one of only 6 9.9M B6s with C33 bodywork, the only other Marshall bodied B6s are 14 Marshall C32 bodies, built for Cambus, which were on shorter B6 chassis!

• Halton Transport Dart 37 DK03 NTD has now already had its powerblinds replaced after just under two months with orange LED destination displays, as part of a trial into these displays.  It is expected that this will be the only one fitted at first, though if the trial is successful, then probably they will all have them fitted!

• Supertravel have recently acquired Mercedes Benz Vario O.814/Plaxton Cheetah R3 POW from Berkeley, Paulton.  It is currently in its former owners sliver based livery, and is used for private hire work, not normal service work.  I may shortly include fleetlists for Merseyside coach fleets soon too, as Supertravel have quite a large number of coaches/midicoaches, many of which are in Home James Travel livery, a former holidays company, now owned by Supertravel.

• Avon Coaches Dennis Dart SLF/ELC Spryte 821 X821 XCK, along with Wirral Transport Museum Routemaster RM1101 101 CLT was being used all of last weekend as part of the Battle of the Atlantic celebrations to take people from Woodside Ferry Terminal around the Birkenhead Docks to view the visiting vessels.  The main purpose of using the Dart on these trips as well as the RM was so as to provide a low floor bus for the service, although on Sunday one of the rear tyres apparently 'exploded' as the Dart came onto the forecourt at Woodside, and so for the rest of the day 154 S54 SCW, though 821 returned the next day - As it was one of the rear tyres, no damage occurred, and the bus was safely driven back to the depot, out od service, with just three rear tyres.

• First Potteries Chester garage must be getting poor reliability from its Optare Solos of late (Moreton's are also said to be throwing up problems), as on Tuesday 29th April one of the buses on the Chester City Rail Link, was former First Beeline Wright Handybus bodied Dart 103 KDZ 5103!  John Murray has kindly sent in this photo of the Dart outside Chester Railway Station on the day!  103 is presumed to be this vehicles 'local' fleetnumber, as so far, non of the buses recently drafted info Rock Ferry and Chester garages have national five digit fleetnumbers!

• On that note, as you may have noticed I have now decided to reinstate the Photographs section of the website and this will now once again have photos added to it on a regular basis, mainly the ones that will continue to be featured in the news page, but also some others.  All of the photograph pages have been tidied up and are now in the same format as all of the other pages (all of the Archive News pages are done too!), so absolutely every page on the site is now nicely formatted, with Valid XHTML code!

• Sad news to report is that of the demise of Arriva North West & Wales Dart SLF/Alexander ALX200 2307 R307 CVU.  This bus sadly came to grief last Tuesday 22/04/03 at around 18.00, when the vehicle was returning to Wythenshawe depot.  Is appears that an electrical fault in the rear of the vehicle caused a electrical short to occur and the resulting sparks started a fire which resulted in the vehicle being largely destroyed. Fortunately the bus was empty at the time, apart from the driver, who escaped unhurt.  To see some photos of the vehicle, to go this site.  It is expected that as a result, Dart SLF/Marshall Capital 7676 V676 DVM, the highest numbered service bus in the Arriva NW&W fleet, will be reallocated from Skelmersdale to Wythenshawe soon.

• Halton Transport have now started disposing of quite a few of its Leyland Lynxes, now resulting in the Lynx fleet standing at just 8 vehicles, all of which area MK2 Lynxes.  Recently sold examples are 37 J250 KWM (Halton's last MK1 Lynx), 46 J628 LHF, 47 J629 LHF, 48 J630 LHF & 49 J929 MKC all to 2 Travel, Swansea whilst Preston Bus have also taken two recently, these being Preston Buses first MK2 Lynxes, 52 J925 MKC & 64 J928 MKC.  Thanks to Paul Holmes for this info.

• Halton Transport have now also made a slight revision to their livery, as the newest 4 ELC Myllennium Darts, and any very recent repaints, such as 1 R712 MEW are now not having the 'Low Floor' branding added to the sides of the vehicles, it is now on the front only. A few of the later Marshall Capital 2 Darts also have a slight revision too, as some have had small Smart branding added to the front and nearside of the vehicles, to indicate that they are timechecker fitted. (Bearing this in mind, I have NEVER seen a Halton Transport (or CMT) bus where the timechecker is actually providing real time info, some even have the clocks still set to GMT so are an hour out!)

• Although I haven't noted any odd workings for a while (though news of sightings is very welcome!), last week one day I saw GTL Marshall Dart 7606 T606 JBA on the 81 (Speke - Bootle), which in itself is quite rare, but the destination was better still - It was set to 'M.T.L. North Liverpool Garage', they could have at least altered it to say GTL, instead of MTL!

• The Dennis Lance SLF noted as being operated by Avon Coaches at B4 AVN is now confirmed as being originally registered M961 SDP and is believed to have been converted to B37F.  The other two which are not yet in service, of which one is accident damaged are M183 UAN & M184 UAN.

• Finally, another Merseyside operator has another new Optare Solo, this time being Cumfybus who have MX03 YDA, which is registered only four registrations before Eazibus's MX03 YDE.

• Welcome to the first update of the not so very different Merseyside Dennis Dart Website!  In the end I decided that although the format of the site had to be changed slightly, as has been, the name of the site was to stay, as it has a nice 'sound' to it!  From now on, any photos added will be added as part of this news page, such as a few are today, which are received gratefully from Neil Hilton.  I will add some of the more recent photos back into the site shortly, as part of some of the older news updates!  The news page will now supplement some of the news on the fleetlists pages which are to be updated more often, this will reduce the amount of repetition within the site.

• Warrington Borough Transports order for Volvo sold DAF SB120CS are now expected to be delivered in the Autumn, and are to be known as Volvo SB120CS/Wright Merits, Wrightbus as ever have a different name for every slight variation of their bodies, even if it will be identical to the Wright Cadet on the 'proper' DAF!  Warrington Borough Transport have also made some second hand acquisitions this month, with Northern Counties bodied Leyland Olympians H514 RWX & H515 RWX arriving from from Harrogate & District, numbered 63 & 64 along with Alexander bodied Leyland Olympians K711 ASC & K712 ASC from Huntingdon & District, numbered 65 & 66!  Thanks to James McCollom for this info!

• Cumfybus of Southport, who I personally had down as a very small operator have made two very odd purchases recently - They have bought four Leyland bodied Leyland Olympians, H551 GKX, H553 GKX, H558 GKX and H562 GKX from Armchair and have also purchased Wirral bus operator EMS Travel!   Already at least two 03 reg Optare Aleros have been noted operating from the ex EMS garage.  (I'd love to see one of those Olympians run a Merseylink route!)

• Arriva North West & Wales last week acquired from Arriva London are Dart SLF/Alexander ALX200s ADL959 - ADL961, P959 RUL - P961 RUL. Theses are currently all in Arriva London livery and stored at Runcorn garage, pending repainting.  In the fleetlist, I have entered them as 2277 - 2279, but this is just what I expect them to be numbered, as 2276 is another ex London Dart from this batch, allocated to Chester.

• Avon Coaches have recently made some very unusual acquisitions, in the way of three Dennis Lance SLF/Berkhof from BAA Heathrow!  Although at the moment it is not clear what the original identities of these are, though one is currently registered B4 AVN.  Of them, one is in accident damaged condition and is to be used as a donor bus for the other two.  The only other details are that the original fleetnumbers for these were 183, 184 & 961.  Of these 961 is the one that is registered B4 AVN, and that one is normally found operating the 122 (Crosby - Fazakerley, Hospital) in place of the now sold Wright Handybus Darts.

• Chester City Transport have recently had five new 9.2M Optare Solos delivered, 362 - 366, YM52 TPO, YM52 TPU, YM52 TPV, YM52 TPX and YM52 TPY, all of which are in a new A41 Chester Rider livery, as noted in this photo of 364 taken by Neil Hilton.  One rather odd feature of this batch is that the first of them, YM52 TPO following delivery, was sent immediately on loan to First Potteries Crewe garage - Now considering in Chester itself, FirstGroup is Chester City Transports main competitor, this does seem a rather odd thing to do!

• Another operator of new Optare Solos is Eazibus, who have this Solo, registered MX03 YDE, this being only the companies second bus, the other being this, Mercedes Benz Vario O.814/Plaxton Beaver 2 R936 AMB!  The photos are kindly provided by Neil Hilton!