FIRST SOUTH YORKSHIRE

'First South Yorkshire' is a large bus operator in South Yorkshire, England. As a division of FirstGroup the company's legal name was, for a time, 'Mainline' which operated it between 1993 and 1998, following the sale South Yorkshire Transport (SYT) to its employees.

Contents

History

Mainline

First Mainline

Fleet

Criticism of First South Yorkshire

References

See Also

External links

History

Mainline

Under SYT, Mainline began as a trade name for the main routes, starting in Sheffield in 1989. Buses traded with ''Sheffield Mainline'' in a bright red and yellow livery, replacing the beige/red livery used before. It was followed by ''Doncaster Mainline'' in a silver grey and red livery relieved by a light yellow band and finally ''Rotherham Mainline'', whose buses ran in blue and yellow. In 1992 the locality was dropped from the logo when ''Mainline'' became the fleetname, the livery based on the former ''Sheffield Mainline'' red and yellow, but silver and blue bands were added. Mainline operated most bus services in South Yorkshire over that time (thanks in the main to the former monopoly position of SYT), though other operators such as Leon Motors, Wilfreda Beehive, Andrew's of Sheffield and Yorkshire Terrier operated some services. The company was generally popular with passengers, and boasted an extensive network with low fares and modern vehicles. Mainline was sold to its employees in 1993, though Stagecoach bought a 20% stake in the company not long after. This had to be sold off in 1995, at which point the newly created ''FirstBus'' took the 20%.

First Mainline

Mainline was taken over by First Group in 1998, and became ''First Mainline''. The livery became just red and yellow, a reminiscence of the original 1989 ''Sheffield mainline'' livery. The name was altered again to ''First South Yorkshire''. Since about 2000, vehicles began being repainted in First Group corporate livery (nicknamed "Barbie"). There are three versions of the "Barbie": Barbie 1 was the main corporate livery, Barbie 2 was a livery intended for buses pre 1998 but this livery is being slowly phased out and Barbie 3 is a revised version of Barbie 1.

Fleet

First received a large batch of Volvo B10BLEs in 1999 as well as a number of Volvo B7Ls (most from First Manchester) and B7TLs between 2002-2004; most of these were however allocated to Sheffield, where 10 Volvo B7TLs/Wright Eclipse Gemini also entered service during summer 2006. Secondhand Volvo Olympians (Northern Counties) have recently been cascaded from London.
First has invested £6.4 million in 38 new double-decker buses^[1]. Twenty Volvo B9TL/Wright Eclipse Gemini double-decker buses arrived to upgrade the X78 route to low-floor operation; these new buses entered service on 1 June 2007. All twenty buses are now based at Rotherham Midland Road Garage although previously they were to be shared with Doncaster Leger Way depot. Doncaster, however, is due the remaining 18 of these buses in late 2007/early 2008. These are likely to operate services 50, 55 and 78 as part of the Woodlands to Rossington Quality Bus Corridor.
Dennis Dominators were the main double deckers in the fleet with over 300 at one time. These have steadly been withdrawn and the last ran in service on 26 July 2006. A large number of Volvo B10Ms with Alexander PS bodywork (new to Mainline) are still in service although some of the older ones have been converted to driver training buses, some of the others are still in service while the rest are operating in Scotland with First Glasgow, and a large batch of the newest ones were recently cascaded to Glasgow. Step entrance Volvo B6 and Dennis Dart buses still operate and were in the process of being withdrawn, although were brought back into service to replace B10Ms.

Criticism of First South Yorkshire

First were criticised for raising fares four times in 2005^[2], raising the cost of a 5-10 minute journey to £1.60 as of February 2007, as well as for cutting a number of services.

References

1. First Investing £6.4 million In New Buses For Region First South Yorkshire website (Retrieved 6 April 2007)
2. Fares up Sheffield Today by the Sheffield Star (Retrieved 29 October 2005)

See Also

★ South Yorkshire Transport

★ South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive

★ Doncaster Corporation Transport

★ Sheffield Transport

External links

★ First South Yorkshire

★ South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive

★ Travel South Yorkshire Public transport information for South Yorkshire

★ Bus Photos Of First South Yorkshire Buses