First South Yorkshire

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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

[edit] History

[edit] 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%.

[edit] 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"). The service levels currently seen are lower than those in Mainline days, however fares have increased and there has been little investment in new vehicles[citation needed].

[edit] Fleet

Although in recent times there have been very few new buses invested. First received a large batch of Volvo B10BLEs in 1999 as well as a number of Volvo B7Ls and B7TLs between 2002-2004; most of these were however allocated to Sheffield routes, whilst Doncaster received secondhand buses cascaded from London. The newest buses in the fleet are 10 Volvo B7TLs/Wright Eclipse Gemini which entered service during summer 2006.

First has invested £6.4 million in 38 new double-decker buses[1]. Twenty B9/Wright double-decker buses are due to upgrade the X78 route in January 2007. All twenty buses will now be based at Rotherham Midland Road Garage though previously they were to be shared with Doncaster Leger Way depot, These are now due around the end of March. The peak vehicle requirement is eighteen vehicles for route X78 and two will be kept as spares[citation needed].

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.

[edit] Strikes

The worst period for the company was during the summer of 2004, when drivers held a strike over pay. It lasted three weeks[2].

[edit] Protests over service

There have been several protests in recent years over the quality of service offered by First in Sheffield. First were criticised for raising fares four times in 2005[3], 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.

[edit] References

  1. ^ First Investing £6.4 million In New Buses For Region First South Yorkshire website (Retrieved 6 April 2007)
  2. ^ Deal puts buses back on the road BBC News Online (Retrieved 4 April 2007)
  3. ^ Fares up Sheffield Today by the Sheffield Star (Retrieved 29 October 2005)

[edit] See Also

[edit] External links

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