Trent Barton

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Trent Barton is one of the very small number of significant independent bus operators in the UK. It was formed as the result of merging Derbyshire's Trent Buses with Nottinghamshire's Barton.

It employs 1,000 people in various parts of Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire, running a fleet of around 330 modern buses on a network of local routes. Every single bus in the fleet is now low floor (not including coach services on the Red Arrow, Transpeak and Commuter Express). It operates services from Manchester in the north to Loughborough in the south as well as Derby, Nottingham, Chesterfield, Burton upon Trent, Ashbourne, Mansfield, and Ilkeston.

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[edit] Service

Many of the routes are branded rather than numbered. The 'Rainbow' services are a group of frequent services radiating from Nottingham to its outer suburbs:

The less frequent connection services run from Nottingham to some of its smaller suburbs, for example the Keyworth Connection and the Calverton Connection. A few numbered services still remain on smaller services around local areas, for example the 23 in Ilkeston.

In Derby, Trent Barton run some urban services, such as the non-stop 'Spondon Flyer' service, and 'The Mickleover' and 'The Allestree'. There are then a number of longer distance services for example 'The One' to Ashbourne and 'The Sixes' to Belper and Matlock with their unusual numbering system: 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4 and 6.X. The 'Villager' services run south to Burton on Trent, and a number of services run north towards Ilkeston and Heanor such as the 'Black Cat' and 'H1' or 'Happy One' as it is known by passengers.

Trent Barton then operate a number of express services around the East Midlands, such as the very successful 'Red Arrow' service that speeds customers (the emphasis at Trent Barton being on them not just being passengers) from Nottingham to Derby faster than they could go by car or even train. 'Pronto' connects Nottingham, Mansfield and Chesterfield (operated jointly with Stagecoach), and the X38 connects Derby and Burton on Trent in just 25 minutes. Now the X38 runs every 15 minutes to comply with Arriva's Town Linx.(operated jointly with Arriva Midlands), and services like the Bingham Xprss, Long Eaton Xprss and Commuter Xprss run direct from Nottinghams outer suburbs into Nottingham. The Transpeak service is Trent Barton's longest distance service, from Nottingham through Derby, Belper, Matlock, Bakewell, Buxton and Stockport to Manchester.

Towards the northern end of the Transpeak route, Trent Barton also operate a small number of services around Buxton town, and the 'Skyline 199' service from Buxton to Stockport and Manchester Airport.

Many of the services operate through to 3am on Friday and Saturday evenings, which Trent Barton promote with some very clever advertising.

[edit] Office and depots

The head offices and main depot of Trent Barton are in Langley Mill near Heanor, with Depots also at Nottingham, Derby, Dove Holes, Sutton Junction, Cropwell Bishop, Hucknall, Ashbourne, Belper and Matlock.

[edit] Other associated companies

Trent Barton's holding company, Wellglade, also owns two other East Midlands bus operators - Kinchbus and Notts + Derby.

Kinchbus is based in Loughborough and was formerly an independent company. It operates various local services around Loughborough town, service 2 from Leicester to Loughborough and the Airport Shuttle from Derby to Loughborough via East Midlands Airport. It has a fleet of about fifty buses.

Notts + Derby is a bus operator, operating mainly subsidised services under contract to Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire county councils. It also operates services to the University of Derby's campuses in Derby and Buxton under the Unibus brand. Notts + Derby uses Trent Barton depots for its vehicles which are mainly former Trent Barton buses. Notts + Derby was formerly called Blue Apple.

[edit] External links

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