Wellglade (Trent Barton, Kinchbus, TM Travel, Notts and Derby, Midland General)

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RE: Wellglade (Trent Barton, Kinchbus, TM Travel, Notts and Derby, Midland General)
This Sunday is Trent Barton's 100th Birthday party and open day at their Langley Mill depot. There will be a variety of stands and displays, including behind the scenes tours. Free shuttle buses will run with vintage buses from Derby, Nottingham and Ilkeston and a number of other modern day and vintage buses will be on display.

A full list of the vintage buses that will be attending can be found on the trent barton paly blog: http://trentbartonplay.blogspot.co.uk/

All money raised will go to Trent Barton's charity of the year, the Lewis Mighty Fund.

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RE: Wellglade (Trent Barton, Kinchbus, TM Travel, Notts and Derby, Midland General)
The sixes is the next route to be refurbushed, the 10 '55 plate Scania/ Wrightbus Solars will be refurbished, potentially along with three solos which will operate on the short 6.1 between Wirksworth and Matlock and what is currently the Sevens 7.1/7.2

One of the solars is currently being worked on, part of the refurbishment appears to involve replacing the floor so it's a big job!

Excel 266 is on loan to Derby to cover the refurbishment. Meanwhile Gold 724 was involved in an accident and is currently at Langley Mill recieving repairs. It is hoped it will be ready to displayed on Sunday, and may move to Langley Mill after that on the next leg of its depot tour, but I'm not 100% sure about that

623 is now in Kinchbus 9 livery and is being prepared to enter service at Loughborough

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RE: Wellglade (Trent Barton, Kinchbus, TM Travel, Notts and Derby, Midland General)
Solar 623 is now in service on the Kinchbus 9, meaning the route is now fully ran by solars.

Excels 234, 264 and 266 are now all back in service at Derby, presumably to cover for the Sixes refurbishments. They all wear the 2003 standard Trent Barton livery which has been reapplied following their time at Kinchbus.

Notts and Derby Solar 598 has been fitted with a power blind and an init machine, as all journeys on the route accept Trent Barton's mango card.

Eclipse 724 is now operating out of Langley Mill having been the star of the show at last Sunday's 100th Birthday celebration. Solar 679 is at Derby in its place.

Speaking of the 100th birthday, as well as a number of vintage vehicles, there were a number of in service vehicles on display and around the depot as follows:

On display
Scania irizar i4: 75 (Red Arrow)
Optare Tempo/ Tempo SR: 312 (Black Cat) 333 (i4)
Optare Solo/ Solo SR: 480 (Royal Derby) 496 (Allestree) 498 (Ruddington Connection)
Scania Solar: 662 (Skylink Nottingham)
Mercedes Citaro: 695 (Calverton Connection)
Volvo Eclipse: 713 (Indigo) 724 (Trent Barton 100) 737 (Swift) 739 (Rapid 1) 743 (Two)
Optare Versa: 804 (My15) 809 (Spondon Flyer) 822 (Threes)

In the workshop area
Volvo Olympian: 28 (Notts and Derby)
Northern Counties Paladin: 131 (Driver trainer but in trent buses livery)
Optare Excel: 234, 257, 264 (All Trent Barton spares)
Optare Solo: 413/414 (Trent Barton spares)
Scania Solar: 624 (Villager) 635,667,680 (Trent Barton Spare) 656 (Rainbow 1) 688 (Sixes, being refurbished)
Volvo Eclipse: 750 (The Two)
Optare Versa: 802 (My15)
Plaxton Centro: 1179 (TM Travel)

Finally, solars 674 and 679 were being used on the bus wash demonstration.

The event was a huge success and raised £5,000 for the Lewis Mighty fund, Trent Barton's charity of the year.

All photos on this post © Matt Burley

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RE: Wellglade (Trent Barton, Kinchbus, TM Travel, Notts and Derby, Midland General)
Former Kinchbus dart 896 has been scrapped, along with former Lothian training buses 8 and 9 (which were used solely for spare parts), Notts and Derby deckers' 21 and 24, excel 246 and TM Travel Olympian 1102.

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RE: Wellglade (Trent Barton, Kinchbus, TM Travel, Notts and Derby, Midland General)
Threes Versa 826 is now back in service after a lengthy absence after an electrical fire. It features a new rear advert promoting the zigzag play ticket which can now be purchased with Mansfield Town FC tickets

The new base colour for the sixes will be a light orange. Here is a picture of 688 tweeted by commercial director Alex Hornby.

Also reportedly at Langley Mill is Solo 461, which is apparently in a derivative of the trent barton livery, having spent some time at TM Travel. All of the former Allestree solos are said to be heading to TM Travel in exchange for some of the 'V' and 'W' plate solos, which will be retrofitted to DDA standards.

Again at Langley Mill is Connect Solo 430. Rumours are rife that the connect solos will be refurbished to bring them in line with the threes versas that they connect with.

Kinchbus spare Solar 618 has had vinyls applied to promote their new 'kinchkard' which is their equivalent to mango. A number of other buses have had rear adverts applied for the same.

Finally, trent barton have tweeted "Get ready to zoom...coming soon". No idea what it means but it could be interesting!

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RE: Wellglade (Trent Barton, Kinchbus, TM Travel, Notts and Derby, Midland General)
A new service has been registered called zoom between Derby and Long Eaton which will offer faster journey times between the two which will compliment the indigo service.

The connect solos are being refurbished, they are being completed internally to the standard of 462 and are in a new orange livery, the same colour as on the threes.

The sixes solars are having new floors and brand new high backed seats fitted with two tone yellow headrests. One has been repainted and one internally refurbished, these will swap over then go back into service whilst the other 8 are completed.

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RE: Wellglade (Trent Barton, Kinchbus, TM Travel, Notts and Derby, Midland General)
Solo 461 is now in service with Trent Barton at Langley Mill. It is in Mango livery. It has had a repaint and has new interior vinyls, but it will gain new seats and an electronic destination blind when the connect refurbishments are complete. It is expected to go to Sutton but seems to be helping out at Langley Mill in the short term.

A combination of heat and a number of accidents has left Nottingham depot rather short over the past week or so, which led to Kinchbus' Sprint branded Solo 1 being on loan and on the Keyworth Connection.

Photos and information from Matt Burley

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RE: Wellglade (Trent Barton, Kinchbus, TM Travel, Notts and Derby, Midland General)
Two solars, 688 and 691 have now returned to service in 'secret sixes' livery which all will carry until all ten have been refurbished, when full vinyls will be applied. The following has been done during the extensive refurbishment:

-New front panel to remove the wrightbus 'w'
-All the interior metalwork has been repainted
-A new floor has been put in
-New walls have been put in
-A new cab surround has been fitted
-New high back fabric seats with yellow leather headrests have been installed
-Next stop destination displays and speakers have been installed
-New two part led displays have been added to the front
-Wifi has been installed

New interior and exterior vinyls are to be fitted when all vehicles are ready

Solo 461 has had an LED blind fitted and has now moved to the Derby depot.

Centenary eclipse 724 is now at Sutton on the next leg of its depot tour. Solar 681 has moved to Langley Mill in its place.

Now that versa 826 has returned from Optare, solar 671 is now at Nottingham. This is thought to have replaced 635 which is believed to be going onto the Ilkeston Flyer, as, along with the H1, the frequency is to increase to every 15 minutes due to competition on both routes from yourbus.

452 is the first of four solos to be prepared for 'zoom' between Long Eaton and Derby, in retaliation to yourbus' Y5 service. To see a preview of the design, and more information about the service, see this page on the trent barton website here.

Big changes are upcoming to the Long Eaton area services:
-As mentioned, a new zoom service will follow the indigo route between Long Eaton and Borrowash before 'zooming' along the A52 into Derby
-The skylink shorts will be withdrawn
-Indigo will no longer serve New or Old Sawley with the exception of a few peak time runs
-Indigo will run every five minutes between Beeston and Nottingham
-Indigo will run every ten minutes between Long Eaton and Nottingham and every five minutes at peak times
-The frequency of Briar Gate and Derby indigos are unchanged
-A new 'Sawley Express' service will start. This will follow the skylink route as far as Long Eaton before serving both Old and New Sawley. This will run hourly.

I *think* Indigo's PVR will decrease from 23 to 20. This will possibly result in two volvos being branded for Sawley Express, if not I'd imagine the two MAN centros will be used.

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RE: Wellglade (Trent Barton, Kinchbus, TM Travel, Notts and Derby, Midland General)
Zoom officially launched on Sunday, having run for free for most of Saturday. The following solos are in use on the route:
-439
-440
-446
452

All four have been refurbished to a high standard.

In addition, the Ilkeston Flyer and H1 went from three buses to four an hour this week, in addition to an enhanced Sunday service. 631 is the additional vehicle on the H1, with 635 being the fourth vehicle on the H1. All are identical to the other buses on the respective routes, with the exception of the front panel, where the Wrightbus 'w' has been removed on the new recruits.

An additional bus may be heading to Skylink Leicester/Derby, which could be 634.

461 is currently out of service with an engine problem. 442 is in the paintshop, and 445 has returned from TM Travel and is in Mango livery.

Trent Barton have registered additional journeys on Swift on a Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. These have traditionally been ran under subsidy as part of the 109 contract. However, this has been won by Yourbus and as such trent don't want a serious competitor running journeys on one of their routes!

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RE: Wellglade (Trent Barton, Kinchbus, TM Travel, Notts and Derby, Midland General)
Solo 442 is now in service at Sutton depot, bizarrely in the standard 2003 Trent Barton livery. It was formerly in a zigzag advertisement livery.

It replaces 404 which has been withdrawn due to corrosion problems.