Dennis Lances

Livery Key :  Barbie 2 - Non low floor corporate Firstgroup livery known as "Barbie2"  & Barbie 3 - is the new corporate Firstgroup livery for all vehicles which is a modified version of the original Barbie livery (The dates in brackets are when the vehicle was last repainted) 

67238-56   M238-56MRW

To replace the Leyland Nationals at Worcester Garage a second batch of 18 Lances were purchased in the summer of 1995 (238-56 M238-56MRW). These vehicles entered service between May and July 1995. Driver type and engineering training had been done by the loan of L235AAB to Worcester from Digbeth Garage. These vehicles have slight differences from the first batch mainly at the rear where these vehicles have a revised rear window layout and lack high-level secondary stoplights. Like the earlier vehicles of the same type all the vehicles were maintained at Worcester. During January and February 2003 four vehicles in batches of two were loaned to First Airport Services at Stansted Airport. They were 252 and 255 in January and 243 and 251 in February. With the introduction of Dennis Lances on the Service 146 at Redditch from Monday 28th April 2003 the paper allocation of the vehicles is now spilt between all garages apart from Hereford. 

With the introduction of the national vehicle numbering scheme 67000 was added to all fleet numbers. During October 2005 Lances 67253 and 67255 were upseated from 49 to 51 seats in preparation to the fitting of lap seat belts for use on Worcestershire / Warwickshire County Council school contracts at Evesham Garage. Both councils require seat belt fitted vehicles for use on contracted school services as apposed to local bus services that carry school children. Much of the Company's business was at the time  based around carrying children to and from school under a block deal with Worcestershire County Council for bus passes. 67254 was the first of a number of vehicles to be upseated to 51 seats during November 2005. This allowed the last of the coaches at Evesham to be taken out of service. At around the same time 67241 was allocated for use on the "Green School Bus Services" which was a contract school services for King Edwards VI High School, Five Ways at Bartley Green in South Birmingham. For this contract 67241 was repainted into the Green School Bus livery during April 2005. During December 2006 67242 became the last operational vehicle to be painted out of the Red and Cream livery introduced with the privatisation of Midland Red West in December 1986

Livery Key :  Barbie 2 - Non low floor corporate Firstgroup livery known as "Barbie2" and Barbie 3 - New corporate Firstgroup livery known as "Barbie3"   (The dates in brackets are when the vehicle was last repainted)

257  P453BPH

P453BPH was loaned to First Midland Red from November 1996 until 13th January 2000. During that time it was operated from Digbeth, Worcester and Evesham Garages. The vehicle differed from the Midland Red West examples in that it had a split entrance step and 51 rather than 49 seats. In January 2000 the vehicle moved to Yorkshire Rider where it took the fleet number 1202 but by March 2000 was back with First Midland Red at Worcester pending disposal by it's owner which was Plaxton. The vehicle was sold to Diamond Bus (The Birmingham Coach Company) fleet. The vehicle has since left this fleet.

67301  M221EAF

First Midland Red acquired M221EAF, a 40-seater Dennis Lance SLF with a  Wright Pathfinder 320 body, in November 1992. The vehicle was new to Western National for use on their Service 82. The vehicle was found unsuitable for this route and soon passed to Yorkshire Rider at Leeds where it was used on their service 2B. The vehicle later passed to First London for use on their service 335 running from the Uxbridge depot. It continued to be used at Uxbridge depot until it arrived at Worcester on Monday 9th December 2002. The vehicle had visited First Southampton on the way where it had been repainted into Barbie2 livery. After arrival at Worcester depot M221EAF was kept in storage until February 2003 when she was finally allocated a fleet number 261 and then promptly loaned to First London for use on rail replacement for the Central line between Epping and Central London. 261 returned to Worcester depot on the afternoon of Tuesday 11th February 2003 with mechanical problems and went back into storage until the problems were rectified. 261 finally entered service with First Midland Red at Worcester depot on Monday 10th March 2003. The vehicle was initially normally seen operating alongside the other non low-floor Dennis Lance vehicles on the 144 and services to and from Malvern. However, from 4th September 2003 the vehicle was transferred to Kidderminster Garage for use on the X33, 300 and 303 services that were taken over from Pete's Travel. Following the introduction of new Darts to those routes the vehicle spent most of the time operating the C31 North East Worcestershire College contract between the Bromsgrove and Redditch Compasses. The C31 was a joint operation between Redditch and Kidderminster Garages. With the introduction to service of the sixth new Alexander Dennis Dart VX05JWW (42894) 67301 was transferred back to Worcester Garage. The vehicle was withdrawn in March 2012 and was transferred to First Somerset and Avon

Livery Key :   Barbie 3 - New corporate Firstgroup livery known as "Barbie3"   (The dates in brackets are when the vehicle was last repainted)

67311-5/8-20-4   ODZ8911-5/8-20-4

On 13th August 2003, First Midland Red acquired the first of another batch of second hand Dennis Lance SLF with Wright Pathfinder 320 bodywork. This vehicle ODZ8918 (now numbered 262) was fitted with dual-doors and was new in 1994 as one of the first low floor buses to operate in London. It was part of a 24 vehicle batch consisting of vehicles ODZ8901-24 (fleet numbers LLW1-24) and were new to Uxbridge Buses (now part of First London). In 2001, most of the batch ODZ8918-24 passed to Bristol City Line for use from their Lawrence Hill depot where they were given the fleet numbers 8918-24 and painted in the corporate Firstgroup coaching livery. This livery has more blue in it than the standard bus livery. On 20th August 2003, similar ODZ8920 arrived at Worcester and was given the fleet number 264. With First Midland Red taking over the operation at this time of services 303 and X33 from Pete's Travel the company is short of low buses so the vehicles entered service during the first week of September in acquired condition. The centre doors were only in use for access to the wheelchair space.  The front end design of these early low floor vehicles with a narrower than usual front single piece entrance/exit door and the space between the front wheel arches means wheelchair users have to use the centre door to gain entry or exit from the bus. All were 34-seaters except for ODZ8920 which had one less seat. ODZ8924 arrived at Worcester from Bristol in January 2004 and finally entered service at Worcester on 13th February 2004. The vehicle entered service carrying the national fleet number 67324 rather than the logical First Midland Red number 268. By 17th February 2004 67324 had been renumbered 266 an indication that vehicles ODZ8922 and ODZ8923 which should of been logically 266 and 267 in the First Midland Red numbering series are more than likely beyond economic repair at First Bristol and would be going for scrap rather than to heading north to First Midland Red. Whilst allocated to the Lawrence Hill depot of First Bristol the vehicles were used on the services 7 and 8 that serve Bristol Temple Meads rail station. As part of the take over of Great Western Trains by Firstgroup a number of commitments were given to improving bus links to rail stations which included the Bristol services 7 and 8. With the introduction of the national vehicle numbering scheme the buses were renumbered into the 673xx series. Following the garage fire at Worcester Garage on the afternoon of the 17th March 2004 Lance 67320 was damage to such an extent that the vehicle was withdrawn. Further vehicles from the batch were acquired in the shape of ODZ8911-4 from First Somerset and Avon during 2004 in exchange for Leyland Lynx vehicles in Barbie livery from Redditch garage. Unlike the other examples which have come from First Bristol these vehicles had the centre doors removed and were up seated to 38 rather than 34 for the dual door examples. To extend the lives of the vehicles First Midland Red was started a programme of refurbishment which included repainting into the latest version of the Barbie livery. The first to be done was 67313 which was completed in December 2006. It was followed by 67311 and eventually all the vehicles were done.

216, 240, 243, 249, 250 & 251

As part of the service revisions introduced on Monday 28th April 2003 to the Redditch bus services to create an Overground network, the pink line (service 146) was altered to only run between Redditch Bus Station and Birmingham City Centre. The actual timetable for this section of the route was unchanged. The route between Redditch and Studley was covered by a revised service 67. The 146 route became the first corporately  branded First Midland Red service.  As part of the changes six Dennis Lances were re-allocated to Redditch for use on service 146 in the place of  six Leyland Lynx vehicles which were moved to Kidderminster Garage. In the two weeks before the changes Kidderminster Garage Dennis Lance L212AAB was used at Redditch for driver type training. The six allocated Dennis Lances (216, 240, 243, 249, 250 and 251) were all in the Corporate non-low floor livery and had branding for the 146 service added on Sunday 27th April 2003. This was pink cove-line branding with route information. The 20-minute frequency was also shown on the side and rear of the vehicles with vinyl's on the windows. The vehicles also had a large contra-vision picture on each side over the three centre windows showing the Birmingham City Centre skyline together with Shuttle logos. The service 146 was then known as the "service 146 Shuttle". The Company distributed timetables for the service 146 with each of the town's free weekly newspaper, the Redditch Advertiser, on Wednesday 30th April 2002 - something that hasn't been done since the launch of the Reddilink minibus network in April 1986. This publicity exercise was repeated two weeks latter when a specially produced A5 sized leaflet on the Shuttle service was distributed to houses in  Redditch using the same newspaper. Unfortunately,  Bromsgrove District Council decided to change the terms of their senior citizen travel scheme which the service operated through between the Redditch Birmingham boundaries that made the service uneconomic at a 20 minute frequency.  First Midland Red decided to reduce the frequency of service 146 from every 20 minutes to every hour from 14th September 2003 and so the vehicles lost some of their Shuttle branding. 216 lost all of the pink line branding whilst the vehicle was being serviced at Worcester Garage in mid-August 2003. 250 finally lost all of it's branding in August 2004. The remainder then all lost their branding gradually over the next few weeks.