40540-4 V540-4ESC
During
March 2013 Diamond Bus acquired for Dennis Trident
double deckers from their sister subsidiary Preston Bus
for use at the recently acquired Redditch depot. The
vehicles had started life with Lothian Buses as dual
door vehicles in Edinburgh. When the vehicles had been
sold to Preston Bus they had been converted to a single
door configuration. However they retained their trade
mark Lothian Buses Scottish tartan seat apostasy and a
number of tables in the down stairs seating area. Before
the vehicles entered service at Redditch they were
repainted in the striking all over blue Diamond Bus
livery. Their entry into service allowed the former
First Midland double deckers to be withdrawn. In the
ensuing years all but one of the vehicles have been
withdrawn. 40544 was retained at
Redditch and was used on a Warwickshire contracted
service for Alcester Grammar School. At the end of the
school year in July 2019 the vehicle was withdrawn.
Registration Number | Fleet Number | Vehicle Type | Body type | Seating Capacity | Date into Service | Current Allocation |
V540ESC | 40540 | Dennis Trident | Plaxton | H45/29F | March 2013 | Withdrawn 12/16 destroyed by fire 10/19 |
V541ESC | 40541 | Dennis Trident | Plaxton | H45/29F | March 2013 | Withdrawn 7/15 destroyed by fire 10/19 |
V542ESC | 40542 | Dennis Trident | Plaxton | H45/29F | March 2013 | Withdrawn 7/15 destroyed by fire 10/19 |
V543ESC | 40543 | Dennis Trident | Plaxton | H45/29F | March 2013 | Withdrawn 12/16 destroyed by fire 10/19 |
V544ESC | 40544 | Dennis Trident | Plaxton | H45/29F | March 2013 | Withdrawn 7/19 Sold to Peters for scrap 3/20 |
40610-9 V857/60/2/77/T881KLF/V882HHL/T884KLF/V885/6/94HHL
When
Diamond Bus purchased the Redditch Garage from First
Midland Red on 3rd March 2013 the deal included ten T
and V registered Dennis Tridents. The vehicles had only joined the Redditch fleet
in the autumn of 2012 and had allowed all five of the 54
plate Dennis Tridents to be transferred to the Worcester
depot and a number of step entrance Dennis Lance
vehicles to be withdrawn.
The ten vehicles had started life
on Transport for London contracts with Firstgroup and at
the end of a 12 year period in service the vehicles were replaced
with newer vehicles.
Being built to a dual door configuration the vehicle
underwent some refurbishment that removed the
extra set of doors, fitted electronic destination blinds
and gave the vehicle a general overhaul. Initially the
vehicles were allocated to First Eastern National before
being replaced by slightly newer vehicles in late 2012
to allow the transfer to Redditch depot.
Registration Number | Fleet Number | Vehicle Type | Body type | Seating Capacity | Date into Service | Current Allocation |
V857HBY | 40610 | Dennis Trident | Plaxton | H42/27F | October 2012 | Withdrawn - Sold to Ensign bus 10/13 |
V860HBY | 40611 | Dennis Trident | Plaxton | H42/27F | 20th August 2012 | Withdrawn |
V862HBY | 40612 | Dennis Trident | Plaxton | H42/27F | September 2012 | Withdrawn |
V877HBY | 40613 | Dennis Trident | Plaxton | H42/27F | August 2012 | Withdrawn - Sold to Preston bus for spares |
T881KLF | 40614 | Dennis Trident | Plaxton | H42/27F | October 2012 | Withdrawn - Sold to Preston bus for spares |
V882HBY | 40615 | Dennis Trident | Plaxton | H42/27F | October 2012 | Withdrawn - Sold to Ensign bus 10/13 |
T884KLF | 40616 | Dennis Trident | Plaxton | H42/27F | October 2012 | Withdrawn |
T885KLF | 40617 | Dennis Trident | Plaxton | H42/27F | October 2012 | Withdrawn |
T886KLF | 40618 | Dennis Trident | Plaxton | H42/27F | September 2012 | Withdrawn - Sold to Ensign bus 10/13 |
V894HHL | 40619 | Dennis Trident | Plaxton | H42/27F | September 2012 | Withdrawn |
Former First Midland Red Fleet numbers are 40610 - 32857, 40611 - 32860, 40612 - 32862, 40613 - 32877, 40614 - 32881, 40615 - 32882, 40616 - 32884, 40617 - 32885, 40618 - 32886 & 40619 - 32894
42564/5 - K123/6URP
With
the sale of Redditch and Kidderminster Garages of First
Midland Red to Diamond Bus on 3rd March 2013 K123URP and
K126URP were included in the sale and surprisingly
unlike a number of the step entrance Dennis Lance
vehicles they were retained for service making them by
far the oldest vehicles in the Diamond Bus fleet. Whilst
the vehicles were in the fleet for the operation of
school services they did see service on other routes.
With the sale K123URP was renumbered 42564 from 34123
and K126URP was renumbered 42565 from 34126. In the
event the vehicles were withdrawn at the end of the 2013
academic year and were soon sold for scrap.
Registration Number | Fleet Number | Vehicle Type | Seating Capacity | Date into Service | Current Allocation |
K123URP | 42564 | Volvo B10M | CH47/35F | Nov-05 | Withdrawn - June 2013 - Sold to Willenhall Commercials for scrap Sept 2013 |
K126URP | 42565 | Volvo B10M | CH47/35F | September-06 | Withdrawn - August 2013 - Sold to Willenhall Commercials for scrap Sept 2013 |
42625/6 - BJ14KTC & BJ14KTA
During 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015 Rotala purchased small
batches of double deck vehicles for their Bristol and
Preston operations. They were all Wrights bodied Volvo
B5LH vehicles. They took the fleet numbers 40602-9,
40619-22 and 40625-8. Of those vehicles 40602-5 and
40625/6 were new the Bristol operation. On closure of
the Bristol operation in June 2019 many of the vehicles
were dispersed to other operations within the group.
40625 has led a rather nomadic life moving first to
Bolton in June 2019 only to move to Redditch in August
2019 following the withdrawal of 40544. Then in April
2020 it moved back to Bolton and then onto Preston in
November 2020 only to return to Redditch in August 2021.
Whereas 40626 moved to the Hounslow depot in August 2018
and then to Redditch in February 2021. Both vehicles are
regularly used on the service 247 from Redditch to
Evesham to cater for school traffic on the route.
Registration Number | Fleet Number | Vehicle Type | Body type | Seating Capacity | Date into Service | Current Allocation |
BJ14KTC | 40625 | Volvo B9TL | Wrights | H45/29F | August 2021 | Redditch |
BJ14KTA | 40626 | Volvo B9TL | Wrights | H45/29F | February 2021 | Redditch |
42725/6 - MX20HVJ & MX20 HVK
Back
in August 2019 Rotala purchased the Bolton bus depot
from First Group for £5.3M. Unusually, it did not
purchase most of the vehicles instead agreeing short
term leasing agreements for the buses. For the double
deckers this was for just over 12 months. The Rotala
plan was to replace all of these vehicles with brand new
Streetdeck vehicles manufactured by Wrightsbus. Since
then the company has taken delivery of 143 new vehicles
plus a nearly new demonstrator vehicle. The vast
majority of the vehicles have been allocated to the
Bolton depot but the opportunity has also been taken to
upgrade vehicles at the Preston depot. In late April
2022 it was announced that Rotala would be purchasing
the bus operations of Johnson’s of Henley in Arden. Some
of the services they acquired needed double deck
vehicles and so 2 streetdecks were transferred from the
Bolton depot over the weekend of the 30th April/1st May
2022 initially going to the Tividale depot where they
were used on a rail replacement service and the 002.
Within days the vehicles had moved to Redditch ready to
be used on former Johnson services.
Registration Number | Fleet Number | Vehicle Type | Seating Capacity | Date into Service | Current Allocation |
MX20HVJ | 40725 | Wright StreetDeck SC5DDRDXU20000016 | H45/29F | May 2022 | Redditch |
MX20HVK | 40726 | Wright StreetDeck SC5DDRDXU20000017 | H45/29F | May 2022 | Redditch |