Volvo B7RLE

Livery Key :  Barbie 3 - is the so called barbie corporate Firstgroup livery for all vehicles which is a modified version of the original Barbie livery   First Urban is the new Firstgroup livery (The dates in brackets are when the vehicle was last repainted).

66963/4/5/7/9/75-87 

Firstgroup placed a repeat order in 2005 for over 300 Wrights bodied Volvo B7RLE single deck vehicles. Over half of these 43 seat low floor vehicles were for their First Manchester operation to head off criticism from Greater Manchester PTE that the group is not investing in new vehicles for their Manchester operations. The remainder of the batch of vehicles are being delivered to other urban group operations. This included First Leicester. Interestingly the original vehicle order for Redditch garage was to be this type of vehicle but the order was altered to Enviro based buses because the unit cost was cheaper and the company could more vehicles for its money. With changes to the bus network in Worcester from 4th September 2005 six of the vehicles delivered new to First Leicester in April 2005 were transferred to First Midland Red. All six of the vehicles had to have minor modifications to their driver cabs to install standard First Midland Red driver cash trays. Union agreements mean all vehicles have to six individual cash holders usually in to two groups of three one above the other on the cab door. 66987 entered service ahead of the rest of the other vehicles during the first week of September 2005 with the remainder entering service in the second week of September 2005. All five of the vehicles were withdrawn during April 2006 and returned to Leicester. To cover for short term vehicle shortages First Leicester and First Northampton both loaned First Midland Red a single Volvo B7R during in Autumn 2005. 66969 arrived in October 2005 and returned to First Northampton in December 2005. 66976 arrived in September 2005 and returned to First Leicester in November 2005. During April 2006 66982-5 moved back to First Leicester as the vehicles were fitted with Real Time Information equipment for use in Leicester. The vehicles have been used to allow the frequency of service 74 in Leicester which runs to Ansley to be increased from every 15 minutes to every 10 minutes. To replace them 66964/5/7 from First Northampton these were at the very least on paper replaced with a number of L-reg Dennis Lances from First Midland Red. During July 2009 66979-66987 were acquired by First Midland Red from Leicester following service reductions for use mainly on the service 144. The first nine vehicles were joined by 3 more in October 2009. With the transfer of the Enviro 300 vehicles from Redditch following the sale of the garage to Rotala the all the Wrights Bodied Volvo B7R at Worcester were transferred to First East Anglia. 

69370

69370 YJ08XYK was new in August 2008 and was part of a batch of 17 vehicles (69363-79) that were new to First York for use on their park and ride services. They were delivered in a special silver livery and branded for the park and ride services. In March 2020 the vehicle was painted into the current First Urban livery as the vehicle like the sister vehicles were no longer used on the park and ride services as newer vehicles had arrived. During the early part of 2022 the vehicle moved to Doncaster to join that fleet.  By now the 16 vehicles had been dispersed amongst several First group depots. In May 2023 with the withdrawal of the 66694 and 66699 vehicles at Worcester 69370 joined the Worcester fleet. The local Doncaster branding was soon removed but the vehicle has retained a bus rear advert for drivers at First South Yorkshire. The contact details have been removed so as to not cause confusion in the Worcester area.

69435/6/49/50-6/59/60

In 2009 First West of England took delivery of a batch of 26 new dual purpose Volvo B7R single decker buses, each with 43 dual purpose seats. The vehicles took the national fleet numbers 69435-69460. 12 of the vehicles 69435/6/49/50-6/59/60 were subsequently transferred to First Leicester when new vehicles were introduced in the West of England. The Leicester based vehicles have been used on general city services and their dual purpose seating is not really suitable for city routes. A plan was devised to transfer these 12 vehicles to Worcester garage. To replace the 12 vehicles at Leicester there would be a 2 way swop with  First Potteries. 12 Enviro 300s would  (67650-61) move to Stoke on Trent from Worcester and then transfer 12 Volvo single deck buses would move from the Potteries to Leicester. Making the 3 way move creates more balanced and standardised  fleets. The 12 new Worcester vehicles are being refurbished at Thornton’s in the North East who are specialist vehicle refurbishers. In the past they overhauled Volvo 66692/3/4 that are branded for the X50 service. Around £25,000 is being spent on each vehicle with a complete internal refurbishment, a repaint in a special livery for the 144 and an upgrade to the engine emission standards to meet Euro VI requirements. The last vehicle in the batch took far longer to refurbished as Thorntons were waiting for parts. It was repainted in around March 2018 into the green livery but did not enter service at Worcester until September 2018. After the vehicles entered service all 12 were named after relevant Roman  themes and are listed below. With the withdrawal of the Catshill to Birmingham City Centre section of the route fro 24th April 2022 the vehicle requirement on the 144 so a number of the vehicles have been de-branded and or repainted into standard fleet livery.

Livery Key :  Green Urban - is a special version of the First Urban livery in shades of green  (The dates in brackets are when the vehicle was last repainted).  

Vehicle Names: 69435 - Juno,  69436 -Victoria,  69449 -Ceres,  69450 -Venus, 69451 -Sollus,  69452 -Vesta,  69453 -Mineriva, 69454 -Epania,  69455 -Auroco,  69456 -Tellus,  69459 -Diana and 69460 -Proserpina