Prepared on Notepad by Ian Smith,
This page created 8th May 2000, updated 19th October 2005
This page created 8th May 2000, updated 19th October 2005
County Bus, in the old London Country North-East area,
acquired some Metrobuses from Leaside Buses in 1997
for use on its Lea Valley services, including the 310.
It also received some of the Grey-Green buses.
They were repainted in a nice red and pale cream livery (including Cowie stripes),
with Lea Valley branding, and initially numbered in a separate M series.
Arriva East Herts & Essex has continued to buy second-hand buses,
and uses some - based at Ware - on the 310/311 services from Hertford,
in "outer London" Arriva livery of red with deep ice-cream scoop.
The end came in early 2003, when Arriva London's Olympians became available to displace the Ware Metrobuses, and by March they had all gone to Ensign Bus for resale.
The old London & Country company received some of Arriva's South London cast-offs during 1999 and 2000,
and painted them in their national turquoise and champagne livery.
Early arrivals were converted to single doorway and internally refurbished,
but the drivers still referred to them as the buses from the scrap-heap.
But even the use of clapped-out Metrobuses couldn't make Surrey bus operations pay the kind of return demanded by Arriva, and in spring 2001 they took their ball away: Surrey would have to make do without them. A last brief fling in Surrey was their hire to Metrobus, who took over at Crawley: thirteen received Metrobus fleetnumbers for the brief hire during April 2001, until Metrobus' replacements arrived.
Below: A few days later it was the turn of M520. Both are refugees from South London.
Arriva characteristically found something to do with the old Metrobuses. Having been forced by the regulator to divest themselves of the Gillmoss depot and workings acquired when they took over MTL on Merseyside, they sold it off together with the dumped Metrobuses from Surrey.
May 1999 saw Blue Triangle take on a London tendered route with Metrobuses (at first).
The 474 (Canning Town Stn - North Woolwich - East Beckton)
was operated with Metrobuses both in the red and cream livery,
but also some in mainly red with cream bands.
Apart from its bus resale business,
Ensign also uses some licensed stock on rail replacement and other contract work.
From time to time it has expanded into local bus operations.
Thus it was the source of Capital Citybus, which grew out of the successful Ensignbus operations at deregulation.
More recently it grew the Ensignbus fleet again on local tendered routes,
including routes 324 and 348 between Romford and the new large
out-of-town shopping developments at Lakeside and Bluewater, taken over in February 1999.
Metrobuses featured largely on these routes, appearing in a nice blue and silver livery,
some with route-branding (for BOTH routes).
Ten months later, in December 1999, their local bus operations were again sold...
T&C returned a number of the Metrobuses to Ensign Bus in early 2000. Others were repainted into two-tone blue. Town & Country then disposed of much of the acquired business to Arriva, including the 324 and 348, and returned to much the size that it was before.
However, the Jubilee line has proved reliable, and the standby fleet has been stood down, before someone could ask awkward questions in the House about the Dome absorbing precious bus-drivers in a time of shortage. (Besides which, the fleet was needed elsewhere, like providing a local train-replacement service on the Hatfield and Hertford lines following the October 2000 rail crash).
Bus Stop
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Part 4: Trainers.
bus histories.
photo refs.