First´s Oldest

[northernrail]

Hi,
Does anyone know the oldest Bus that First opperate and what area its in.

 

[317 forever]

There is an Olympian reg B200xxx (I forget the rest of the reg) in Chester. I saw it on Saturday May 28th. There is to be an official farewell day for this and an F reg example on Saturday August 20th.

 

[anthony263]

MOD 571P , Bristol VR (Eastern Counties) which should be a good 30 years old and is with First Cymru for use on summer only open top service 1 Swansea City Centre - Braclet Bay (Mumbles).

This service runs daily except wednesdays and is due to finish at the end of august

 

[fgwrich]

MOD 571P , Bristol VR (Eastern Counties) which should be a good 30 years old and is with First Cymru for use on summer only open top service 1 Swansea City Centre - Braclet Bay (Mumbles).

This service runs daily except wednesdays and is due to finish at the end of august

But rather surprisingly, isn’t actually owned by First anymore - It's actually entered preservation, but has come back out again on Lease to First Group.

Incidentally, MOD 571P was also the VR which, until last year, was on the Weymouth to Portland open topper services...Now, just as Cornwall & the new North Devon Atlantic 8 route is, is now in the hands of converted open top ex Volvo City Buses - mostly ex Somerset...

 

[northwichcat]

There is an Olympian reg B200xxx (I forget the rest of the reg) in Chester.

I saw one of those in Huddersfield, it had been painted yellow as a designated school bus.

 

[tbtc]

This makes our N reg B10Ls/ Olympians at First South Yorkshire seem positively youthful!

 

[northwichcat]

This makes our N reg B10Ls/ Olympians at First South Yorkshire seem positively youthful!

I think it's a bit of a postcode lottery with First Bus. One area with a relatively small fleet tends to get it's entire fleet replaced with new buses, while another with a large fleet tends to get cascades from the smaller fleets.

 

[Class172]

There are some really old ones sitting in the Worcester Depot (D reg or something) but there are some new ones also. It's a bit of a random mix there.

 

[90019]

The oldest I'm aware of in Stirling are a few P reg Olympians.
The majority of the Stirling fleet seems to be 2 different buses though;
The older ones are a mix of Scanias with Wrightbus bodies, IIRC mostly N113 with Pathfinder, L113 with Axcess-Ultralow and L94 with Axcess-Floline.
The newer ones are Wright Solars, I think they're mostly L94s, not sure if they have any K series ones.
There's a load of other stuff kicking about, but they seem to make up most of the fleet.

There are some Scania Omnidekkas too, with a few of them branded for the Unilink.

 

[BestWestern]

I think it's a bit of a postcode lottery with First Bus. One area with a relatively small fleet tends to get it's entire fleet replaced with new buses, while another with a large fleet tends to get cascades from the smaller fleets.

First like to get their money's worth out of their motors, unlike many larger operators they rarely sell anything on for further use, instead running them until they are life expired (sometimes several times over! ). So you will always get certain areas where they send all the old stuff to see out it's last few years, usually areas where they are under no pressure to introduce any particular quality measures. Weymouth is an example, plenty of old stuff down there. Equally, other fleets are kept specced up in order to impress or pacify the local authorities, e.g. Bristol with it's ranks of shiny newish buses. It seems unfair, and indeed it probably is, but it sort of makes sense!

 

[matchmaker]

The oldest I'm aware of in Stirling are a few P reg Olympians.
The majority of the Stirling fleet seems to be 2 different buses though;
The older ones are a mix of Scanias with Wrightbus bodies, IIRC mostly N113 with Pathfinder, L113 with Axcess-Ultralow and L94 with Axcess-Floline.
The newer ones are Wright Solars, I think they're mostly L94s, not sure if they have any K series ones.
There's a load of other stuff kicking about, but they seem to make up most of the fleet.

There are some Scania Omnidekkas too, with a few of them branded for the Unilink.

A few Darts as well (P reg?) - used to be used mostly on the 51/52, but since that service was withdrawn/merged they seem to be anywhere!