First Berkshire & The Thames Valley
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 A First Berkshire & The Thames Valley Scania L94UB/Wright Axcess-Floline in Camberley on route 194. |
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| Parent | First Group |
| Founded | Various |
| Service area | Bracknell Slough Wokingham in England. |
| Service type | Bus |
| Routes | 36 |
| Fleet | 118 |
| Fuel type | diesel |
| Website | http://www.firstgroup.com |
First Berkshire & The Thames Valley is a bus operator serving Bracknell, Slough and Wokingham, in England. It is part of First Group, a major bus and train operator with a turnover of nearly £2.5 billion a year and 62,000 employees across the UK and North America. The division operates around 120 vehicles and employs 300 staff.
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History [edit]
First Berkshire & The Thames Valley was previously the Berks Bucks Bus Company,[1] trading as the Beeline, one of the successor companies to Alder Valley, privatised in 1987. The business originally operated in High Wycombe, Reading and Newbury, as well as its current area, and was owned by a group called Q-Drive. In 1990 the High Wycombe operations were sold to the Oxford Bus Company, and in 1992 the Reading and Newbury operations were purchased by Reading Transport - which still operates them.
In 1993 Beeline bought the Slough operations of Luton & District Transport, until 1986 the Slough depot of London Country Bus Services and later part of the London Country North West division.
Beeline was sold in 1999 to First, who renamed the company First Beeline Buses Ltd.[2]
First Group took the decision to corporately brand their services in 2001/2, and First Beeline took the trading name of First Berkshire & The Thames Valley.[2]
Services [edit]
The company currently operates just under 30 services, operating most of the town services in Bracknell, Slough and Wokingham, as well as services to surrounding areas such as Heathrow Airport, High Wycombe, Reading. The company was previously the dominant operator in Maidenhead, but town services there were abandoned in 2004 and are now run by Courtney Buses.[3]
As well as normal First branded services, there are five specially branded groups of routes. Some routes to Heathrow Airport are run with blue "Heathrow 7 Series" Mercedes-Benz Citaros. Some of these are newer (2007) buses, some are from 2003 which were originally in a silver livery in a standard BAA template, all are now blue. Similarly, some routes in Slough are branded as "Slough Trading Estate Hoppa", and use red liveried Optare Solos (these were previously purple and branded as "Linx"). The Legoland Shuttle is run with yellow buses in Legoland graphics.
A new service, route 100, started on 2 June 2012, linking tourist destinations close to Windsor.
Coach services are also run under different brands. The Reading to Heathrow RailAir service uses "RailAir" branded services, and routes 701 and 702 use Green Line-liveried vehicles.[4]
Other services [edit]
First Berkshire & The Thames Valley operates American Bluebird school buses from an outstation in Chertsey for schools around Runnymede.
The company also used to operate Ride Pegasus!, a larger scheme run under contract to Surrey Country Council from an outstation in Merrow, Guildford. This stopped running in July 2010 after the council cut the funding for the scheme.[5][6]
Depots [edit]
Fleet summary [edit]
First Berkshire has a fleet of about 120 vehicles:[7]
| Chassis | Count | Body type | Image(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Volvo B7R | 1 | Plaxton Profile | |
| Volvo B12B | 3 | Plaxton Panther | |
| Volvo B9R | 4 | Plaxton Panther 2 | |
| Volvo B7TL | 1 | Wright Eclipse Gemini | |
| Volvo B9TL | 3 | Wright Eclipse Gemini | |
| Volvo B9TL | 3 | Wright Eclipse Gemini 2 | |
| Volvo Olympian | 0 - now withdrawn, and possibly sold. | ||
| Scania K114IB4 | 8 | Irizar Century | |
| Dennis Trident 2 | 13 | Plaxton President | |
| Dennis Dart SLF | 8 | Marshall Capital | |
| Dennis Dart SLF | 13 | Alexander ALX200 | |
| Dennis Dart SLF | 2 | Plaxton Pointer | |
| Optare Solo | 6 | ||
| Scania L94UB | 9 | Wright Axcess-Floline | |
| Scania L94UB | 1 | Wright Axcess-Ultralow | |
| Scania L94UB | 3 | Wright Solar | |
| American Bluebird A3RE | 8 | ||
| Mercedes-Benz Citaro | 30 | ||
| BMC 1100 | 1 | ||
| Ford Transit | 2 | ||
| Ford Fiesta | 2 |
See also [edit]
References [edit]
- ^ Companies House webcheck Company number 2179403 Archived 1 January 2011 at WebCite
- ^ a b Bus Zone - "First Beeline and Berkshire & The Thames Valley". Retrieved 30 April 2008. Archived 1 January 2011 at WebCite
- ^ Courtney Coaches - About Us Archived 1 January 2011 at WebCite
- ^ First Berkshire & The Thames Valley - Timetables Accessed 30 April 2008 Archived 1 January 2011 at WebCite
- ^ First Berkshire & The Thames Valley - "About us". Retrieved 30 April 2008. Archived 1 January 2011 at WebCite
- ^ Surrey County Council - Access Buses Accessed 10 May 2008[dead link]
- ^ Williams, Robert (26 March 2012). "First Berkshire Fleet List" (Excel spreadsheet). Bus Zone. Retrieved 27 March 2012.
External links [edit]
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: First Berkshire & The Thames Valley |
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