First South Yorkshire
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First South Yorkshire is a large bus operator in South Yorkshire, England. As a division of FirstGroup the company's legal name was, for a time, Mainline which operated it between 1993 and 1998, following the sale South Yorkshire Transport (SYT) to its employees.
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[edit] History
SYT was eventually sold to its employees in 1993, and it became Mainline Group Limited. This led to a complete rebranding and new livery in bright Yellow and further fare rises with a clear emphasis on profit. It was bought by First Group in 1998, at first operating as First Mainline but now operating as First South Yorkshire.
SYT's head office was moved from SYPTE's HQ in Exchange Street, Sheffield to Amos Road in Meadowhall and at the time of the company's formation its central works was located on Queens Road in Sheffield, although this later closed. Under First ownership, Herries Road, Leadmill Road, Greenland Road and recently, Halfway garages have all been closed with only the East Bank Road garage remaining in Sheffield. The head office is now based at Midland Road garage in Rotherham.
As at the end of 2007, most traces of the old SYT and PTE ownership are long gone with the last of the SYT purchased vehicles due to be withdrawn and replaced by First Group standard order vehicles over the next couple of years.
[edit] Mainline
Under SYT, Mainline began as a trade name for the main routes, starting in Sheffield in 1989. Buses traded with Sheffield Mainline in a bright red and yellow livery, replacing the beige/red livery used before. It was followed by Doncaster Mainline in a silver grey and red livery relieved by a light yellow band and finally Rotherham Mainline, whose buses ran in blue and yellow. In 1992 the locality was dropped from the logo when Mainline became the fleetname, the livery based on the former Sheffield Mainline red and yellow, but silver and blue bands were added. Mainline operated most bus services in South Yorkshire over that time (thanks in the main to the former monopoly position of SYT), though other operators such as Leon Motors, Wilfreda Beehive, Andrew's of Sheffield and Yorkshire Terrier operated some services. The company was generally popular with passengers, and boasted an extensive network with low fares and modern vehicles. Mainline was sold to its employees in 1993, though Stagecoach bought a 20% stake in the company not long after. This had to be sold off in 1995, at which point the newly created FirstBus took the 20%.
[edit] First Mainline
Mainline was taken over by First Group in 1998, and became First Mainline. A simplified livery of just red and yellow was introduced, reminiscent of the original 1989 Sheffield Mainline livery. The name was altered again to First South Yorkshire. Since about 2000, vehicles began being repainted in First Group corporate livery (nicknamed "Barbie"). There are three versions of the "Barbie": Barbie 1 was the main corporate livery, Barbie 2 was a livery intended for buses pre 1998 but this livery is being slowly phased out and Barbie 3 is a revised version of Barbie 1.
[edit] Fleet
First received a large batch of Volvo B10BLEs in 1999 as well as a number of Volvo B7Ls (most from First Manchester) and B7TLs between 2002-2004; most of these were however allocated to Sheffield, where 10 Volvo B7TLs/Wright Eclipse Gemini also entered service during summer 2006. Secondhand Volvo Olympians (Northern Counties) have recently been cascaded from London.
First has invested £6.4 million in 38 new double-decker buses[1]. Twenty Volvo B9TL/Wright Eclipse Gemini double-decker buses arrived to upgrade the X78 route to low-floor operation; these new buses entered service on 1 June 2007. All twenty buses are now based at Rotherham Midland Road Garage although previously they were to be shared with Doncaster Leger Way depot. Doncaster, however, is due the remaining 18 of these buses in late 2007/early 2008. These are likely to operate services 50, 55 and 78 as part of the Woodlands to Rossington Quality Bus Corridor.
Dennis Dominators were the main double deckers in the fleet with over 300 at one time. These have steadly been withdrawn and the last ran in service on 26 July 2006. A large number of Volvo B10Ms with Alexander PS bodywork (new to Mainline) are still in service although some of the older ones have been converted to driver training buses, some of the others are still in service while the rest are operating in Scotland with First Glasgow, and a large batch of the newest ones were recently cascaded to Glasgow. Step entrance Volvo B6 and Dennis Dart buses still operate and were in the process of being withdrawn, although were brought back into service to replace B10Ms.
[edit] Criticism
First were criticised for raising fares four times in 2005[2], raising the cost of a 5-10 minute journey to £1.60 as of February 2007, as well as for cutting a number of services. Referring to low passenger numbers in an interview, First South Yorkshire's managing director Gary Nolan said that on some routes his drivers were, "carting fresh air about," and as such it was uneconomical to maintain current service levels.
The company has also drawn critisism from national journalists who launched an investigation into why First introduced several price rises in just two years whilst regional competitors such as Arriva and Stagecoach managed to cap their fare rises. The group's then financial director Nicola Shaw attributed the increases in fares to rising oil prices, despite the fact that in on press releases the group has said that it had hedged all of its fuel purchases to off-set the rising cost of oil.
They have also been criticised for the seating comfort of newer vehicles and for withdrawing the 'bendibus' from the roads of Sheffield. The company later went on to explain that the vehicles had been withdrawn 'due to their mileage', but were later found to be in service at both Bristol airport and in Bath.
The company has suffered from poor industrial relations with drivers striking on many occasions due to pay and working conditions. In such strikes management have attempted to run a skeleton service by driving the buses themselves.
[edit] References
- ^ First Investing £6.4 million In New Buses For Region First South Yorkshire website (Retrieved 6 April 2007)
- ^ Fares up Sheffield Today by the Sheffield Star (Retrieved 29 October 2005)
[edit] See also
- South Yorkshire Transport
- South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive
- Doncaster Corporation Transport
- Sheffield Transport
[edit] External links
- First South Yorkshire
- South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive
- Travel South Yorkshire Public transport information for South Yorkshire
- Bus Photos Of First South Yorkshire Buses
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