Dennis Dart

40068/72/86/8/92/3/6  J901/5SEH, K919/21/5/6/9XRF .

Over the weekend of the 15th and 16th May 2004 First Wyvern acquired a number of surplus Dennis Dart vehicles from First PMT. First PMT had had problems with maintenance following which the company was been forced to withdraw bus services in the Stoke on Trent area by the Traffic Commissioner when he reduced the number of vehicles that they could operate. The vehicles acquired by First Wyvern belong to a batch of 29 purchased new by PMT (901-29) J901-18SHE, K919-29XRF in 1991/2. All the vehicles are fitted with 35 full coach seats and have Plaxton 9-metre long bodies. All five vehicles were initially stored at  Worcester before preparation for service. A sixth vehicle J901SEH arrived from First PMT on Thursday 3rd June 2004. The vehicle had just been repainted into Barbie2 livery. Towards the end of February 2005 a further vehicle from the original PMT batch of vehicles arrived at Worcester in the shape of K921XRF from First West Yorkshire. This extra vehicle is one of two Darts collected by First Wyvern staff. Both vehicles broke down en-route to Worcester the first made it as far as Stoke and was left on the M6 for First PMT engineers to recover and has yet to arrive at Worcester and the second, K921KRF, got all the way to Worcester before breaking down about 2 miles from the depot and was recovered by Worcester engineering staff. The second vehicle never arrived from First West Yorkshire. 

Livery Key :  Barbie2 - Non low floor corporate Firstgroup livery known as "Barbie2", Barbie 3 - is the new corporate Firstgroup livery for all vehicles which is a modified version of the original Barbie livery  (The dates in brackets are when the vehicle was repainted).

40245, 40261/8/84 M101RRJ N629/37/52CDB  

During 1995 GM Buses North purchased a mixture of step entrance Dennis Dart and Volvo B6 based vehicles. GM Buses had been formed out of GM Buses which itself was the arms length company formed by Greater Manchester PTE at de-regulation in October 1986. GM Buses was purchased by its management on December 13 1993 and was sold to First Group who created First Manchester out of it in March 1996. 40268 was part of a 26 vehicle order which were registered M101-6RRJ, N619-38CDB of 39 seat Northern Counties bodied Dennis Darts. Three of these vehicles represent a departure for Dennis Darts for First Midland Red as up to now all operated have had Plaxton or Alexandra Dennis Pointer bodies. 

46103  K903CVW

K903CVW was new to first Thamesway as 903 in August 1993 for use on the London Regional Transport tendered service 214. The vehicle was part of a batch of 17 similar vehicles all 35-seaters with Plaxton Pointer bodies (K901-17CVW (901-17)). The majority of the vehicles are still with what is now First Essex but the first five K901-5CVW have been transferred to other group operators such as First London and First Western National. K903CVW ended up with First Northampton who gave it the fleet number 693 though it finally arrived with First Wyvern in August 2003 following a period with First Leicester. K903CVW has been given the fleet number 314 by First Wyvern and was repainted into Barbie2 livery during September 2003 and the vehicle entered service at Kidderminster garage. With the introduction of the national vehicle numbering scheme the vehicle were put into the 461xx series of numbers.

Livery Key :  Barbie 2 - Non low floor corporate Firstgroup livery known as "Barbie2" (The dates in brackets are when the vehicle was last repainted)

During the first week of July 2004 First Wyvern started to acquire a number of Plaxton bodied Dennis Darts from First Berkshire N829/30/32FLW arrived at Worcester on 7th July 2004 and N831FLW arrived the day after. All four vehicles are currently in store at Worcester Garage. The vehicles are part of a batch of 32 buses which were new to Centrewest in London in 1995. The batch was N801-32FLW (DP1-32). On withdrawal from service in London the vehicles were cascaded to a number of provincial First group companies including PMT, Mainline, Bristol and Beeline (now Berkshire). Of the 32 vehicles in the batch N818-32FLW were allocated to First Berkshire and they had the fleet numbers DP218-32 respectively in that fleet before the adoption of the national fleet number system in February 2004. Whist the vehicles have national fleet numbers these are displayed on blues in a non-standard font and size. They also retain the DP (Dennis Plaxton) pre-fix. After preparation for service and a repaint into corporate Barbie2 livery 46831 entered service at Kidderminster on 1st September 2004.

Livery Key :  Barbie 2 - Non low floor corporate Firstgroup livery known as "Barbie2" Barbie 3 - is the new corporate Firstgroup livery for all vehicles which is a modified version of the original Barbie livery (The dates in brackets are when the vehicle was repainted) 

During the early 1990’s Midland Red West built up a network of subsidised bus services in Shropshire which were operated from their Kidderminster Garage together with a number of outstations in such places as Bishops Castle, Ludlow and Bridgnorth. These routes were initially operated by a mixture of Leyland Nationals, Leopards and Mercedes Minibuses. To meet the requirements of Shropshire County Council it was decided to purchase 14 Dennis Darts. Thirteen which were built to DPTAC standard plus a fourteenth built to the then new low floor standard. To evaluate the Dennis Dart vehicle type a demonstrator vehicle M284HRH was operated during March 1995. The 13 Darts N301-13XAB were delivered in August 1995 and entered service from Kidderminster Garage in August/September 1995. As part of a total review of the Company’s operations in April 1997 the majority of the routes in Shropshire were withdrawn and Darts 301-12 were transferred to Redditch to replace the majority of the Mercedes 608 minibuses at that Garage. By August 2000 all 13 vehicles were running from Redditch Garage and to combat vandalism problems the vehicles were re-seated from DP36F to DP35F. This was done by turning the last double seat on the offside to face backwards and removing the last near-side double seat, filling the space with a single seat (taken from a withdrawn Mercedes L608D) that faces inwards. With the introduction of the 22/24 services between Stratford and Chipping Norton Evesham Garage had a requirement for three Dennis Lances so three Redditch Darts 311-313 moved to Hereford/Kidderminster Garages in exchange for 3 Dennis Lances for Evesham Garage. The seating capacities of the Dart proved a problem at Hereford so three Dennis Darts 309/10/12 were swapped in late 2001/early 2002 for the three former Midland Red Dennis Lances (218-220) First Cymru had acquired in 1997. From January 2003 all the remaining 10 Darts from the N301-313XAB batch were reallocated to Hereford Garage. However during June 2003 306 and 307 were reallocated to other garages.

Livery Key :  Barbie2 - Non low floor corporate Firstgroup livery known as "Barbie2" & Barbie 3 - is the new corporate Firstgroup livery for all vehicles which is a modified version of the original Barbie livery (The dates in brackets are when the vehicle was repainted) Note N310XAB should have been renumbered 47010 and not 47070 but the latter number had already been allocated to a low floor dart in the First Devon and Cornwall fleet