A collection of photos illustrating styles of route branding and also interior styles used by Arriva The Shires on their buses.

Arriva the Shires became the new identity of The Shires late in 1997. This coincided with a new corporate aquamarine and cotswold stone livery replacing the old blue and yellow livery previously used.
Today Arriva the Shires covers a vast operating area including Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and parts of Essex, Berkshire, Oxfordshire and London.

During the fleet renumbering scheme in March 1997, all double decker buses were numbered into the 5xxx series. Those purchased for TfL work have made it into the 6xxx series.

Arriva the Shires became the new identity of The Shires late in 1997. This coincided with a new corporate aquamarine and cotswold stone livery replacing the old blue and yellow livery previously used.
Today Arriva the Shires covers a vast operating area including Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and parts of Essex, Berkshire, Oxfordshire and London.

During the 1997 fleet renumbering plan all minibuses were numbered into a 2xxx series. This series has recently included intakes of Optare Solos and Optare Versas, whilst 29-seat Dennis Darts have been classed as single deckers and numbered in the 3xxx series.

Arriva the Shires became the new identity of The Shires late in 1997. This coincided with a new corporate aquamarine and cotswold stone livery replacing the old blue and yellow livery previously used.
Today Arriva the Shires covers a vast operating area including Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and parts of Essex, Berkshire, Oxfordshire and London.

When the fleet was renumbered in 1997 single decker buses were allocated in the 3xxx series. However some buses have even made it into the 4xxx series, including a batch of new VDLs delivered in 2002-3, and 6 DAF SB220s acquired from other Arriva fleets.

Buses, like most things in life, do go wrong occasionally. This gallery shows pictures where I have been in the right place at the right time to witness such incidents.

Based in High Wycombe, Carousel operate an interesting variation of vehicles and services across the Chilterns area. Carousel have a two-tone red livery however certain branded services have their own liveries such as the 336 (two tone green) and the A40 (silver with red branding).

The Centrebus name first appeared in Luton after the Leicestershire-based company purchased the former Lutonian and In-Motion operations. They have grown rapidly in the area over the last few years, also purchasing Sovereign's St. Albans depot and operations from Blazefield. Centrebus have also snapped up a large number of rural contract services in Beds and Herts.
The St. Albans depot and all its vehicles and operations was transferred to Uno in the early months of 2008.
Centrebus's livery is mainly orange, with white roof and dark blue skirt, although their vehicles still carry a variety of older liveries from their previous owners.

*NOTE - Some photos of St. Albans based buses appear here after transfer of the relevant vehicles to Uno. However if the bus still carries Centrebus branding or livery at the time of photograph I have included it in this section.

Slough depot was once under London Country North West control, subsequently becoming Luton & District's most southerly depot in October 1990 when LCNW was purchased. In 1993 Slough depot and all of its (many elderly) vehicles were sold to Q-Drive (The Bee Line), later Beeline, then eventually coming under First control.

Arriva The Shires' coach services have been branded as Green Line services since 1994. Routes include the 755/757 (Luton Airport - London), 758 (Hemel Hempstead - London) and 797 (Stevenage - London). Also of interest is the 724 route from Harlow to Heathrow Airport which operates across Arriva's operating territory. The 724 is unusual for a modern day Green Line route in that it uses dual purpose buses rather than coaches, due to the fact it operates a large section of the route as a 'stopping' bus service.

In more recent times the 757 Luton Airport - London service has become a joint venture with EasyBus and Terravision. Some coaches have received full EasyBus livery, some others have received Terravision vinyls on standard Green Line livery.

Images of some of the buses used by London Luton Airport for shuttle services to the car parks and rail station.

The MK Metro name and its bold yellow and blue livery first appeared in the new city in the mid 90s when Julian Peddle took over the operations of Milton Keynes Citybus. A fairly modern fleet was built up, firstly new Mercedes Varios and later Optare Solos operated alongside a fleet of new and acquired Dennis Darts and several odd-balls. Following ownership by Julian Peddle's Status Bus group for almost 10 years MK Metro was taken over by Arriva. For the time being at least the local identity has remained, however there are still question marks over whether or not Arriva Corporate livery will eventually become the order of the day (several Arriva liveried buses transferred in are now based there).

A collection of photos of various vehicles belonging to operators not covered by any of the other collections on this site.

Includes photos of preserved buses, random photos from Showbus, and any other vehicles of interest captured by my lens whilst out and about.

Oxford Bus Company are owned by the Go-Ahead group and share operations in the University City with Stagecoach Oxford. Oxford Bus Company's current livery is a bright two-tone red. This collection features some of their current fleet, together with some former City of Oxford vehicles now preserved and owned by the Oxford Bus Museum.

A collection of photos taken from Duxford Showbus in 2007 and 2008.

Stagecoach East is the regional operating banner covering both the old United Counties and Cambus fleets.

'The Shires' bus company was formed out of the former Luton & District bus company in April 1995, following the takeover of the company by British Bus (now Arriva).
A new blue and yellow fleet livery was introduced, designed by Ray Stenning of Best Impressions. This replaced the individual red/ivory and green/grey colour schemes. In addition each depot was given its own identity, which was carried on the buses they operated. In November 1997 this livery was superseded when the Arriva corporate livery was introduced. Numerically the last bus delivered new in the blue and yellow livery was Scania 3205 (R205RBM).

Three Star Coaches are owned by former Lutonian manager Colin Dudley. Based in Luton, they operate a modern fleet of coaches, mainly on private hire and school contracts.

Uno is the current identity of Universitybus, based in Hatfield. While still maintaining a focus on the University of Herts; Uno have a strong presence on routes across Hertfordshire, some operating into surrounding counties.

In March 2008 Uno took over the St Albans City operations, buses and depot from Centrebus.

Uno's fleet livery is pink with purple relief, replacing the mainly white livery of Universitybus.