First - TOC Domination?

[slipdigby]

Yes in Sheffield they are pretty frequent. Mainly the Overground services, The 41 and 52 are the most regular services running about 6 mins between one another, most of the time even closer. The 52 service was even 24 hours at one point, but I think they recently stopped that.

Why do the busses say Overground on? I only ask as I am yet to see a bus which travels underground.

The Overground network idea is a rather clever in my view take on the concept of a metro ("Underground") network, operating at high frequency. The maps of First's Overground network mirror the style of a Tube map, with routes being colour branded ala London (Met, purple, Northern, Black, etc). For ease of identification, the buses used on Overground routes are also (or are supposed to be ) colour branded to match the routes they operate upon.

Funnily enough there are bus tunnels about.

http://transit.metrokc.gov/tops/bus/tunnel.html

Slip

[alex2008]

Cheers Slip, come to think of it they are colour coordinated, still in Firsts Okay purple pink and grey bus livery but with colour coordinated stripes. Think they were running out of colours when they got to the 'Indio' line.

Interesting quote from the above link too:

Riding Metro Transit is free between 6 a.m. and 7 p.m. in Downtown Seattle.

Who said everything in America was biased toward the car?

[leviathan1949]

Thanks for the link Slip, I have been in this bus tunnel. It is impressive.
The single decker buses are of the articulated type and use dual power capability. Running from the suburbs, they use an onboard diesel engine. When they reach the tunnel access points they shut down the diesel engine, raise the pantograph (power poles) and run through the tunnel on electric power. The inside is excellent, clean, marble faced and very busy during the day with buses arriving / leaving almost every 15 seconds.

[ASIcl43]

I saw pictures of the underground 'bus' stops. The stops look more like metro stations!!

[philandchris]

First Group Oerate 3000 Yellow School Buses in North America
as well as the Bus and Rail operations in the UK

First Transpennine Express are taking over the running of the Virgin X Country services from Man Piccadilly through to Glasgow Central sometime later this year either using Pennine 185's or possibly the Class 180's that are very close to finishing with First Great Western.

GBRF 66's have now got a revised First livery same as the Class 175's and Class 180's have.

All Class 175's have now finished with TPE on the Blackpool North,Barrow and Windermere services they are now operated by the new 185's.

9 Class 170's from Southwest Trains are soon to be joining TPE for use on it's Manchester Airport - Piccadilly and Stations to Hull services to allow 185's to switched over to other routes on the network.

First bus operations are alos seeing alot of changes with most of the present buses being replaced by new Low floor buses as we say @ First - Transforming Travel.

Chris

[yj03ppv]

What do our friends at Wessex Trains get? Just more shoddy 158s FTPEx doesn't want and a load of cancelled services...

[buffy500]

Funnily enough there are bus tunnels about.

There's one in Brisbaine too, but I dont think they had any flashy buses to go with it.