Lancashire United

Lancashire United is a bus operator, running services in the boroughs of Blackburn, Hyndburn and the Ribble Valley. It is a subsidiary of Transdev Blazefield.

History
In April 2001 Stagecoach sold its East Lancashire operations to the Blazefield Travel. Soon after the business was split in two. The Blackburn, Bolton, Clitheroe and Hyndburn became Lancashire United and the remainder Burnley & Pendle.

Investment commenced in new vehicles almost immediately, with the first of 30 new Wright Renown bodied Volvo B10BLEs arriving in September 2001.

A number of service revisions followed with many marginal services withdrawn and a number of school contracts were terminated. Much of this work, mainly contracted to Lancashire County Council, was picked up by Northern Blue. A focus was then made on developing high quality trunk routes, namely the 152, 225 & Hyndburn Circulars. Also later the X1.

In 2002, the Bolton garage was sold on to independent operator Blue Bus. The contracted services in the Clitheroe area were relinquished and the garage was sold to a housing developer. Most of the Clitheroe contracted work passed to Northern Blue.

In January 2006 Lancaster United was included in the sale of Blazefield Travel to Transdev. Unlike the other Transdev Blazefield subsidiaries it retains it pre-acquisition trading name.

In January 2007 Blackburn Transport was purchased from Blackburn with Darwen Council with 130 buses followed in August 2007 by Accrington Transport and Northern Blue of Burnley with 65 buses. In September 2009 Transdev Northern Blue was integrated into Transdev Burnley & Pendle. In March 2008, Lancashire United took over the Accrington local bus network from Accrington Transport.

This resulted in Clitheroe services being reacquired by Lancashire United for a second time through the Northern Blue takeover, however these ceased to be operated in June 2008.

Spot On
Following the acquisition of Blackburn Transport, both its services and Lancashire United's Hyndburn Circular routes were combined and branded as 'Spot On', the service was launched on 14 May 2007 with a fleet of 25 brand new single deck buses ., as of 2 September 2013 this brand has been confined to just two routes in Blackburn.

Lancashire United
The majority of routes operate under the Lancashire United name to Bolton, Clitheroe, Chorley, Burnley, Preston and Skipton and On 2 April 2011 Transdev lost the contract to routes C1 and 241.

The Lancashire Way
Express services between Blackburn, Hyndburn, Haslingden and Manchester, with certain morning journeys from Whalley and Great Harwood

The Hyndburn Connect
Launched on 2 September 2013, Hyndburn Circular services 6 and 7 that link Blackburn with Oswaldtwistle, Accrington, Clayton-Le-Moors, Great Harwood and Rishton, a new Hyndburn Connect ticket was also introduced to replace the Spot On Hyndburn ticket and buses received branding for this service.

The Outer Circle
The Blackburn Outer Circle is a circular service that connects schools, hospitals, and leisure opportunities around the edge of the town. It was started by Blackburn Borough Transport in 1980 as the 50 (clockwise) and the 51 (anticlockwise). The Transport Department did not register the service for commercial operation, and after deregulation, it became one of several routes in the area won by GM buses on a nil tender basis. GM buses found out that these services were not as profitable as they had imagined and pulled out of the area entirely, on 26 January 1987 the route was returned to Blackburn Transport, who re-instated Leyland Atlantean double-deckers to operate the service. At the next round of tenders, the services passed to Ribble, who operated it using Leyland Olympians from Preston's Frenchwood garage, The route again reverted to Blackburn Transport using Optare Metroriders, the route was then renumbered as Track 5 with an A or C suffix denoting direction of travel.

In March 2006 the route became The OC and used Volvo Olympians which received a purple and orange livery with route branding, the vehicles and branding were retained on takeover by Lancashire united.

Hyndburn Circular
This was a circular service that connected Blackburn with the towns of Rishton, Clayton-le-Moors, Great Harwood, Oswaldtwistle and Accrington in the district of Hyndburn, the service was taken over from Stagecoach Ribble's Blackburn depot in 2001 and shortly after a brand new fleet were purchased and carried branding for this service. From May 2007 the service was part of the Spot On network. September 2013 saw the routes rebranded as The Hyndburn Connect

The X1
The X1 was a semi-express route linking Clitheroe, Whalley and Accrington with Manchester. The route was for a time operated by a fleet of route branded Volvo Olympians and won a number of awards. The X1 and associated X2 were replaced with the X40/X41 service running between Blackburn, Accrington & Manchester. Route 241 was created for passengers between Clitheroe and Accrington, however this route has since passed in and out of the company's control a number of times. A very limited number of journeys still commence at Great Harwood.

The Whalley Ranger
This service was introduced in late 2009 following customer requests after two years of the Whalley Range area being unserved by bus, the route used specially branded buses and operated every 10 minutes with a flat single fare of £1, on 14 June 2010 the service was extended to serve Openshaw Drive to replace Spot On route 24, with the frequency reduced to every 15 minutes and period tickets became valid. It was announced on 16 November 2010 that this service was to be withdrawn due to low patronage, the last service operated on 24 December 2010.

Route 124
This route was renumbered '2' on 2 September 2013 and now operates as a through service from Chorley to Blackburn, Blackburn Hospital and Darwen.

Route 225
Route 225 was a long established route which ran from Clitheroe to Bolton via Whalley, Blackburn & Darwen. The route was taken over from Stagecoach Ribble in 2001 and a new fleet of route branded low floor buses operated it. As of 16 September 2012 this route was divided into two separate services with all buses now terminating in Blackburn Town Centre. The Blackburn to Clitheroe section has been renumbered as Route 22 and the Blackburn to Bolton section has become Route 1 which has subsequently replaced Spot On 1.

Spot on 1
As of 16 September 2012 this route was divided into two separate services replacing the Spot On branding from this route, renumbered as Route 41 to operate alongside the X41 between Blackburn to Accrington and the Blackburn to Darwen section becoming Route 1, buses every 20 minutes extended to Bolton.

Fleet
As at October the fleet consisted of 97 buses.

Fleet history
When Lancashire United took over Stagecoach Ribble in April 2001, the fleet was predominantly made up of aging buses. These included double-decker models such as Bristol VRs and Leyland Atlanteans and single-decker models such as Leyland Lynxs and Leyland Nationals. The new company also inherited a couple of Plaxton Pointer bodied Dennis Darts and Mercedes-Benz Vario minibuses at the Clitheroe depot. By September 2001, most of these had been replaced by more modern Leyland Olympians, more Leyland Lynxs and the first of 30 new Wright Renown bodied Volvo B10BLEs.

Whilst the Leyland Olympians and Volvo B10BLEs remained with the company for years, other models were bought and sold, mainly middle aged versions at the time. Included were Dennis Darts, Volvo Olympians and some other Volvo single-deckers, many cascaded from Blazefield's other operations in Yorkshire.

New bus orders
In 2007 Lancashire United took delivery of 25 Wright Eclipse bodied Volvo B7RLEs, these were painted in a white and sandy gold livery, with purple Spot On brandings for routes 6 and 7 and a deeper shade of purple for route 1. These were originally destined for Burnley & Pendle, but due to the acquisition of Blackburn Transport they were diverted to Lancashire United.

Depots
Lancashire United operated two depots, the former Blackburn Transport depot and the former Stagecoach Ribble Motor Services depot. The latter was closed in 2011 with operations consolidated at the former.

Current liveries
Lancashire United's original livery was cream with blue and red stripes with a swoop towards the back and a black skirt in standard Blazefield style, many buses in this livery carried route branding such as Route 152, 225 and the Hyndburn Circular, in recent years the vehicles started to receive various new liveries, the majority of Lancashire United's buses can now be recognized in a wide variety of liveries.

As of September 2010 following the introduction of the new eight Optare Tempos, the interurban fleet received the new Lancashire United livery of blue and yellow with most buses receiving route branding.


 * Lancashire United - This new style livery consists of yellow and blue with a distinctive red rose swooping up along the curve, the livery also carries a new Lancashire United logo, The new Optare Tempos were the first to carry this livery with route branding for route 225, the fleet is now being standardized into this livery replacing both the Spot On and The Lancashire Way liveries. Some vehicles now carry The Hyndburn Connect branding for routes 6 & 7.


 * School buses - Older double-decker buses used on school and college services carry an all-yellow livery scheme.


 * Eclipse Driver Training - white with blue and yellow stripes

Former liveries
A small number of double-deckers inherited from the now defunct Blackburn Transport still retain the old two-tone green and cream livery and the green and yellow Schools+ livery while two still wear the purple and orange Outer Circle livery, the colour-scheme is now gradually disappearing.


 * Spot On - Predominantly white, with sandy brown skirts and wear Spot On branding, the livery features lifestyle pictures of passengers advertising attractive features of the service on the back of the buses. They originally carried varying colours of each route they operate, however since the overhaul of services in February 2009 most of the Spot on branded buses had their coloured route brandings removed, As of August 2011 new version of this livery had been applied to the buses, however due to services changes this livery is now being replaced with the new Lancashire United livery.


 * Urban Cool - This was a new school livery for Lancashire, however, due to funding problems, they scrapped the idea, and have stuck with yellow double deckers.


 * The Whalley Ranger - This consisted of a predominant white, orange skirt and branding.


 * The Ribble Valley Express -This livery consisted of a predominantly white with a large crimson circle with route listing below the windows and Ribble Valley Express logo above the skirt this livery was replaced by the new Lancashire United livery.


 * The Lancashire Way - In Similar style to Burnley & Pendles The Witch Way but with a distinctive red Lancashire rose and white stripes rather than silver, Each bus running The Lancashire Way is named, this is now being replaced by the standard Lancashire United livery with The Lancashire Way branding.