Rotherham Depot Visit

As you will have previously read, i ventured to Rotherham on Sunday to collect Yarmouth AEC Swift 85 with Chris Speed and Danny Beales. 85 was prepared for her return by First's commercial until at their Midland Road premises in South Yorkshire. The unit carries out work for the whole of Firstgroup including Repaints, Refurbishment, Accident Repairs and servicing.

30888 all rubbed down ready to have its new Lowestoft Corporation colours applied.

First Eastern Counties have the majority of vehicles being worked on at present at the facility with six of the fleet currently in for various reasons. Yarmouth has two ALX400's there with 32062 waiting to have DDA work and repaint into the new livery whilst sister 32059 is undergoing the same work but gaining Great Yarmouth Transport colours similar to Swift 85, we did get a sneak peak and i can confirm it is now Blue!. 30888 is going to be transformed into Lowestoft's Heritage vehicle and as you can see from the photo it is awaiting its turn in the paintshop. Norwich had 32100 there for Seat tests and 33152 has arrived for repaint into full Purple line livery.

33152 having the first of its panels worked on prior to repaint.

Recently repainted Coach 20514 is also at Rotherham having a full internal refurb which includes new flooring and seating, it has had all the seats removed and the new flooring is currently being fitted. A couple of First Manchester Citaros were also noted plus one of their Scania Bendibus fleet 12007 YN05GYE which was due to have work done on its axles.

A View inside Midland Road Depot showing some of Rotherham's operational Fleet.

Rotherham has a PVR of over 100 buses at present, with around 30 vehicles in use on Sunday which meant most of the fleet were visible to us on our visit, the majority of the fleet here are Wright bodied single decks with Geminis and ALX400 making up the double deck selection, the newest vehicles are Wright bodied Streetlites and there is a single Wright Streetdeck Double Deck in the shape of 35101 SN64CSF. Rotherham also has  Enviro 400MMC YX64VOO on trail, that was noted as we arrived working the X78 service to Sheffield.

Streetdeck 35101 has a day off, lucky for us!

A very interesting insight into what goes on at Rotherham, once again thanks to Chris & Danny for inviting me along and also to all the staff at Midland Road for making us welcome and allowing us to have a good look around.

Grahame.