Omsi 2 tour (806) NXWM 904 Sutton Coldfield - Birmingham @ London First Volvo B9TL 10.5m
First London was a bus company operating services in
Greater London, England. It was a subsidiary of FirstGroup and operated buses under contract to
Transport for London. It was formed in the late
1990s through the acquisition of three
London bus operators. First London's garages were sold off between
December 2007 and July
2013 with the last closing in
September 2013.
Company history[edit]
Northern Counties Palatine II bodied
Volvo Olympian on
158 at
Stratford bus station in July
2000
Alexander ALX400 bodied
Dennis Trident 2 on route 10 at
Marble Arch in
October 2007 painted in the "willow leaf" livery introduced in
1999 and used until 2013
FirstGroup was formed as FirstBus on 16 May
1995, through the merger of Badgerline and the
GRT Group.[1]
Although what became First London was established in
1997, FirstBus could trace its involvement in London bus services back to
1990 when Badgerline acquired
Eastern National, the
Essex based former
National Bus Company subsidiary that had operated numerous routes in
East London since tendering began in
1985. These operations were subsequently transferred to a new division,
Thamesway Buses,[2] before being recombined with Eastern National in the late 1990s as
First Essex.[3]
In
March 1997, FirstBus purchased CentreWest, which had been established in
April 1989 as a subsidiary of
London Regional Transport before being sold in a management buyout during the privatisation of London bus services in
September 1994.[4] Since
1993 CentreWest had been using local identities based on each of its garages, such as
Ealing Buses at
Greenford garage and
Challenger at
Alperton garage, and in
March 1996 it had acquired
Southall based
London Buslines from the Q-Drive group. All these identities were originally retained, buses receiving new-style fleetnames incorporating FirstBus's corporate f logo.
In
December 1997, FirstBus was rebranded as FirstGroup. Subsequently, CentreWest was renamed
First CentreWest, while the buses' fleetnames were revised again so that "
First" was prominent, the local identities becoming secondary.
On 8 July
1998, FirstGroup purchased
Capital Citybus.[5][
6][7] It was subsequently renamed
First Capital.
In
March 2001, First consolidated the CentreWest and
Capital operations under the First London brand.[8] Both were managed from CentreWest's head office beside
Paddington station, as was
First Berkshire &
The Thames Valley, the former
Beeline operation that had also been acquired by CentreWest from Q-Drive in
1996.
The London Buslines operation was wound down, with its routes, buses and license all being transferred to CentreWest by
September 2001.[9]
In December 2007 the company's
Orpington business, which had been established by CentreWest in 1995, was sold to
Metrobus, along with 35 buses.[10] In
March 2012,
Northumberland Park garage was sold to
London General.[11]
In June 2013, FirstGroup sold Alperton, Greenford,
Hayes, Uxbridge and
Willesden Junction garages with 494 buses to Metroline and
Atlas Road (
Park Royal), Lea
Interchange (
Leyton) and
Westbourne Park garages with 412 buses to
Tower Transit.[12][13]
First London ceased operating on
27 September 2013 after its remaining contracts with Transport for London expired.