Ensignbus
 |
|
| 250px | |
| Parent | Peter Newman |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1972 |
| Headquarters | Purfleet |
| Service area | Essex Kent |
| Service type | Bus services Bus dealer Bus preservation |
| Routes | 13 |
| Hubs | Grays station Lakeside Shopping Centre |
| Website | www.ensignbus.com |
Ensignbus[1] is a bus and coach operator, open top bus tour operator and bus dealer in Purfleet. It also operates a dealership trading used buses and coaches.
Contents
History
Ensignbus was formed in 1972 by Peter Newman, who along with his sons Ross and Steve remains involved today at chairman of Ensignbus. It commenced with a small number of bus contracts for the Port of London Authority and Lesney Products and later diversified into bus sales and operating open top bus tours.[2]
Bus sales
The company came to prominence in the UK when London Transport decided to dispose of its unpopular and poor performing Daimler Fleetlines from 1979. Ensignbus was the only company willing to bid for all these buses as one batch, numbering over 2,000 buses, as preferred by London Transport.[2]
As the vehicles arrived, Ensignbus moved to new premises in Purfleet. While some were scrapped, Ensign sold many of these buses to operators around the country and abroad, with many ex-municipal companies and new operators requiring cheap re-inforcements for enhanced competition following the deregulation of bus services in 1986. Over 400 were sold to China Motor Bus in Hong Kong.[2]
During the London Pride Sightseeing operation Ensignbus continued selling buses in smaller numbers from a site in Rainham. With the sale of London Pride, Ensignbus moved to another site in Purfleet, and grew its sales business.[2]
Open top tour operations
In October 1985 Ensignbus purchased the London Pride Sightseeing open top bus tour business.[3] Through links gained by selling open top buses to other operators around the world, Ensignbus expanded the concept to other cities setting up new tours. In January 1998 the open-top tour business was sold.[2]
Starting in 1998 with an operation in Seville, in 1999 Ensignbus launched the City Sightseeing global sightseeing bus brand with a worldwide franchise model, and proceeded to rapidly expand into several cities. In May 2002 City Sightseeing bought out its main rival Guide Friday.
In November 2000 Ensignbus reacquired the London Pride Sightseeing business but sold it in 2001 to The Original Tour. In June 2004, Bath Bus Company was purchased. Ensignbus transferred its City Sightseeing operations in Cardiff, Eastbourne and Windsor to become part of Bath Bus Company.[4]
In February 2011, the Bath Bus Company business was sold to the RATP Group.[5][6] In April 2011 Ensignbus sold City Sightseeing to Enrique Ybarra.[7]
London tendered services
Also as a result of deregulation, in the mid 1980s Ensignbus expanded into tendered London Buses work in East London. Starting with one or two routes, Ensignbus gained a network of routes, using several second hand vehicles and batches of new vehicles:
- 8 1989 built Alexander bodied Leyland Olympian double-deckers
- 5 1989 built Northern Counties bodied Leyland Olympian double-deckers
- 16 1988 built MCW Metrobus double-deckers[8]
In July 1989, it purchased the business of Frontrunner South East from Stagecoach East Midlands with route 248 and 252.[9] In December 1990 Ensignbus sold its London tendered bus services to Hong Kong company Citybus with the Dagenham depot and 87 buses. It was rebranded as Ensign Citybus and then Capital Citybus.[10]
Ensignbus briefly re-entered London tendered service, taking over routes 324 and 348 from First Capital who had bought Capital Citybus. Routes 325 and 509 were later added. before once again selling its London services in December 1999, this time to Town and Country Buses.[2]
Today
Today Ensignbus retains a small bus service network centred on Grays station.[11] and Lakeside Shopping Centre[12][13] It also regularly provides buses for rail replacement services to train operators including Abellio Greater Anglia, London Underground and c2c
Ensignbus also operates a dealership selling buses on behalf of several major UK and Irish operators.[14]
Ensignbus maintains a fleet of heritage buses with members of the AEC Regent III, AEC Routemaster, Daimler Fleetline, Leyland Titan, MCW Metrobus and Scania Metropolitan (MD60) classes represented.[15] As well as being available for charter, Ensignbus operate these at an annual running day in December.[16]
Fleet
Ensignbus has fleet of both single and double deck buses which are a combination of new and second-hand purchases. Fleet livery is light blue and silver.
See also
References
- ↑ Companies House extract company no 2656574 Ensign Bus Company Limited
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Ensign now is the pride of London Commercial Motor 19 October 1985
- ↑ Martin Curtis: Top draw sightseeing in Bath Bus & Coach Professional 30 August 2006
- ↑ Tour de France: city bus firm bought by European business Bath Chronicle 2 March 2011
- ↑ RATP Dev announces the acquisition of the Original Tour RATP Group 11 September 2014
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Ensign increases MCW order Commercial Motor 9 June 1988
- ↑ EBS to buy Frontrunner Commercial Motor 6 July 1989
- ↑ From Hong Kong by bus Commercial Motor 10 January 1991
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Bus Services Ensignbus
- ↑ Bus Sales Ensignbus
- ↑ Restorations Ensignbus
- ↑ Into Autumn - the countdown to running day starts here... Ensign Vintage Buses Blogspot
External links
Media related to Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. at Wikimedia Commons- Company website
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- EngvarB from September 2013
- Use dmy dates from September 2013
- Pages with broken file links
- Auto dealerships of the United Kingdom
- Bus operators in Essex
- Bus operators in Kent
- City Sightseeing
- Former London bus operators
- Purfleet
- Transport in Essex
- Transport in Thurrock
- Vintage bus operators in the United Kingdom
- 1972 establishments in England
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