I travelled down to Leeds on Wednesday taking advantage of the Megabus free ticket offer using the M20 service with 54205 on my outward journey and returning on 54209.
On arrival in Leeds I took the City Bus which is a quick way of getting an overview of the city and the best vantage points for bus activity, at 50p its good value too. If you are travelling by Megabus you arrive in stand 1 and the City Bus is in stand 2 so it’s very convenient. Details of the City Bus can be found on The West Yorkshire Metro website.
With the journey down to Leeds taking 2 hours there was plenty of time to check out the bus activity in the City with the following points noted.
The major operator First Bus had the allocations that you would expect of their inner city services mainly Volvo Gemini’s with some modified for guided busways. There were quite a few Hybrids clearly visible by their silver livery under the Dynamo brand. There were also a number of Wright Streetcars with the brand name of Hyperlink.
Arriva had a reasonable number of buses in Leeds most in standard livery although route branding was quite common. The Arriva hybrids in Leeds use a similar colour scheme to the ones used on the 308 in Newcastle. I wanted some photos of the Arriva Optare Tempo’s from the Castleford depot and had no problem finding them.
Yorkshire Tiger had a number of buses in the city although they do appear to avoid the bus station. I was able to get some photos of the new Tiger livery on some of their buses that have recently been repainted.
Transdev have branded services with various colour schemes running services to Harrogate, Keighley, York and The Yorkshire coast areas.
Geldarts one of the independents had several buses in the City and they now appear to have a standard blue fleet colour rather than the random colours that they have used in the past.
The city bus station was busy with Megabus and National Express services as well as a few Stagecoach services.
This was my first opportunity to spot some King Long coaches in day tourer and tri-axel types operated by Hunters Coaches.
I can recommend a visit to Leeds and I will certainly be looking out for the next release of free tickets from Megabus with the view to making a return visit.
RE: Bus Related Outings and Reviews