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| April
2003 |
| First
Variation |
| I'll
name that livery in one |
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| It was famously commented that
Mozart’s piano concertos had just too many notes in them.
Maybe the same observation could be levelled about First’s
liveries – there’s just too many of them.
Stagecoach led the way with corporate liveries by slapping stripes
on anything it owned. Arriva
too has kept things simple by ordering the world’s largest pot of
swimming-pool blue paint. But
the folks at First were doomed from the start when they decreed that
Barbie livery was to be used only on SLF vehicles.
Thereafter it wasn’t long until Barbie2 livery was invented for
non-SLF vehicles. This
variation has monstrous purple skirts and fade-out vinyls that must
require hours of patience to apply.
Not content with this, a coach version of the livery has now
appeared, applied to everything from station link to local express
vehicles. This is
beginning to look like First’s unfinished symphony. |
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| Photo Facts |
 | Top: Two traditional Barbie
vehicles, including Scania 110 (S110TNB) from First Manchester,
in Bolton bus station in April 2001. |
| Middle: Variation on a theme -
First Bath 1912 (R912BOU) labelled for the X39 service to
Bristol where it is seen in August 2002. |
| Above left: First Bristol ODZ892,
a Dennis Lance, which was one of the first batch of SLF vehicles to
enter service in the UK in London. This vehicle operates
the station link in Bristol and is seen at Templemeads in August 2002. |
| Above right: First Beeline
operate the Reading to Heathrow Airport Rail Air link with impressive
Volvo B12/Plaxtons. T701JLD heads along the A329M
in September 1999. |
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More Photo
Facts
| Above left: First Glasgow SV421
(M771PRS) branded for the Glasgow to Kilmacolm service at
Lathalmond in August 2002. |
| Above middle: First Southampton
have remarkably painted this Atlantean, 1264 (DBK264W),
into Barbie2 livery, seen in Southampton in September 2002. |
| Above right: First Mainline 709
(K709EDT) at Tebay service station in December 2002 on its way
from Sheffield to Glasgow. |
| Left: Dennis Dart 631
(S631KTP) from First Provincial (an oft forgotten fleet) wearing
route livery in Gosport bus station in March 2003. |
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| First
Variation |
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