06 July 2015

First stepping up repaints

First seem to have stepped up a gear recently when it comes to repaints. Richard Smith has caught a couple of the latest into the standard Olympia livery, although neither carries any proper fleetnames just yet.

53154 Optare Solo looks very smart indeed on the 6.

First 53154 HIG8433

while a recent addition to the Plymouth fleet, having come up from Cornwall is ex Manchester Volvo B10BLE 60379

 First 60379 R624CVR

Both © Richard Smith

15 comments:

  1. Given that it's an 'R' reg, does this mean that it has been upgraded to be 'DDA' compliant?

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    1. No. It was painted a while back in Manchester.

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  2. Doesn't matter how they tweak the stripes and the fleetname, it's still a boring grey* livery that implies a boring grey corporate behemoth.
    If First genuinely want people to stop thinking of them as being that boring grey corporate behemoth, then they need to revisit and massively change their image.


    * Yes, I know they claim it's a shade of blue or something, but it still looks grey - especially on a typical dull British day of the sort that Aberdeen HQ sees all too often.

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    1. If you knew what you were talking about you'd know the actually run it from London these days.

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    2. Couldn't agree more, I was starting to think that I was the only person who disliked this livery. I know that familiarity can breed fondness but even so.....
      The layout is awful, the large fleetname font is terribly dated and the colours just bland, dull and dreary.
      There is simply no comparison when viewed against the bright and cheerful Stagecoach livery or most Go-Ahead liveries. Even Arriva has woken up and started brightening up some of their schemes now, yet First persists with this weird, complex layout that still looks poor even when they use other colours. They'd be far better off using the BoS scheme nationally, even with a range of different colours, it's in another class completely (and doubtless it's simpler, quicker - and thus cheaper [notwithstanding the yellow vinyl stripe] - to apply).

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    3. Look a little bit further east and you will see all sorts of eye catching liveries by First - Eclipse, Star, Jurassic Coaster, CityRed, The Three, 7 Series, Greenline, Railair

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    4. You say eye-catching, I say messy. It's all rather disjointed. Who on earth thought that the City Red and Three schemes would sit well togther in the same city? First's brand used to be strong and recognisable but since the new livery (or liveries what with the various colours and the alternate diagonal stripy versions as used in Potteries, Eastern Counties and Plymouth P&R etc) and the rush to introduce local fleetnames, it's all become rather rambling and incoherant.

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  3. people never happy are there I like first new logo it nice and bright

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  4. It would be good to see First in Devon and Cornwall permanently adopt the First Western National branding and green livery as we saw in a recent post. It looked very smart and clean and must be far cheaper and easier to apply than the livery shown in this post. Almost a return to the 1980's !

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  5. Anon @16:39: thank you for your positive contribution to the discussion.

    Anon @17:46: have you noticed that all the bright new schemes share an aversion to the sharp jagged edges that First seem to love so much? Stagecoach freshened their livery to great effect years ago simply by turning the angular stripes into swoops - but First just gets sharper and greyer. :(

    Anon @19:21: I agree that there are indeed some good liveries in use for certain elements of the FirstGroup operations, but unfortunately I don't think the base livery isn't one of them.

    I find it intriguing that the First rail operations have a fairly classy looking livery but the buses are, with the odd exceptions, in a dull and dreary scheme that gets tweaked and relaunched as something "new" rather than replaced with something genuinely new and which stands out as a sea-change.

    As a national traveller (and one not local to Plymouth), I find that First is generally a much better bus group today than 5 years ago - but the boring grey scheme they insist on using doesn't communicate that change to the public.

    I believe that First desperately needs to treat its whole bus operation nationally to a Somerset-style makeover if it is to move away from the bad-old-First image that is the received wisdom across the country.

    "Anon @13:43"

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    1. Anon 17:46 / 00:31 here: Yes, the jagged / angular schemes of the 1980s are universally long-gone now, unless you're First. I've tried to hard to like the new livery but it simply jars on all levels. Equally intriguing is that an operator who has always been so focussed on costs has opted for a livery that (as I said previously) must be time-consuming and expensive to apply. The BoS scheme will be much easier, quicker and cheaper and presents a strong, modern image to boot. Or, as another correspondent suggested, the FWN green is effective as well as no doubt being quick and easy to apply.

      It's interesting that the Stagecoach swoopy livery is 15 years old and still looks fresh and bright. It hasn't dated and whilst they've recently tried to update it a little by losing the white colour seperators, I can't say that it's really improved it. It's also notabe how Stagecoach (and increasingly Arriva) can vary their schemes and colours whilst still ending up with something that's very obviously theirs, yet First has tried to do something similar but ended up with a mess. I'm not anti-First by any stretch and agree that they are vastly improved in many aspects from five years ago but the overall brand image nationally is letting them down. It's not worked and needs an urgent rethink.

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  6. There are loads of variants of the First livery on top of those mentioned. As well as those in FHDB land, there are several colour coded variants (a la Plymouth P&R) in Eastern Counties and Potteries. The blue and gold is in Wales (Clipper), Bristol for X7, Scotland and Norfolk for the X1. Bristol also has Express Yourself two tone blue and is getting more branded schemes. Darn this grey monolith!!

    The FWN green, contrary to one persons continued assertions, appears to be a welcome heritage scheme. As for a return to the 80s - faded leaf green with poor colour matches. No thanks

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  7. seem anther first bus repaint the single deacker 56plate look smart
    it was on 81 d

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    1. 42946 is the 56 plate saw it today myself, looks ok actually, no fleetnames or First Logos yet

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  8. A Sheffield branded Olympia liveried vehicle on the U1 this evening. Ex London red paint showing through the peeling Olympia paint. Driver was not too impressed with it.

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