On the road / Ar y ffordd
Arriva Midlands: 2518 YJ09 MLY
2025 and under I-Squared ownership, Arriva Midlands got all their remaining older livery vehicles at Shrewsbury depot into the latest livery. Quite surprisingly, the last three Optare Solo SRs were so treated, considering under the old order, repaints were lacking, the majority of Solo SRs were been parked up and scrapped, with older Solos drafted in to replace them in some cases.
It would be assumed money was spent on the last three, and in fairness they do look smart. 2517 shines well on the early morning July sunshine, having just passed through Gobowen, as it operates the Saturday - 53 Ellesmere to Oswestry, a 'stand alone' day duty, i.e. not interworking with the X5 service as per Monday to Friday.
This particular bus when new, was loaned / hired out to assist with the Arriva Malta operation and operated as 'BUS 304', before returning to the UK and been allocated to Derby depot as intended, where the fleet there had a mass replacement in 2008/9.
Arriva Midlands: 2518 YJ09 MLY
2025 and under I-Squared ownership, Arriva Midlands got all their remaining older livery vehicles at Shrewsbury depot into the latest livery. Quite surprisingly, the last three Optare Solo SRs were so treated, considering under the old order, repaints were lacking, the majority of Solo SRs were been parked up and scrapped, with older Solos drafted in to replace them in some cases.
It would be assumed money was spent on the last three, and in fairness they do look smart. 2517 shines well on the early morning July sunshine, having just passed through Gobowen, as it operates the Saturday - 53 Ellesmere to Oswestry, a 'stand alone' day duty, i.e. not interworking with the X5 service as per Monday to Friday.
This particular bus when new, was loaned / hired out to assist with the Arriva Malta operation and operated as 'BUS 304', before returning to the UK and been allocated to Derby depot as intended, where the fleet there had a mass replacement in 2008/9.