Network Warrington - Branding

Branding

WBT has used a number of different brands and liveries in its history, as follows:

• Warrington Corporation Tramways

The original livery adopted on trams and early motorbuses was a deep crimson and light yellow, with ornate gold lettering and lining.

• Warrington Corporation

In 1945 a new livery was introduced of maroon with ivory bands, three bands on double deckers and one on single deck vehicles.

• Warrington Borough Council

Following the local government reorganisation of 1974, vehicles started appearing in a mainly light red livery with a large white band around the windows. The new logo of Warrington Borough Council was applied, consisting of a large stylised "W" encompassing the Cheshire sheaf of wheat and the Lancashire rose. This would be replaced with the borough's revised coat of arms in the early 1980s.

• Advertising liveries

The first all-over advertising bus appeared in 1977 when a Daimler Fleetline was painted in a mainly white livery with graphics advertising Baldwins, the local Leyland car dealership. Other all-over advertisements have appeared for Vladivar Vodka and Warrington Wolves amongst others.

• Warrington Borough Transport

Upon the establishment of the arms-length company WBT Ltd in 1986, a new logo appeared incorporating the borough coat of arms. The primary colours of red and white remained generally the same until the white was replaced with ivory in the late 1990s, although vehicles started to appear with a "Welcome aboard" legend in the front windscreen and forward near-side window.

• CoachLines of Warrington

Set up as a subsidiary company in 1987 offering coach hire and a programme of tours and excursions, the coach fleet built up to 14 vehicles before being downsized around 1995. The subsidiary ceased trading a few years later. The livery used was Aircraft Blue and Canary Yellow diagonal stripes on a Naples Blue livery.

• MiniLines

Mini bus services to Penketh and Dudlows Green were started in 1987 and used a primrose and blue livery, the colours used by the local rugby league club. The MiniLines fleet was repainted into the standard red and white livery around 1995.

• Mid-Cheshire Bus Lines

Four vehicles bought in 1988 to operate newly acquired services to Northwich retained the blue and cream livery of their previous owner, Eastbourne Buses. Crosville were said to be unhappy at the introduction of this brand due to the fact that they had used it as a local branding scheme for vehicles in the Northwich area in the early part of the 1980s, the original Mid Cheshire Bus Co Ltd having sold out to North Western in 1924. A new service to Warburton saw the arrival of four additional vehicles from Preston Bus in 1990 wearing a similar blue and cream livery. The fleetname would be phased out of use by 1995, with the vehicles receiving standard WBT red and white livery.

• MidiLines

New deliveries of Dennis Darts up until 1995 received the CoachLines livery but with MidiLines fleetnames. New deliveries and repaints from 1995 onwards retained the MidiLines branding as secondary to the main WBT logo on the standard red and white/ivory livery.

• Route branding

This has been attempted on some high-profile services since 1995, albeit mainly taking the form of white lettering on the front windscreen and forward-most side windows. Such route branding includes Chester CitySprint (30X Warrington - Chester), Runcorn CitySprint (X1 Runcorn - Liverpool), The Runcorn Link (T11 Warrington - Murdishaw), The Northwich Link (45A/46A Warrington - Northwich Sunday services) and The Trafford Link (5 Warrington - Trafford Centre). In 1999, new low floor buses were delivered with extra yellow logos for the 20•21 circular services, and in 2001 two buses featured purple and blue branding for the 16•16A service. Both of these brands have been lost in recent years as a common pool of low-floor buses has been established.

• Super Mini and Super Midi

The fleet renewal started in 1998 saw new mini and (low-floor) midi buses appearing with this branding instead of the ones previously used (i.e. MiniLines and MidiLines).

• network warrington

To co-incide with the 2006 opening of the new bus interchange in Warrington town centre, the front-line fleet has been rebranded in a new red livery with cream and orange circular detailing, designed by Samantha Beeley. The fleetname "network warrington" is used, with "warrington borough transport" appearing underneath in small letters. The original design contained the strapline "connecting warrington" but this was soon replaced by "making warrington move". The borough coat of arms was deliberately left off the sample vehicle, but was added after 92% of respondents to feedback questionnaires felt it should.

• Centrelink

A special purple and yellow livery and brand was introduced in 2002 for the minibus that originally operated the town centre circular service, with publicity and timetable leaflets designed by Best Impressions. This was replaced in 2008 with a new low-floor bus featuring a scheme based on the standard livery, with route branding using the established purple and yellow colours.

• ""Chapleford Connector""

A bus similar from the front to the regular Network Warrington busses but changed at the back to be covered with leaves forming a green/orange colour. It is route 17 and is named so on its Livery because it links the new Chapelford development to the centre of Warrington. The route was created new spesificly to link Chapleford to the rest of the network, this was chosen over a re-route to the other routes nearby such as Route 13.