North Western Road Car Company (1986) - Mid-90s Re-branding and Arriva

Mid-90s Re-branding and Arriva

In 1994 North Western replaced their post deregulation red, blue and silver stripe livery with a new red and blue livery with the associated Bee Line and Liverline having a similar yellow and red and light and dark blue schemes. White was later added to Liverline's livery and a minibus livery of mainly white with blue relief was added. With acquisitions and competitive changes within the company North Western began to trade under different brandings and company names including:

• Bee Line - in Greater Manchester.
• City Express - Used from 1995 on a new fleet of Dennis Lance/Plaxton Verdes that North Western introduced on inter-urban services including H5 Warrington - Liverpool, X5 Runcorn - Liverpool and X30 Chester - Runcorn - Warrington.
• City Plus - Used from 1995 on a new fleet of Dennis Dart/East Lancs EL2000s based at Bootle for cross city services 82 Speke - Liverpool City Centre - Netherton and 86 Garston - Liverpool City Centre - Thornton.
• Dee Line - A re-branding of the acquired Lofty's company (see above).
• Little White Buses - A branding used from 1994/95 on minibus services in the West Lancashire area.
• Leigh Line - A short-lived branding used from 1996 on services in the Leigh area following North Western's acquisition of local operator Heatons Travel. Leigh to Warrington services were moved to this section.
• Liverline - in Liverpool.
• No Fuss Bus - A short lived operation which began in the Spring/Summer of 1997. It used white liveried Leyland Nationals with low fares on popular Liverpool service 86 Gasrton - City Centre akin to Stagecoach Manchester's Magic Bus concept.
• North Western - Used as a fleet name for all un-branded vehicles/operations.
• Premier - A branding used from 1995 on services linking Altrincham to Warrington.
• Runcorn Bus Ways - In the Summer of 1994 some of the North Western vehicles based at Runcorn depot were branded Runcorn Busway. In 1995 the entire Runcorn operation was renamed Runcorn Bus Ways although no major changes or expansion of the service network occurred.
• Skelmersdale - A branding used from 1997 onwards on a new fleet of Scania L113/Northern Counties Paladins based at Skelmersdale depot.
• Warrington Gold Line - Used from 1995 on a network of competitive services in Warrington (see above).
• Star Line - Used for the former Star Line Travel services generally in and around Altrincham.
• Vale Line - Village services around the Northwich area. In similar livery to Star Line services.
• Wigan Bus - Used from 1996 on former Wigan Bus Company and North Western inter-urban services in/around Wigan. This operation mostly comprised a new fleet of Scania L113/Wright Axcess-Ultralows.

North Western increasingly became a secondary fleet name to these brandings and in the Summer of 1995 a new yellow, red and blue livery was introduced fleet-wide except for City Express which used white instead of yellow. South Lancashire Transport was one notable exception to this re-branding as North Western acquired this company in the Autumn of 1997. However the most likely reason for this was the corporate re-branding of Cowie Group plc which saw it become Arriva and along with Stagecoach and FirstGroup Arriva's bus division Arriva Passenger Services plc introduced a corporate livery. For its operations outside of London this was a livery of aquamarine with a Cotswold stone (cream) swoop relief an Arriva fleetname along with a secondary strapline of the region they were operating in - for example in the North West for North Western. North Western Road Car Co. Ltd ceased to exist in the Spring of 1998 when Arriva decided to give its bus subsidiaries an 'Arriva' identity. It became Arriva North West Ltd with the associated Bee Line operation becoming Arriva Manchester Ltd and Liverline the original Arriva Merseyside Ltd. The development of this company under Arriva ownership is explained in Arriva North West and Wales.