History
In 2005, National Express Group bought the London bus operations of Tellings-Golden Miller, for their Travel London subsidiary. This deal came with TGM's Byfleet depot, and Travel London moved into Byfleet depot in June 2005. The legal company name was Travel London (West) Ltd, but trading as Travel London. All vehicles underwent a repaint programme and had the blue and white colours of TGM replaced with a livery of white with a red skirt. After a slow start and some changes in the management structure the business strengthened.
From 1 September 2007, Travel London rebranded the services from the Byfleet depot to Travel Surrey, to reflect the area served. After National Express took over, some of the Surrey County Council tender routes were lost or given up. However, many are now operated once again. An example of this is the 426/446 Woking - Staines service, which was operated by Flights Hallmark, trading as Surrey Connect. However, Flights wound up their operation, so Travel Surrey took over the routes and some vehicles.
On 11 November 2007, National Express Group announced plans to re-brand their UK bus service companies under the National Express identity. The new name for Travel Surrey would have been National Express Surrey.
However, due to the global recession at the time, National Express Group were experiencing financial difficulties with their East Coast Main Line franchise. Speculation mounted that they were looking to sell Travel London to reduce their debts.
On 21 May 2009, National Express Group agreed to sell Travel London to NedRailways, a subsidiary of NS Dutch Railways, for a price of £32 million. The sale includes the 27 Surrey County Council routes, as well as the 39 routes run from the London depots. All vehicles and premises used were sold, and all staff will transferred to NedRailways.
Despite earlier saying the name would remain (as all other National Express operations had been rebranded), it was decided the Travel prefix of the name was still part of the large and pre-existing National Express brand structure. Thus, from 30 October 2009, along with Travel London, the company's trading name became Abellio Surrey.
Read more about this topic: Travel Surrey
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