First's third heritage repaint in Leeds is about to take to the roads. May I say a huge thank you to the person who sent me photos of this bus as I was sworn not to tell anyone about the behind the scenes shots.

Like the other two heritage repaints, 37674 (Yorkshire Rider) and 37675 (West Yorkshire Road Car), 37673 was for the X84 but now it can be seen on any route in Leeds as it seems that 37674 and especially 37675 are restricted to certain routes in Leeds but 37673 could be seen on literally any route now although would work the X84 on a more regular basis as a spare. But its said that 37673 would work the main routes mainly serving South Leeds including the 1, 2, 3/3A, 12, 13, 13A but was on the 42 on day one of its debut appearance in the LCT livery.

This repaint was very overdue because of this thing with copyright of the Leeds City Council emblem despite the fact 37673 wasn't the first bus to be repainted in an LCT livery as an Alexander RH bodied Scania N113 with Black Prince wore something very similar but in another shade of two tone green with red wheels.

First Leeds have put 'fake' fleetnumber 482 on the front which such number belonged to a 'jumbo' Roe bodied Leyland Atlantean after all 37674 was numbered 7674 (without the 3) basing it under the 7000 series which an MCW Metrobus would have carried such and 37675 carries 1812 which in reality belonged to a Leyland Olympian.

'Back to reality...' Today the real bus is now demoted to the more regular routes round Leeds as the bus along with the rest of the fleet has been replaced by new Enviro400MMCs and further more it seems highly unlikely this livery will be seen anytime soon, although the Leeds City Transport livery has been seen as a heritage livery on an MCW Metrobus from Yorkshire Rider, and a Scania N113 with East Lancs body from Black Prince.

For people who don't know, I do all my work using Microsoft Paint, drawing vehicles. :-)

**Notice about copyright** It is an offence to steal any of my work, if you do steal, your uploads will be reported, your request if you have one pending will be cancelled and you will be blocked. And this also applies to stealing parts along with stealing whole vehicle drawings.

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New in Autumn 2003, First received their first ever Wright Eclipse Urbans primarily for Bramley Depot in Leeds.

66701 (seen in the drawing) wasn't the first one, 66700 was the prototype of the fleet as it was the only of the fleet at the time to feature LED destination displays and a roof pod near the front, whereas the rest of the fleet never had these features as these also were First's only Wright Eclipse Urbans to feature flip-dot destinations.

Quite oddly, some of these buses were badged as B7Ls next to the doors as they are clearly B7RLEs.

Some of these buses were later transferred to First's Kirkstall Depot for work on the 757 service which meant some of the seats were taken out to accommodate luggage racks as the buses also wore route branding for the service aswell as the route was taken over from short lived independent group Aztecbird.

Over time these YK53 plated Volvo B7RLEs rarely escaped Yorkshire infact some were transferred over the Pennines to Manchester where they'd soon end up with Stagecoach.

66701 was one of those which went over the Pennines to First Manchester as it was later under Stagecoach ownership soon after. 66701 became 21249 for its stay and wore two versions of the Stagecoach livery, with the latter incarnation of the livery not featuring the blue and orange paint at the front.

Soon, the bus became redundant at Stagecoach Merseyside so was sold to Trustybus wearing the standard red, yellow and blue livery for its stay. It is also said that this bus was withdrawn last year putting an end to its fairly long operating life of around 15 years.

The Wright Eclipse Urban was launched in mid-2003 as the first one was purchased by Harrogate & District bearing a unique green and orange LED destination display and ironically the bus was primarily used on their flagship 36 service to Leeds so when First launched theirs they weren't the first of such to ever see service in Leeds.

The Urban replaced the Wright Eclipse with the vertical engine but this wasn't favoured by many operators as it was only First, Arriva and Blazefield who expressed an interest even if it was small. The Volvo B7RLE turned out to be a success, the sloped gangway with only two steps to the rearmost seats was liked by many and the Wright Eclipse Urban proved much more popular than the predecessor.

Over the years the Wright Eclipse Urban saw a few changes, mainly in 2006 when it was redesigned during the switch to Euro 4 as the 'new-look' Wright Eclipse Urban was now longer, revised seating layout, and also pioneered the centre emergency door which caused much confusion but the new Wright Eclipse Urban was built to European Bus Directive spec which explains it, and ever since, this configuration with the centre emergency door has now become a standard feature on today's single deckers.

The route 4 the bus depicts has also seen some changes over the years, as the route about the era this bus is depicted mainly saw Alexander Striders so seeing any new buses on the route was pretty much a luxury. But the Striders were later replaced by 18.75m Wright StreetCars for the FTR service which gained mixed reactions but later caused frustrations as the route proved unreliable afterwards so the route was changed near St. James' Hospital and later terminated at Seacroft Bus Station instead in a bid to make the route more punctual. Today despite some of these Volvo B7RLEs still clinging on at Bramley, they hardly (if ever) go on the route 4, as its mainly Volvo B9TLs with the Wright Eclipse Gemini body which often go on as the Volvo B7RLEs normally go on the 5, 54, 55, 65 and 75.

On 25/9/2019 it was announced that Wrightbus has gone into administration. At the time of writing this was my most recent upload so it was only fitting to say this was my last Wrightbus drawing around the time the group was still going. Rest assured I'll still be drawing Wrightbus drawings, some are still in the pipeline for work been done to them so look out for those.

Just to let you know, unauthorised use of my photos and drawings is strictly prohibited. All my work is done using MS Paint, I don't copy and paste images off Google and use on my work unless stated otherwise.

For news, bus drawings and more, by all means follow me on Facebook right here > www.facebook.com/MetroRider30

I also have a DeviantArt page right here www.deviantart.com/mspainted-by-michael if you are part of that group.

I am to post bus drawings more often on Twitter throughout 2021, and the link to my Twitter account can be found right here where I also post about the odd random thing aswell > twitter.com/MetroRider30

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So with the success of the first bus race which took place about 10 years ago now. The Top Gear lads decided to have another one, but instead of which type is better, being the artic, single decker, double decker or mini, it was a case of which is the better model, being Volvo, DAF, Mercedes-Benz and Scania (not in this shot).

The Royale had a decent early lead closely followed by the Spectra and Mercedes-Benz Citaro but both crashed into each other numerous times which resulted in the Citaro doing what it does best in London - burst into flames with the driver trying to extinguish the flames near the end of the race. But in the end, the Royale won which was driven by Jeremy Clarkson (although not clearly visible).

A huge shout out to Jon Houghton for suggesting the Royale to not be damaged and for it to be first place. :-)

**Please don't use without my permission**

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This upload is done in honor of the fantastic work the NHS has done and to remember those lives lost during this pandemic.

158860 was new in the Regional Railways livery and was believed to have been based around the Midlands as the train was later wearing Central Trains logos on its Regional Railways livery.

158860 had a colourful background afterwards as it later gained the green Central Trains livery. In latter years the train was transferred to Northern Rail in around the mid-2000s where its believed to have retained its green livery when in service as I do remember riding on a green Class 158 from Keighley to Leeds in 2007.

Later 158860 was painted into the silver and purple Northern livery and was named Isambard Kingdom Brunel, a British civil engineer.

Later 158860 was repainted into Northern Rail's previous standard livery which was the purple and lilac one and was later renamed after the late Ian Dewhirst, a local historian from Keighley, West Yorkshire.

Soon 158860 was being repainted into the current blue/light grey standard livery as seen here but the train no longer carries any names, but was carrying a tribute underneath the windows about thanking the NHS through the pandemic. New member of the Northern Rail fleet 195 111 (appropriately named 'Key Worker') also carries the same branding on all three of its coaches.

Quite a few years ago 158860 was made into model form by Bachmann as part of their Branchline range some time ago before their Class 158 model was retooled. Would love to see this being modelled again but wearing this livery and branding.

**Unauthorised use with my work such as uploading without permission is prohibited. All work is for viewing pleasure and should not be for sale for any reason**

All drawings I do have been done using just MS Paint since the beginning as I very rarely use bits of work from other sources.

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New in November 1983 to West Yorkshire PTE, 5096 was allocated to Halifax's Skircoat depot but it is not known where this bus entered service from initially.

But when Yorkshire Rider began trading, they soon had 5096 repainted along with a few other of their buses being painted up in heritage liveries such as the WYRCC, LCT, Todmorden Corporation, Huddersfield Corporation and a few more, including Halifax Corporation which 5096 was repainted in.

The bus carried gold lettering on its livery as seen here advertising Yorkshire Rider's open day on 14th of June 1987 however later after the event the gold lettering was removed in favour of cream lettering saying 'Building on a great tradition' with the Yorkshire Rider logos. Also added was more lettering at the front and also the rear.

During First Group years, 5096 was repainted into the First Calderline livery as it was still working at Halifax.

It is not known if this bus ever wore the Barbie 2 livery but it was repainted into the standard Barbie livery as it was around this time when it gained the new fleetnumber 30615.

Around the mid 2000s, A96 KUM was withdrawn and later it was most likely scrapped although around three Leyland Olympians which were new to West Yorkshire PTE are now in preservation.

The bus was modelled by Corgi on two separate occasions as A96 KUM was modelled as an MCW Metrobus in 1:64 scale and later on in 1999 based on Corgi's Leyland Olympian casting for their Original Omnibus range. The latter model was Corgi's first release of the 'updated' casting of the Leyland Olympian which had a flatter front end and wider upper deck window at the front. But sadly Corgi's Leyland Olympian was primarily based on the ECW bodied example as that model had much shallower windows and a completely different windscreen. A96 KUM is however one of a handful of Leyland Olympians from West Yorkshire PTE but the rest were made by EFE although none of EFE's models are wearing any sort of Yorkshire based liveries.

Just to let you know, unauthorised use of my photos and drawings is strictly prohibited. All my work is done using MS Paint, I don't copy and paste images off Google and use on my work unless stated otherwise.

For news, bus drawings and more, by all means follow me on Facebook right here > www.facebook.com/MetroRider30

I also have a DeviantArt page right here www.deviantart.com/mspainted-by-michael if you are part of that group.

I am to post bus drawings more often on Twitter throughout 2021, and the link to my Twitter account can be found right here where I also post about the odd random thing aswell > twitter.com/MetroRider30

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