New To: Barton Buses  
Chassis: Volvo B10B-58 YV3R13F17RA000687 
Body: Northern Counties Paladin NC 4604 B49F

History

127 was delivered new to Barton Buses Limited in January 1994. It was one of 28 similar buses supplied to Trent and Barton Buses. It has a Volvo B10B chassis and it is fitted with a front entrance Northern Counties Paladin body, which seats 49 passengers. The B10B chassis, a rear engined bus chassis, was only in production between 1993 and 1997. This was due to it being replaced by the Volvo B10BLE chassis which was a low floor design, enabling a step free entrance.

127 was supplied to Barton Buses, which was the company formed by Wellglade in 1989 to take over the services of Barton Transport when that company moved away from public transport. Wellglade is a company formed in 1987 by the then directors of Trent to buy it from the National Bus Company and run it as an independent company. Wellglade now own Barton Buses, Trent Motor Traction Co Ltd, TM Travel of Sheffield, Notts & Derby and Kinchbus of Loughborough. Barton Buses and Trent Motor Traction Co Ltd run under Trentbarton nowadays. 

127 was bought to operate from the Ilkeston depot, along with four buses of the same type, to operate the R15 Rainbow Route from ilkeston to Old Sawley. This was in the Red and Cream livery shown above with Barton Fleetnames. The bus was later repainted and gained Trent fleet names, running on services in the Trent area, before passing to Notts & Derby (a low cost company set up by Wellglade to operate mainly contracted stage carriage services and school journeys). 

127 was withdrawn at the end of 2016 and passed to Nottingham Heritage Vehicles Charity for preservation. It has had some mechanical work done, as well as welding to the chassis. 127 has recently returned from a body & chassis repaint, following a full body rebuild. It will carry the Trent Buses fleet names, rather than the Barton names it was new with.

Relevance To The Collection

127 is an example of the Volvo/Northern Counties combination, which was only supplied to Wellglade, one of 38 similar buses delivered to them. This type proved to be long lived within the Wellglade Group, the type only being removed from Stage Carriage Service from January 2016 due to the DDA regulations requiring that all single deck buses should be wheelchair accessible.