First Scotland East (Midland Bluebird and West Lothian operations)

[GusB]

View attachment 120781

Taken from Facebook, looks familiar.......

(Image is a representation of two buses, one in green and cream and the other in blue and cream with Eastern Scottish and Midland Bluebird fleetnames respectively)

Is that real? It looks very similar to Lothian’s livery. If this is the case then either Lothian have made an agreement or McGill’s are preparing for a bus war. Is it even allowed to use the same livery as another operator?

I hope they have have a good legal team, because if they are choosing a livery style that is so close to that of Lothian, they could be in some hot water.

The use of green and cream for Eastern is a bit tenuous anyway, as First Scotland East Ltd. is actually the renamed Lowland Scottish Omnibuses Ltd., so if there were looking to be historically accurate it should be yellow and green!

This could be interesting

 

[FlybeDash8Q400]

It’s not just the livery that is similar, even the footer on the posters looks remarkably similar to Lothian’s. Either McGill’s is looking to make some kind of integrated network with LC or somebody has thought they’ve been clever but in reality has been really daft and is just trying to create trouble from the get-go. If McGill’s have indeed decided just to ‘copy’ the Lothian look, I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of this ending up in the courts. I think things are going to get very interesting over the coming months, whichever of the above is true.

 

[LiviCrazy]

I hope they have have a good legal team, because if they are choosing a livery style that is so close to that of Lothian, they could be in some hot water.

The use of green and cream for Eastern is a bit tenuous anyway, as First Scotland East Ltd. is actually the renamed Lowland Scottish Omnibuses Ltd., so if there were looking to be historically accurate it should be yellow and green!

This could be interesting

Could be argued that First did it first and Lothian copied, given First had their vintage livery bus a few years back.

VOLVO B7TL Plaxton President - First Eastern Scottish

32222 LT52 WUG.......seen here at the Gyle Centre,Edinburgh.

flic.kr

(Photo by owner in the link)

 

[FlybeDash8Q400]

Could be argued that First did it first and Lothian copied, given First had their vintage livery bus a few years back.

VOLVO B7TL Plaxton President - First Eastern Scottish

32222 LT52 WUG.......seen here at the Gyle Centre,Edinburgh.

flic.kr

(Photo by owner in the link)

I think the issue more is that McGill’s are pretty much copying Lothian’s livery and partly the brand design as well, rather than the colours. Lothian didn’t copy the Olympia livery when they started running further into East Lothian…

The only thing so far that I can think of that would count against Lothian in a legal argument is that they sell buses off still in the livery, and other operators have used (and still use) them in such condition.

When 32222 first went out it with the vintage livery it went out with Eastern Scottish names, it was very quickly changed back to First logos after what I think was a management request? Then after having its accident it was repainted into Olympia.

 

[JurassicMan]

Let us be clear the Lothian Country whole strategy was to copy a previous West Lothian strategy from bus colours to route numbers, so I see little mileage in getting too upset now that McGills have decided to reincarnate the original colours of set up they have bought and I would think they will be smart enough for it to be slightly different to a competitor.

 

[stevenedin]

There could possibly be an agreement with West Lothian Council and Lothian Country to have cross ticket acceptance between the 2 operators and the liveries being similar could be a thing to help customers but who knows?

 

[Jordan Adam]

Doubt it would be allowed as it would more or less create a monopoly in West Lothian.

It would be no different to how things were pre-2018.

 

[FlybeDash8Q400]

There could possibly be an agreement with West Lothian Council and Lothian Country to have cross ticket acceptance between the 2 operators and the liveries being similar could be a thing to help customers but who knows?

Again, this a possibility. However if you read one of the hashtags in the latest McGills post it’s hard to see that being possible. Give it time and I’m sure all will be clearer as to whether this is integration or indeed is the start of a new bus war.

To be clear I have no issue with McGills resurrecting the Eastern Scottish and Midland Bluebird brands, they are nice colours and were well known across the area so from a business perspective this makes total sense. The issue clearly is the design they’ve opted for, which no matter which way you look at it, is (with minor adjustments) the current Lothian look. I’m not quite sure why they didn’t just use their current standard livery as a base and put the colours on it? That would’ve been fine and actually would’ve aligned it better with the main McGills business.

 

[stevenedin]

Again, this a possibility. However if you read one of the hashtags in the latest McGills post it’s hard to see that being possible. Give it time and I’m sure all will be clearer as to whether this is integration or indeed is the start of a new bus war.

To be clear I have no issue with McGills resurrecting the Eastern Scottish and Midland Bluebird brands, they are nice colours and were well known across the area so from a business perspective this makes total sense. The issue clearly is the design they’ve opted for, which no matter which way you look at it, is (with minor adjustments) the current Lothian look.

I know what you mean. I was hoping more for a modern version of one of the previous liveries used by Eastern Scottish and Midland Bluebird.

 

[Glasgowbusguy]

Trademarks could come in to it; if the companies McGill are purchasing own the historical trademarks then Lothian are the ones in trouble and will need to change.

 

[GusB]

Let us be clear the Lothian Country whole strategy was to copy a previous West Lothian strategy from bus colours to route numbers, so I see little mileage in getting too upset now that McGills have decided to reincarnate the original colours of set up they have bought and I would think they will be smart enough for it to be slightly different to a competitor.

It's not the use of the colours that's the issue here, rather than the proposed application. The way the liveries are represented in the graphic suggests (and until we see an actual bus painted this way, it is just a suggestion) that they'll be applied in a style that's almost exactly the same as Lothian's.

When Lothian introduced the green and cream to West Lothian, it was in their own house style and First had long since abandoned those colours anyway.

Trademarks could come in to it; if the companies McGill are purchasing own the historical trademarks then Lothian are the ones in trouble and will need to change.

What trademarks?

 

[JumpinTrainz]

It would appear some 66-plate Enviro400 MMCs have transferred from Livingston to Bannockburn.

I have seen a 600-branded one on the UL, and 33437 on the 51/52 thus far today.

I’d imagine the 66 plate E400MMCs will be to replace the 68 plate E400MMCs that are being returned to Glasgow.

They won’t want to go back to unrefurbished Scania’s or B7TLs when they’ve been offering leather seats and USB charging ports.

It’s a shame. It would have been nice if the 15/65/66 plate E400MMCs could have gone to Glasgow and be kept within First.

 

[CN04NRJ]

Could be argued that First did it first and Lothian copied, given First had their vintage livery bus a few years back.

VOLVO B7TL Plaxton President - First Eastern Scottish

32222 LT52 WUG.......seen here at the Gyle Centre,Edinburgh.

flic.kr

(Photo by owner in the link)

Hardly. It's a copy and paste job of Lothian's fleet of the future livery - if you zoom in it even looks like gold stripes along the lines.

It's like Easyjet copying Ryanair's livery but using a different font for their name.

Hopefully we can look forward to integrated ticketing and a better bus network than pouring petrol onto the fire of a bus war.

 

[ScotRail158725]

It would appear some 66-plate Enviro400 MMCs have transferred from Livingston to Bannockburn.

I have seen a 600-branded one on the UL, and 33437 on the 51/52 thus far today.

The 65 ans 66 plate MMCs are part of the transfer

 

[Trnsprt4Sctlnd]

View attachment 120781

Taken from Facebook, looks familiar.......

(Image is a representation of two buses, one in green and cream and the other in blue and cream with Eastern Scottish and Midland Bluebird fleetnames respectively)

Very Shady, I’d expect no less of McGills to be honest, but I’d also expect it as Ralph Roberts has been critical regarding the interest the government and SPT has made about regulating buses again thus taking much control away from private bus firms.

Rightfully McGills will own the Ltd rights to the eastern Scottish & midland bluebirds name sakes.

However, as an identity Lothian have had this livery design for quite some years now, further more whilst eastern Scottish “colours” were present then and now in Livingston, Eastern Scottish livery was not the current design seen at Lothian Buses.

Ultimately it seems that McGills or specifically ralph roberts is trying to shake up the narrative that a publically owned operator has superiority over a privately owned one.

Naturally, the colours seen at Lothian Country was the direct result of lothians ex-director, Richard hall, I very much doubt there latest Managing director will have the same gumption.

Will it be enough for McGills to move in and repair much of the shortcomings of First against Lothian Country?

Time will tell.

 

[scosutsut]

It would be no different to how things were pre-2018.

True, but once competition is created the regulators will usually try pretty hard to insist it is not bought out.

 

[smtglasgow]

My Spidey Senses are still tingling about McGills in West Lothian. Yes, its possible they’ve bought First to engage in a further bus war with Lothian – maybe they think they have a secret killer blow up their sleeve. But that doesn’t fit with McGills history. In Inverclyde, Renfrewshire and the Monklands they bought out practically all the competition – McGills don’t really do competition, so jumping into an existing battle seems out of character. So I still wonder if some sort of arrangement with Lothian has been agreed, or in the works. Lothian won’t just walk away, they’d want paying, but McGills owners have deep pockets. Lothian wouldn’t be allowed to buy First’s Livingston depot, but McGills buying Lothian Country probably wouldn’t trouble the CMA – they might welcome a strong competitor to the west of Lothian Buses.

 

[Trnsprt4Sctlnd]

It's not the use of the colours that's the issue here, rather than the proposed application. The way the liveries are represented in the graphic suggests (and until we see an actual bus painted this way, it is just a suggestion) that they'll be applied in a style that's almost exactly the same as Lothian's.

When Lothian introduced the green and cream to West Lothian, it was in their own house style and First had long since abandoned those colours anyway.


What trademarks?

Precisely

 

[Ricky Kane]

I dont believe the colour is the issue as Lothain is changing all the Lothian County from cream and green to white and green its more the livery is an exact copy of Lothian fleet of the future livery.

 

[Trnsprt4Sctlnd]

True, but once competition is created the regulators will usually try pretty hard to insist it is not bought out.

May I ask if anyone knows the answer to my question.

Recently the Scottish government have said they’ll allow local authorities to own and directly operate there own buses services.

Does this exempt them from the Competitions & Markets authority?

It would seem that if the councils did have surplus cash then they could be an unfair advantage towards a publicly owned operators.

Not that I’m saying they shouldn’t have the advantage, I’m just curious.

 

[GusB]

May I ask if anyone knows the answer to my question.

Recently the Scottish government have said they’ll allow local authorities to own and directly operate there own buses services.

Does this exempt them from the Competitions & Markets authority?

It would seem that if the councils did have surplus cash then they could be an unfair advantage towards a publicly owned operators.

Not that I’m saying they shouldn’t have the advantage, I’m just curious.

Perhaps this would be better in another thread, because it's off-topic here.

 

[RomeoCharlie71]

The 65 ans 66 plate MMCs are part of the transfer

I never said they weren't

View attachment 120781

Taken from Facebook, looks familiar.......

(Image is a representation of two buses, one in green and cream and the other in blue and cream with Eastern Scottish and Midland Bluebird fleetnames respectively)

I do wonder if this is just a draft representation of the livery, and something slightly more "desirable" has been created by Ray Stenning, given he designed the liveries for McGill's Yutongs and Xplore's E400EVs?

 

[GusB]

I do wonder if this is just a draft representation of the livery, and something slightly more "desirable" has been created by Ray Stenning, given he designed the liveries for McGill's Yutongs and Xplore's E400EVs?

Putting my cynical hat on for a moment, perhaps this is all just a publicity stunt with McGill's knowing that it would get some people frothing!

 

[CN04NRJ]

Putting my cynical hat on for a moment, perhaps this is all just a publicity stunt with McGill's knowing that it would get some people frothing!

It reminds me very much of the number plate debacle with another operator, only this time there's no public oversight or higher authorities to answer to. My experience of driving for two operators in bus wars have been it's a race to the bottom, I hope that's not the case here.

 

[tbtc]

In Inverclyde, Renfrewshire and the Monklands they bought out practically all the competition – McGills don’t really do competition, so jumping into an existing battle seems out of character. So I still wonder if some sort of arrangement with Lothian has been agreed, or in the works. Lothian won’t just walk away, they’d want paying, but McGills owners have deep pockets

Agreed

Just my thoughts, but there seem to be three reasons why an operator like McGills would buy FSE:

1. First were pretty much giving it away, it’s a fire sale, First plan to keep anything under five years old for their other fleets and pretty much give away a troublesome part of their “empire” for a price so low that McGills couldn’t resist

2. McGills (who don’t seem particularly suicidal, who’ve tried to avoid competition in other areas and who’ve scaled back areas where they overlapped with First around Glasgow, e.g. the 17 no longer running beyond the Queen Elizabeth hospital) have some Scrappy Doo death wish and think that they can wipe the floor with Lothian

3. They are only buying an operation in the midst of a costly “bus war” because they are confident that they’ll be able to negotiate some kind of “peace deal” (or have already got some arrangement in the pipeline, e.g. a monopoly on the A71 for one operator and a monopoly on the A8 for the other, maybe an agreement that Lothian don’t run west of Livingston whilst McGills don’t run into central Edinburgh…). Why would any rational firm want to buy a company in the middle of a skirmish like in West Lothian if they didn’t feel they could secure some kind of “peace”, or smelt blood?

At the moment, I’d not put my house on anything, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out to be the case that McGills felt that the low price First were selling for and the likely “cost” of either surrendering some territory to Lothian/ buying them out still made it look like good value for money overall

There could be a multitude of other reasons, of course; maybe McGills are just keen to become too big for another firm to take over, by taking over FSE (plus Travel Dundee/ xplore) they’ll be too hard for anyone else to buy (due to size, competition issues etc)… maybe they’ll try to take over West Coast Motors next as they bet on Holyrood funding buses better in future years… maybe they are becoming one of those firms who are struggling at the day job and can only avoid scrutiny if they are seen to be continually expanding and therefore making it harder to assess the true profitability of the overall business… maybe they just want to collect bits of the SBG for nostalgia…

 

[overthewater]

McGills bought the Livingston Depot for one simple reason, "Bright Bus" AKA the money spinner for the company. While First was able to place a demand on the sale to make sure the Livingston depot was bolted on to the sale no matter what.

 

[Glasgowbusguy]

It's not the use of the colours that's the issue here, rather than the proposed application. The way the liveries are represented in the graphic suggests (and until we see an actual bus painted this way, it is just a suggestion) that they'll be applied in a style that's almost exactly the same as Lothian's.

When Lothian introduced the green and cream to West Lothian, it was in their own house style and First had long since abandoned those colours anyway.


What trademarks?

Livery, corporate colours etc are often trademarked to a set company. So if the companies that McGill's are buying own the trade marks to names, corporate colours, liveries etc. then McGill can use them and Lothian could be the one forced to change.

 

[Volvodart]

Agreed

Just my thoughts, but there seem to be three reasons why an operator like McGills would buy FSE:

1. First were pretty much giving it away, it’s a fire sale, First plan to keep anything under five years old for their other fleets and pretty much give away a troublesome part of their “empire” for a price so low that McGills couldn’t resist

2. McGills (who don’t seem particularly suicidal, who’ve tried to avoid competition in other areas and who’ve scaled back areas where they overlapped with First around Glasgow, e.g. the 17 no longer running beyond the Queen Elizabeth hospital) have some Scrappy Doo death wish and think that they can wipe the floor with Lothian

3. They are only buying an operation in the midst of a costly “bus war” because they are confident that they’ll be able to negotiate some kind of “peace deal” (or have already got some arrangement in the pipeline, e.g. a monopoly on the A71 for one operator and a monopoly on the A8 for the other, maybe an agreement that Lothian don’t run west of Livingston whilst McGills don’t run into central Edinburgh…). Why would any rational firm want to buy a company in the middle of a skirmish like in West Lothian if they didn’t feel they could secure some kind of “peace”, or smelt blood?

At the moment, I’d not put my house on anything, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out to be the case that McGills felt that the low price First were selling for and the likely “cost” of either surrendering some territory to Lothian/ buying them out still made it look like good value for money overall

There could be a multitude of other reasons, of course; maybe McGills are just keen to become too big for another firm to take over, by taking over FSE (plus Travel Dundee/ xplore) they’ll be too hard for anyone else to buy (due to size, competition issues etc)… maybe they’ll try to take over West Coast Motors next as they bet on Holyrood funding buses better in future years… maybe they are becoming one of those firms who are struggling at the day job and can only avoid scrutiny if they are seen to be continually expanding and therefore making it harder to assess the true profitability of the overall business… maybe they just want to collect bits of the SBG for nostalgia…

McGills have employed the person who was running First Scotland East for several months now so it is likely that they know the financials.

 

[sannox]

Wouldn't be the first time an operator used near identical liveries.

I think the local names are smart, I think the overwhelming 'corporate' level is just unpopular. It's off topic but it's sort of funny that after all the deregulation we're gradually getting back to the pre-deregulation situation!

 

[ChrisPJ]

This talk of liveries is amusing. Wasn’t there an episode post deregulateion where there was a new startup somewhere around bathgate and SMT ran them off the road with buses painted in the competitors colours?