Visiting Scunthorpe in North Lincolnshire recently I saw that Stagecoach swirls had eradicated all the former "Scunthorpe Shuttle" branding on RoadCar "Super Buzz" livery. This livery had been applied to most high frequency bus services in RoadCar territory, from the firm's former operation in Grantham to services within Newark, Skegness and much of the city of Lincoln. Generally the livery was applied to single decker low-floor Darts (there were a couple of exceptions) and in Grimsby at the time of the Stagecoach take-over the livery had been applied for the first time ever on Volvo B7TLs with East Lancs Vyking bodies, being allocated to Service 16 (Asda-Wybers Wood), upping the ante with Stagecoach who at the time competed on the service using lesser vehicles.
The town of Scunthorpe though was especially unified in that virtually all the vehicles operated within the town on 'town services' were Optare Solos. They all carried the "Scunthorpe Shuttle" branding rather than "Super Buzz" but remained immediately recognisable as having this base livery. During September and early October the painters at Stagecoach in Lincolnshire's Lincoln and Scunthorpe depots pressed ahead with re-painting all the Company's Optare Solos - a total of 14 that were still in the fleet when acquired with the RoadCar business. All bar one were allocated to Scunthorpe and wore "Scunthorpe Shuttle" fleet names.
Since being re-painted all Scunthorpe based vehicles continue to wear "Scunthorpe Shuttle" fleet names, though this has been freshened up a bit with the word "Scunthorpe" in orange, curving slightly around the word "Shuttle" in a blue circle beneath it. Unusually a lone variation has been made, with "Crosby Shuttle" being the branding on Solo 47276 (FX04 WFW). It is the only vehicle to have this branding and is allocated to Shuttle 38 from Scunthorpe bus station to Crosby via the Hospital, Avenue Vivian and a one-way circuit in Crosby via Ferry Road, Crosby Avenue, Portman Road and Foxhills Road. The frequency of Shuttle 38 is every 30 mins with a round trip taking 24 mins. Buses start from 0700hrs and the last departure is 1800hrs on Mon-Sat.
