In October 2024 Warrington’s Own Buses officially launched the first of it’s all-electric bus fleet.  The fleet is made up of Volvo BZL buses in the form of 33 double-deckers and 72 single-deckers in three different lengths of 9 metre, 10.8 metre and 12.1 metre all with bodywork by MCV.  At the same time a new £10 million bus depot has been designed and built for the new fleet of electric buses.  The existing diesel bus fleet was put up for sale and withdrawals started to take place as the new electric buses started to enter service.  At the same time a new livery of sulphur yellow and black was introduced to replace the blue and red scheme that was on the diesel fleet in recent years. 

This DVD programme charts the end of the diesel era and the start of the electric era.  The independent transport videos cameras made seven visits to Warrington from March 2024 to April 2025 to film the bus action and the gradual change from diesel to electric.  Our locations were mostly at Warrington’s busy bus station but also on Leigh Street and Sankey Street to give you a good variety of scenes to enjoy.  Apart from Warrington’s Own Buses we see buses from Arriva and Greater Manchester’s Bee Network on route 100 in the shape of former Go North West liveried buses now operated by Stagecoach in a change that took place during the Second Tranche of the franchising in Manchester. Indeed during our April 2025 visit we see brand new Enviro 200MMC single-deckers of Arriva in the new Metro livery of yellow, grey and black ready for the franchising that will take place in the Liverpool region in 2026.  Independent operators seen are Ashcroft’s Travel and Howards Travel Omega Busways as well as a Wright-bodied single-decker of M D Bus from St Helens.

Our programme begins with some archive cine film of buses in Warrington in the 1970s.  We see Warrington Corporation buses running alongside buses from Crosville, SELNEC and St Helens Corporation - some great memories to enjoy!  We then start our review of Warrington’s Own Buses going from diesel to electric with our first visit in March 2024 and we get a glimpse of the BZL single-deck demonstrator BV72 KPF wrapped in the new Warrington livery.  Further visits take place in April, June, August, September and December 2024.  In September we see the first of the electric buses in service and during the December visit you will see that the ‘personalised’ ‘CAT’ registrations on the Enviro 200MMC single-deckers have gone in preparation for selling the buses on.  During this visit we travel on 2026 (BJ74 XNZ), a double-decker Volvo BZL with an MCV H71F body on the Warrington, Gt Sankey/Penketh circular route 15.  A ride is also taken on single-decker 1004 (BV24 LPZ), a 33-seat MCV-bodied Volvo BZL on route 20 Warrington, Longford/Orford circular.  The other highlight of this visit is a tour of the new bus depot to see the charging stations and some of the diesel buses that were still in use.  You will see the first of the 12.1 metre single-deckers that had been delivered that morning to Warrington. 

During our April 2025 visit, which was during the school Easter holidays, every Warrington’s Own Buses in service that day was electric!