All Over London Bus Blog: The Big 200th Post

200!
Wow, 200, cannot believe we're here very quickly, it has been a pleasure running this blog with all the other team members and the viewers are what make it the most pleasurable. Without you guys, we would barely have a blog! Hopefully you stick around for many more years and posts to come.

Rhys and The Team

Sullivan Buses

Sullivan Buses was founded in 1998 after the company's boss, Dean Sullivan applied for a bus company operating license with the ambition of one day becoming a greatly recognized bus company. 14 years later and the company is in one of it's greatest positions yet!

History

Dean Sullivan in the 1990's was a manager for London Underground and was managing TFL's rail replacement jobs at the time but had always had aspirations to run his own company after admiring all the Titans and Metrobuses during his career. He had founded his company in 1998 and was focused on completing a few small rail replacement jobs for TFL. So with the help of a former accomplice, Dean had managed to devise a system of buying a Titan and his friend form Mullany's Coaches, Watford; would use the bus during the weekdays and Dean would use it for his weekend Rail Replacement Jobs. This system had worked for a significant period of time but one year later, Dean decided to gain a premises in the Service yards in South Mimms, located just off of the M25 & A1 interchange, Which was Ideal for running routes in both London and Hertfordshire. This was to be used for storage of the buses Dean was planning to acquire. After generating money from the Titan sharing success, Dean had decided to source a few ex London Metrobuses, Olympians and Titans as he was passionate to only source Ex London buses, which he said "it reflects his Enthusiast side". After acquiring a suitable fleet, Dean continued to run Rail Replacement jobs, But on a much larger scale than previously. Three years later in 2002, Dean had later turned his attention to the story of the liquidation of White Rose Travel, in Stanies. He was only interested in one route which was the Thorpe Park shuttle from Staines. At that time, Thorpe Park had branded the route a failure and local residents regarded it as a nuisance. This encouraged Dean to step up to the Challenge and try to turn around a derelict route (950) and Ten years later, Merlin (owners of Thorpe Park) consider Sullivan Buses part of the family and have a range of E200's and Darts for their Staines base. One year later the company took another step in the right direction and had gained their first TFL tendered route in the form of route 383 off of Metroline. For this Sullivan ordered Small Caetano Nimbuses for the route. Although this was their first TFL route, Sullivan Buses were gaining routes on behalf of Hertfordshire County Council but also running their own commercial routes. Later Sullivan gained another TFL tendered route 606 and used their already preserved titans on the route. Prospects for the company were looking big at the timeand Sullivan were continuing to gain and operate routes in the Hertfordshire area. But after tender awards, Route 383 was regained by Metroline which had brought the vibe of the company down a bit and a year later again through tendering, they had lost route 606 to Metroline. Thus meaning that Sullivan was out of the TFL Scene. But this did not downheart him, so his company continued runnign of Rail Replacement Services and Hertfordshire services until, in the Autumn of 2011 it was announced that Sullivan buses had gained route 298 from Arriva, which was a big success for the company and a set of five Brand new Alexander Dennis E20d's were ordered. But that was not all of the good news! Later Sullivan found out that he had also gained four more tFL routes in the form of JFS School routes, aslso from Arriva.

Both Posts can be found below:

Route 298

JFS School Routes

2012 has been a big year for the company, with three premises, South Mimms (garage), Stanies (outstaition) & North Mymms (maintenance) and a total of around 59 buses and 32 routes in total, Sullivan have a great reputation with great, friendly staff and I do hope that this level of gratitude continues within the company!

Routes

Hertforshire County Council routes
TFL routes
Comerrcially Operated routes
THORPE Park Routes

Route 200: Essendon - London Conley
Route 201: Welham Green - Welwyn Garden City
Route 203: Watton at Stone - Welwyn Garden City
Route 205: Hatfield - South Hatfield
Route 206: Welwyn Garden City (Circualr)
Route 215: Codicote - Welwyn Garden City
Route 242: Potters Bar - Waltham Cross (Sullivan Evenings, Metroline Mon - Sat Daytime, Centrebus Sun)
Route: 298: Potters Bar - Arnos Grove
Route 303: Oaklands - South Miims
Route 306 (A,B&C): Watford - Borehamwood
Route 312: Hatfield - Potters Bar
Route 330: St Albans - Welwyn Garden City
Route 331: Welwyn - Oaklands
Route 332: Welwyn Garden City - Oaklands
Route 355: Borehamwood - Oaklands
Route 398: Borehamwood - Potters Bar
Route 628: Kingsbury JFS - Southgate
Route 653: Kingsbury JFS - Muswell Hill
Route 683: Kingsbury JFS - Friern Barnet
Route 688: Kingsbury JFS - Southgate
Route 823:Borehamwood - Garston
Route 826: Welham Green - Potters Bar
Route 833: South Oxhey - Garston
Route 841: Potters Bar - Brookmans Park
Route 841A: South Mimms - Brookmans Park
Route 950 - Staines - Thorpe Park
Route 951: Borehamwood - Thorpe Park (One Trip on both ways on certain dates only!)
Route B2: Borehamwood (Circular)
Route B3: Borehamwood (Circular)
Route B76: Carpenders Park - Kingsbury
Route B77: Radlett - Kingsbury

Fleetlist

ALX1 V116MEV (Former Selkent 17116)

ALX2 V117MEV (Former Selkent 17117)

ALX3 V119MEV (Former Selkent 17119)

ALX4 V139MEV (Former Selkent 17139)

ALX5 V142MEV (Former Selkent 17142)

ALX6 LY02OAX (Former Stagecoach 17548)

TAL123 X343HLL (Former Metroline TAL123)

TAL132 X332HLL (Former Metroline TAL132)

DEL1 PJ52BYP

TN1 PO51UMH

TN2 PO51UML

TN3 PO51UMR

PDL26 PJ02PZZ (Former Go Ahead London PDL26)

TPL926 EY03FNK (Former Blue Triangle TPL926)

TPL927 EY03FNL (Former Blue Triange TPL927)

ELV1 EL04SUL

ELV2 PN02XCR ( Former GAL EVL31)

ELV3 PL51LGD (Former GAL EVL3)

ELV4 PN02XBY (Former GAL EVL35)

ELV6 PL51LGG

VP113 W459BCW (Former London United VP113)

VP119 W466BCW (Former London United VP119)

VPL174 X157JOP

WVL1 GD52SYC

WVL2 FJ57CYZ (Former Wessex Connect 7504)

WVL3 FJ57CZD (Former Wessex Connect 7506)

WVL4 FJ57CZE (Former Wessex Connect 7507)

M102 THX102S

RML889 214UXJ

RM1069 69CLT

RMC1487 487CLT

RML2272 CUV272C

RML2428 JJD428D

RML2429 JJD429D

AE1 MS10SUL

AE2 SN57DXH

AE3 SN57DXK

AE4 NH11SUL

AE5 AH11SUL

AE11 CJ61SUL

AE12 DS61SUL

AE13 KR61SUL

AE14 KS61SUL

AE15 TW61SUL

AE16 SB61SUL

DN1 X2SUL

DN2 DN02SUL

DN3 SC02SUL

DN4 CN02SUL

DP82 V782FKH (Former London United DP82)

DP92 V792FKH (Former London United DP92)

DP96 V796FKH (Former London United DP96)

DPS574 SN51SZK (Former London United DPS574)

DPS575 SN51SZL (Former London United DPS575)

DPS576 SN51SZO (Former London United DPS576)

DPS577 SN51SZP (Former London United DPS577)

DT4 G504VYE

On the 31st of October, Rhys, Dave and I visited the South Mimms Premises to photograph just some of the buses in the garage at the time so please enjoy!

Thanks For Reading!

We Hope To Bring You Many More Great Posts Soon!

The Big 200th Post - Sullivan Buses

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