Capital Citybus was a bus operator in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

operating services under contract to

London Regional Transport London Regional Transport (LRT) was the organisation responsible for most of the public transport network in London, England, between 1984 and 2000. In common with all London transport authorities from 1933 to 2000, the public name and operatio ...

History

Capital_Citybus_bus_223_(P223_MPU)_on_route_91

Capital Citybus was established on 29 December 1990, with the purchase of the London tendered bus services of

Ensignbus Ensignbus is a bus and coach operator and bus dealer based in Purfleet, Essex. History Ensignbus was formed in 1972 by Peter Newman, who remains involved today as chairman and his sons Ross and Steve as directors. Ensignbus commenced with ...

by the

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...

businessman Tsui Tsin-tong's CNT Group, which also owned bus operator Citybus. Citybus purchased the London tendered routes, Dagenham garage and 87 buses and rebranded the operation as Capital Citybus. In 1991, it gained a large number of routes after the collapse of

subsidiary London Forest and further tendering and opened Northumberland Park garage. Capital Citybus also operated six commercial routes, mainly in the

Romford Romford is a large town in east London and the administrative centre of the London Borough of Havering. It is located northeast of Charing Cross and is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan. Historically, Romfo ...

area, and

Hertfordshire County Council Hertfordshire County Council is the upper-tier local authority for the non-metropolitan county of Hertfordshire, in England, the United Kingdom. After the 2021 election, it consists of 78 councillors, and is controlled by the Conservative Party, ...

-contracted service 321 (

Rickmansworth Rickmansworth () is a town in southwest Hertfordshire, England, about northwest of central London and inside the perimeter of the M25 motorway. The town is mainly to the north of the Grand Union Canal (formerly the Grand Junction Canal) and th ...

Luton Luton () is a town and unitary authority with borough status, in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 census, the Luton built-up area subdivision had a population of 211,228 and its built-up area, including the adjacent towns of Dunstable an ...

) on Sundays. On 21 December 1995, CNT Group sold Capital Citybus in a buy-in management buyout backed by Lloyds Development Capital.FirstGroup finds London bus firm is just the ticket
''Herald Scotland'' 9 July 1998 On 8 July 1998, Capital Citybus was sold to

FirstGroup FirstGroup plc is a British multi-national transport group, based in Aberdeen, Scotland.Annual Report Year Ended 31 March 1999
FirstGroup After a period of initially operating separately, the company was integrated into the other

First London First London was a bus company operating services in east and west Greater London, England. It was a subsidiary of FirstGroup and operated buses under contract to Transport for London. It was formed in the late 1990s through the acquisition o ...

operations.

Liveries

As Capital Citybus originated from Ensign, the fleet experienced several livery iterations from their inherited blue and silver scheme, starting out as merely Ensign blue/silver vehicles with Ensign Citybus fleetnames painted over where the Ensignbus name was, into variations of yellow and silver. The company settled on an allover yellow livery with stylised ''C'' logos either side of the destination blind on the front of the bus. Initially buses had red fleetnames incorporating the Chinese characters "城巴" (''Citybus'') and the stylised ''C'' with the Capital Citybus name, along with taglines such as "''moving comfortably ahead''" and "''here today... here tomorrow''". After the sale of the company to its management, the fleetname was subsequently modified to just ''Capital Citybus''. with the Chinese characters and stylised C phased out. Capital Citybus was a frequent contractor for

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four (British ra ...

and

London Underground The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or by its nickname the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in England. The ...

replacement service work, and during its existence operated specially liveried vehicles for

Docklands Light Railway The Docklands Light Railway (DLR) is an automated light metro system serving the redeveloped Docklands area of London, England and provides a direct connection between London's two major financial districts, Canary Wharf and the City of Lo ...

and the East London Line replacement services. As the regulations changed regarding London tendered service liveries, a revised mainly red livery was introduced. As the company passed into First ownership, for a time there existed a subtly different First Capital red and yellow livery with the First Group flying ''f'' replacing the Citybus ''C'' on the front of buses, and ''First Capital'' replacing the ''Capital Citybus''. Only the frontal ''f'' remained in an allover red First livery.

References

External links

London Bus Routes gallery
{{Defunct British Bus Companies Former London bus operators 1990 establishments in England 1998 disestablishments in England