Ensignbus is a bus and coach operator and bus dealer based in

Purfleet Purfleet-on-Thames is a town in the Thurrock unitary authority, Essex, England. It is bordered by the A13 road to the north and the River Thames to the south and is within the easternmost part of the M25 motorway but just outside the Greater Lon ...

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and Grea ...

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 a small number of bus contracts for the Port of London Authority and

Lesney Products Lesney Products & Co. Ltd. was a British manufacturing company responsible for the conception, manufacture, and distribution of die-cast toys under the "Matchbox" name. The company existed from 1947 until 1982. History Lesney was founded on 19 J ...

and later diversified into bus sales and operating

open top bus An open top bus is a bus, usually but not exclusively a double-decker bus, which has been built or modified to operate without a roof. Early buses were constructed without roofs but in more recent times they have only been built for tourist and ...

tours.The History of Ensignbus
Ensignbus

Bus sales

The company came to prominence in the UK when London Transport decided to dispose of its unpopular and poor performing

Daimler Fleetline The Daimler Fleetline (known as the Leyland Fleetline from circa 1975) is a rear-engined double-decker bus chassis which was built between 1960 and 1983. It was the second of three bus models to have a marque name as well as an alphanumeric ...

s from 1979. Ensignbus was the only company willing to bid for all these buses as one batch, numbering over 2,000 buses, as preferred by London Transport. As the vehicles arrived, Ensignbus moved to larger premises in

. While some were scrapped, Ensign sold many of these buses to operators around the country and abroad, with many ex-municipal companies and new operators requiring cheap re-inforcements for enhanced competition following the deregulation of bus services in 1986. Over 400 were sold to

China Motor Bus The China Motor Bus Company, Limited (), often abbreviated as CMB, is a property developer in Hong Kong. Before its franchise lapsed in 1998, it was the first motor bus operator in Hong Kong, and was responsible for the introduction of double-d ...

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 city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

. During the

London Pride Sightseeing London Pride Sightseeing was an open top sightseeing bus operator in London. History In 1983, the state owned London Transport ceased operating their ''Round London Sightseeing Tour'' operation as the market was opened up to competition by the ...

operation, Ensignbus continued selling buses in smaller numbers from a site in Rainham. With the sale of London Pride, Ensignbus moved to another site in Purfleet, and grew its sales business. Ensignbus was involved in the sale of London's

AEC Routemaster The AEC Routemaster is a front-engined double-decker bus that was designed by London Transport and built by the Associated Equipment Company (AEC) and Park Royal Vehicles. The first prototype was completed in September 1954 and the last one ...

buses following their withdrawal from regular use. As of 2013, it was the largest used bus dealer in the UK.Vantage Power's hybrid engines
''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...

'' 1 July 2013

Open top tour operations

In October 1985, Ensignbus purchased the

tour business. Through links gained by selling open top buses to other operators around the world, Ensignbus expanded the concept to other cities setting up new tours. In January 1998, the open-top tour business was sold. Starting in 1998 with an operation in

Seville Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula ...

, in 1999, Ensignbus launched the

City Sightseeing City Sightseeing is an open-top, sightseeing tour bus operator. It provides tour bus services in more than 130 cities around the world. As City Sightseeing has grown and expanded, the company now also provides boat tours, sightseeing trai ...

global sightseeing bus brand with a worldwide franchise model, and proceeded to rapidly expand into several cities. In May 2002 City Sightseeing bought out its main rival Guide Friday. In November 2000, Ensignbus reacquired the London Pride Sightseeing business but sold it in 2001 to

The Original Tour Tootbus London, formerly The Original Tour is a London bus tour operator using open-top double-decker buses. It also holds the franchise to run City Sightseeing's London tour. Based in Wandsworth, it is a subsidiary of RATP Dev. History T ...

. In June 2004, Ensignbus purchased

Bath Bus Company The Bath Bus Company is a bus operator in the United Kingdom which runs open top tours in Bath, Bristol and Cardiff, and the 'Bristol Air Decker' service between Bath and Bristol Airport. The company has been a subsidiary of the French RATP ...

and transferred its City Sightseeing operations in

Cardiff Cardiff (; cy, Caerdydd ) is the capital and largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Dinas a Sir Caerdydd, links=no), and the city is the eleventh-largest in the United Kingd ...

Eastbourne Eastbourne () is a town and seaside resort in East Sussex, on the south coast of England, east of Brighton and south of London. Eastbourne is immediately east of Beachy Head, the highest chalk sea cliff in Great Britain and part of the la ...

, and

Windsor Windsor may refer to: Places Australia * Windsor, New South Wales ** Municipality of Windsor, a former local government area * Windsor, Queensland, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland **Shire of Windsor, a former local government authority around Wi ...

to the company. In February 2011, the Bath Bus Company business was sold to the RATP Group. In April 2011, Ensignbus sold City Sightseeing to Enrique Ybarra.

London tendered services

As a result of deregulation in the mid 1980s Ensignbus expanded into tendered London Buses work in East London. Starting with one or two routes, Ensignbus gained a network of routes, using several second hand vehicles and batches of new vehicles: *8 1989 built

Alexander Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Al ...

bodied

Leyland Olympian The Leyland Olympian was a 2-axle and 3-axle double-decker bus chassis manufactured by Leyland between 1980 and 1993. It was the last Leyland bus model in production. Construction The Olympian had the same chassis and running gear as t ...

double-deckers *5 1989 built Northern Counties bodied Leyland Olympian double-deckers *16 1988 built

MCW Metrobus The MCW Metrobus is a two and three-axle double-decker bus manufactured by Metro Cammell Weymann (MCW) between 1977 and 1989, with over 4,000 built. The original MkI was superseded by the MkII which had a symmetrical windscreen with an arched ...

double-deckers In July 1989, it purchased the business of Frontrunner South East from Stagecoach East Midlands with route 248 and

252 Year 252 ( CCLII) was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Trebonianus and Volusianus (or, less frequently, year 1005 '' Ab urb ...

. In December 1990, Ensignbus sold its London tendered bus services to Hong Kong company Citybus with the Dagenham depot and 87 buses. It was rebranded as Ensign Citybus and then Capital Citybus. Ensignbus briefly re-entered London tendered service, taking over routes 324 and 348 from First Capital who had bought Capital Citybus. Routes 325 and 509 were later added before Ensignbus once again sold its London services in December 1999, this time to Town & Country Buses.

Essex & Kent services

In 2004, Ensignbus commenced operating a 12-month rail replacement contract in

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

for

South Eastern Trains South Eastern Trains (stylised as Southeastern) was a publicly owned train operating company that operated the South Eastern Passenger Rail Franchise between November 2003, when it took over from Connex South Eastern, and 1 April 2006, when S ...

while the Higham and Strood tunnels were closed to strengthening. To make use of the dead running from its Purfleet depot, route X80

Chafford Hundred Chafford Hundred is an area in the Borough of Thurrock in the ceremonial county of Essex. Chafford Hundred is north-west of Grays. Its railway station serves the area and Lakeside Shopping Centre. Lakeside Shopping Centre is in West Thurrock ...

to Gravesend via Lakeside and

Bluewater Shopping Centre Bluewater Shopping Centre (commonly referred to as Bluewater) is an out-of-town shopping centre in Stone (postally Greenhithe), Kent, England, outside the M25 motorway, east south east of London's centre. Opened on 16 March 1999 in a former chal ...

s was introduced. It proved successful and hence was kept going after the rail contract finished, albeit being cut back to run between Chafford Hundred & Lakeside to Bluewater only. In 2006, Ensignbus commenced operating services under contract to

Thurrock Council Thurrock Borough Council, usually known as simply Thurrock Council, is the local authority for the borough of Thurrock in Essex, England. Since 1997, Thurrock has been a unitary authority, combining the functions of a non-metropolitan county wit ...

and began operating services in Thurrock in competition with Arriva Southend.Bus Services
Ensignbus As at October 2016, it operated 16 routes. In April 2017, Ensign took over two further routes in Thurrock from Amber Coaches. In June 2019, Jetlink X1, a

night bus Night service, sometimes also known as owl service, refers to the public transport services operated during the night hours. These services are operated, mainly using buses but in certain cases using trams (or streetcars), not including int ...

service between

London Southend Airport London Southend Airport is an international airport situated on the outskirts of Southend-on-Sea in Essex, England, approximately from the centre of London. The airport straddles the boundaries between the city of Southend-on-Sea and the R ...

and

London Victoria Victoria station, also known as London Victoria, is a central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station in Victoria, in the City of Westminster, managed by Network Rail. Named after the nearby Victoria Street (not the Q ...

via

Lakeside Shopping Centre Lakeside Shopping Centre, is a large out-of-town shopping centre located in West Thurrock, Essex just beyond the eastern boundary of Greater London. It was constructed on the site of a former chalk quarry. The first tenants moved into the compl ...

, Canning Town, and Embankment stations commenced. It was withdrawn after a few weeks due to Ensignbus being denied access to Southend Airport. It recommenced on 5 October 2019 but was withdrawn again in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. On 17 June 2019, Ensignbus' services in Brentwood were taken over by NIBS Buses.

Today

Today, Ensignbus retains a small bus service network centred on Grays station and

. It also regularly provides buses for rail replacement services to train operators including

Abellio Greater Anglia Greater Anglia (legal name Abellio East Anglia Limited) is a train operating company in Great Britain owned as a joint venture by Abellio, the international arm of the state-owned Dutch national rail operator Nederlandse Spoorwegen, and the J ...

c2c Trenitalia c2c Limited,Companies House extract company no 789726 ...

Southeastern The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each se ...

, and Transport for London. Ensignbus also operates a dealership selling used buses from several major UK and Irish operators. In 2016, it became a dealer for BCI products, starting with the BCI Enterprise high capacity integral double-decker. The company acts as a partner to Vantage Power, a firm developing technology to retrofit existing buses with diesel-electric hybrid engines. Ensignbus maintains a fleet of heritage buses with AEC Regent III,

, Leyland Titan,

, and

Scania Metropolitan The Scania Metropolitan was the first double decker bus model built jointly by MCW and Scania. It was built between 1973 and 1978. It was the second bus model jointly built by these two companies. The first model was the Metro-Scania singl ...

s represented. As well as being available for charter, Ensignbus operate these at an annual running day on the first Saturday in December each year.

Fleet

Ensignbus has fleet of both single and double deck buses which are a combination of new and second-hand purchases. Fleet livery is light blue and silver. The fleet includes six

hybrid electric bus A hybrid electric bus is a bus that combines a conventional internal combustion engine propulsion system with an electric propulsion system. These type of buses normally use a Diesel-electric powertrain and are also known as hybrid Diesel-el ...

es delivered in 2012.Six new Volvo hybrids for Ensign Bus
''Coach & Bus Week'' 28 November 2012

References

External links

*
Company website
{{Bus companies in the East of England Auto dealerships of the United Kingdom Bus operators in Essex Bus operators in Kent City Sightseeing Former London bus operators Purfleet Transport companies established in 1972 Transport in Essex Transport in Thurrock Vintage bus operators in the United Kingdom 1972 establishments in England