Sapphire once again makes Chester sparkle!

After the launch of Sapphire on service 10 on Sunday 15th March, yesterday (Saturday 28th March) I decided to make a visit to Chester to see how popular the route is and if this has been a success so far. 

Arriva Buses Wales have once again brought in a new concept for bus travel to the people of Chester, Queensferry, Shotton, Connah's Quay, Flint and Holywell with the launch of the high quality Sapphire brand. These brand new Enviro400's come fitted with Wi-Fi, e-leather seating, audio-visual displays and plug sockets making the perfect commute for the people of Holywell, Deeside and Chester and this marks a £2 million investment by Arriva on a key corridor in the area.

Here we have Arriva Buses Wales (Chester) Sapphire Enviro400 CX15 BXP with the fleet number 4639 preparing to continue a service 10A to Holywell Bus Station at Chester Bus Exchange having started a service from Chester Railway Station a few minutes earlier. 

Here we have Arriva Buses Wales (Chester) Sapphire Enviro400 CX15 BXY with the fleet number 4645 preparing to continue a service 10A to Holywell Bus Station at Chester Bus Exchange having started a service from Chester Railway Station a few minutes earlier. 

Here we have Arriva Buses Wales (Chester) Sapphire Enviro400 CX15 BXV with the fleet number of 4643 offloading at Chester Bus Exchange before terminating at Chester Railway Station on a 10A from Holywell Bus Station.

Here we have Arriva Buses Wales (Chester) Sapphire Enviro400 CX15 BXW with the fleet number of 4644 offloading at Chester Bus Exchange before terminating at Chester Railway Station on a 10 from Connah's Quay Shopping Centre on Ffordd Llanarth.

With the introduction of these luxurious Enviro400's comes two routes, route 10 (which operated before the 15th March) which links Chester Railway Station with Chester City Centre, Sealand Road (Greyhound Park), Queensferry, Shotton and Connah's Quay before going through the estate up to Quay Shopping Centre via Deeside College and also route 10A (which never existed before the 16th March) which follows the same route to Connah's Quay and continues along the same route as the 11/11A to Flint and then terminates at Holywell Bus Station. 

Each services runs at a 30 minute frequency with a combined 15 minute frequency on offer Monday to Saturday with a 30 minute frequency (Route 10 only) on Sundays and Bank Holidays.

Hope you enjoyed reading my blog post today and I will be back soon with another blog post. In the meantime - follow us on Facebook at The 2002 Bus Blog on Facebook and The 2002 Bus Group on Facebook and visit our main website