in february 2010 parent gerald king 50 % john king 50 % commenced operation 1923 headquarters smithfield service type coach charter services alliance premier transport group depots 1 fleet 25 june 2015 website www.hopkinsons.com.au hopkinsons is an australian bus company in western sydney . until october 2013 it operated route services until these passed to transit systems sydney . it continues to trade as a charter operator . contents 1 history 2 fleet 3 references 4 external links history edit custom coaches bodied volvo b12ble at liverpool station in july 2013 hopkinsons origins can be traced to 1923 when the try family trading as merrylands bus company commenced operating services in the fairfield guildford and merrylands area with four buses . by 1957 the fleet had expanded to 16 buses . in 1978 merrylands bus company was sold to graham hopkinson and renamed hopkinsons and relocated to smithfield . 1 2 in late 2003 the coach business of challenge coachlines was purchased and amalgamated with hopkinsons existing coach charter business . following the death of graham hopkinson in 2011 his four daughters took over running the business . 2 from 2005 hopkinsons services formed part of sydney bus region 3 . 3 in october 2013 transit systems sydney commenced operating the new region 3 from october 2013 that includes the services formerly operated by hopkinsons . 4 5 hopkinsons continues to trade as a charter operator . on 1 march 2015 the business was purchased by kiama coaches proprietor gerald king and premier transport group owner john king . 6 7 fleet edit as at june 2015 the fleet consisted of five buses and 20 coaches . 2 when hopkinsons purchased the business in 1978 it consisted of bedfords . in the 1980s these were replaced by ex action aec swift and volvo b58s . in the 1990s it had some ex public transport corporation volvo b59s rebodied by p & d coachworks to a design by hopkinsons followed by some similarly bodied volvo b10bs . more recent purchases have been custom coaches bodied volvo b12bles . hopkinsons has long operated charter coaches . initially operating dennings and later austral tourmasters it has since moved to scania and volvos . in the 1980s the two tone green livery was replaced by the current white green and blue colour scheme . coaches used to also carry this livery until a silver livery was adopted at about the same time as the purchase of challenge coachlines . references edit company history hopkinsons a b c hopkinsons metrobus & coaches australian bus fleet lists region 3 transport nsw cut costs or bus contracts will go to private sector minister tells drivers sydney morning herald 7 november 2012 transit systems awarded sydney buses contract transit systems 7 november 2012 hopkinsons australian bus panorama issue 30 6 may 2015 page 53 hopkinsons australian bus panorama issue 31 1 july 2015 page 49 external links edit merrylands bus company fleet in 1957 bus australia gallery showbus gallery retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title hopkinsons & oldid 740873950 categories bus companies of new south walesbus transport in sydney1923 establishments in australiahidden categories use dmy dates from november 2013use australian english from november 2013all wikipedia articles written in australian english navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 23 september 2016 at 21 41 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view