Just £2!-Part Ten-Staffordshire Triangle-14/4/23

As I finished a week of late nights the evening before today’s bash, I didn’t want to start particulalrly early! In fact, consideration was made for spending some quality time in the pub (which, as you’ll see by the end of the blog, certainly happened!) but then I thought about a route that I’ve been meaning to ride for quite a while, but only runs at it’s full length in the off peak, so I decided today was the ideal opportunity to get this route in the book, with the bash just evolving quite naturally around that!

Despite not getting to bed until around two, I woke up around half seven, so I did myself some breakfast…..then fell asleep in front of BBC Breakfast, waking up around ten! Which, as the bus I was after left Wolverhampton at 12.01, was absolutely fine, so I got ready and left the house. As regular readers will know, my usual path to Wolverhampton consists of using the West Midlands Metro but first, I needed to pay a quick visit to the bank (before they all close down!) so it was to my local bus stop for a ride on National Express West Midlands (NXWM) 2005 vintage Wright Gemini bodied Volvo B7 4688 on the 47 to West Bromwich High Street, where I did the neccesseries and then walked to the nearest Metro stop at Lodge Road-West Bromwich Town Hall….only to see a tram heading off in the Wolverhampton direction! Never mind, a ten minute wait saw CAF Urbos 3 car 23 turn up, which took me efficiently to Wolverhampton St Georges, from where I walked alongside the Metro’s new Wolverhampton Railway Station branch, which has recently seen it’s first test tram trundle down it, to Wolverhampton bus station, from where my bus wasn’t departing from but I needed to use the loo!

For the first time in many years, I didn’t see any NXWM Dennis Tridents in the city, these having been a part of the bus scene here since their introduction on routes 529 (then operated by Walsall garage) & 559 in 2001, but are now being replaced by buses cascaded by the arrival of electric buses in Coventry, many of the E400s concerned retaining their blue livery. Anyhow, I walked along Lichfield Street, past the incredibly fine Grand Theatre, crossed over Princess Square, a blue plaque reminding me that this was the site of the UK’s first ever set of traffic lights, installed in 1927 and made permenant in 1928……and are still stuck on red! No, not really! This bought me to the set of bus stops opposite the Art Gallery, where the route that I wished to travel on started from.

Wolverhampton-Stafford

One of the large Midland Red company’s main trunk routes out of Wolverhampton was it’s service to Stafford, which started on 24th June 1920, as the company expanded throughout the Midlands. By the late twenties, it would have been extended to Birmingham, along the 1927 introduced route along the A4123 Birmingham New Road, which had become the 125 in 1928, the journeys through to Stafford becoming the 195. The fifties saw these diverted along the new 126 route through Dudley’s Priory Estate, the Stafford service becoming the 196, with 195 retained for use on Wolverhampton-Stafford short workings. An interesting anomoly with these routes was that through passengers had to rebook in Wolverhampton, due to a revenue sharing agreement with Wolverhampton Corporation.

1967 would see the 196 withdrawn, with new, one man operated service 876 (which would therefore initially be single deck, Midland Red not introducing one man double deckers until 1968) replacing from Wolverhampton-Stafford. The main thing I remember about this route from the seventies is that it was the last Midland Red route to terminate at the company’s Cleveland Road terminus, not far from the former Wolverhampton Corporation, by then West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive (WMPTE) garage of the same name but also close to Midland Red’s original Wolverhampton garage in Bilston Street, which opened on 14th May 1920 (which means, being as that was before the 1921 opening of the company’s Stafford garage, Wolverhampton would have commenced the Stafford service) but closed on 1st March 1964, the company moving to a larger new garage on Dudley Road, a superb show of optimism by the company that would ultimately prove to be unfounded, the garage closing on 1st October 1971. Interestingly, after years in other uses, Dudley Road is a bus garage once more, the former Travel Express company, now branded Let’s Go being based there.

Now operated wholly by Stafford garage, the 876 continued, moving from Cleveland Road (from where the now West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive-WMPTE-operated 125 & 126 had moved to the more central Cleveland Street terminus around the same time) to Wolverhampton bus station (the other side of Railway Terrace from today’s bus station) around 1978. The service passed to Midland Red North upon the September 1981 Midland Red split, with deregulation even seeing the service returning to Birmingham, becoming the X87 and reaching the second city through Darlaston, Stone Cross & Great Barr, but this proved short lived, a victim of Midland Red North’s fragile financial state at the time, the 876 returning as part of the company’s large April 1987 cutbacks. The service would soldier on, seemingly a permenent fixture, with what had now become Arriva renumbering the route 76 in the early years of this century. But a rival would come along thanks to sponsership from the new i54 business and industrial development on the outskirts of Wolverhampton, with NXWM winning the contract for two new services into Staffordshire. One of these, the 154 to Hednesford, would be fairly short lived, lasting little more than a year, when additional funding from Staffordshire County Council ceased but the other, the 54 to Stafford, which, other than diverting to serve i54, paralleled the 76 exactly, was more successful, attracting passengers by virtue of it’s cheaper NXWM fares, particularly the company’s Daysaver. Arriva would reroute the 76 via i54 but the writing was on the wall and, as Arriva has closed it’s Stafford operations, with the 76 transferring to the former Choice garage at Wednesfield, the company was losing interest in the route anyhow, so the road was left to the 54.

Unfortunately, the gradual reduction in the i54 grant meant that the 54 would have to be self financing, which the popular cheap fares, due to the route’s long length, weren’t achieving. The result was that the 54 was withdrawn in April 2020, the then recently introduced pandemic lockdown depriving me of a final ride on the route. With a frequent train service between Wolverhampton & Stafford (currently consisting of four trains per hour, two LNWR trains, to Liverpool & Crewe via Stoke respectively, Avanti West Coast’s hourly North West & Scotland trains and Cross Country’s hourly Manchester service) there was no rush either commercially or by Staffordshire County Council (never the most bus focused authority!) to provide a replacement, therefore leaving just a very indirect service that had only developed in recent years between the two places, the 877 & 878.

The 878

The late twenties saw Wolverhampton Corporation come to an agreement with Midland Red over respective spheres of influence, with the Corporation already supplementing it’s declining tram and growing trolleybus operation with motor bus services heading out of the then town’s (Wolverhampton not becoming a city until 2000) boundaries into the surrounding countryside, part of which was already being served by Midland Red. With it’s eye firmly on the suburban development taking place beyond the Wolverhampton boundary on the Birmingham New Road, Midland Red happily handed over several of it’s rural services to the corporation, in return for being left alone on the Birmingham New Road corridor beyond the boundary. Whilst lengthy routes to the likes of Stafford, Shrewsbury & Stourbridge remained with Midland Red, several shorter distance services transferred to the Corporation, beginning a long established country bus operation. Included here were routes two routes to the village of Wheaton Aston, one introduced by Midland Red on 1st March 1922 via Tettenhall Road, Albrighton & Tong, which was later joined by a more direct service following the Stafford service to Gailey, then heading along the A5 to Ivetesy Bank, where it joined the Albrighton route for the short run into Wheaton Aston. Both routes passed to Wolverhampton Corporation on 2nd March 1927, with the route via Albrighton curtailed to terminate at Ivetesy Bank at the same time.

Meanwhile, Wolverhampton Corporation themselves began a service leaving Wolverhampton via the Stafford Road, then heading to Brewood (pronounced Brude) via the village of Coven on 16th August 1922, following a special, one off service that ran on the 7th & 8th August that year. 12th August 1929 would see some journeys on this service extended to Wheaton Aston, replacing the ex Midland Red service via Gailey. This service would subsequently become the 22, with shorts to Brewood numbered 52.

The 1971 closure of Midland Red’s Wolverhampton garage would prove to be the ultimate in bad timing! For the company may have decided that it didn’t need a Wolverhampton garage back then but, just over two years later, it certainly would do……but Dudley Road’s new owners refused to sell it back!

3rd December 1973 would see Midland Red sell it’s services within the about to be formed West Midlands county to WMPTE, with part of the deal involving Midland Red taking over most of the longer Wolverhampton country routes, so the 22 & 52 would become the 877 & 878 respectively. Along with the other ex Wolverhampton services, they would be operated by the remote Cradley Heath garage that Midland Red were able to reopen (having originally closed on 28th May 1971) this being some ten miles from Wolverhampton, so hardly conveniant! This awkward situation lasted until 7th February 1977, when Cradley Heath was replaced by the brand new Cannock garage, which also replaced the ex Harper Brothers garage at Heath Hayes. This eased the operation of the Wolverhampton services slightly, as interworking with the 872 Cannock service (originally Wolverhampton’s 21) enabled buses and drivers to return to base.

1980 saw Midland Red’s Market Analysis Project (MAP) come to Cannock & Stafford garages, bringing many service changes and economies, the new network being operated under the Chaserider fleetname, a name revived in January 2021 when independent operator D & G took over Cannock garage from Arriva. The 877 & 878 would be substantially reduced in these revisions, with most off peak 878 journeys being taken over by that independent with a reputation for running elderly buses and charging cheap fares, Green Bus of Great Wyrley, with Green Bus taking over the rest of the 878 at deregulation. Later, they would introduce service 12, extending journeys from the 877’s Wheaton Aston terminus into Penkridge, the main halfway point on the 876.

Green Bus would go under in the early years of this century, never really coming to terms with the more complex needs of the more modern buses they were gradually forced to buy, and the Brewood/Wheaton Aston service would briefly pass to Choice Travel as the 3 before Select Travel Services would take them over and extend them onto Stafford as the 877 & 878. The service operates roughly hourly during the day, most journeys being 878s but two (10.01 & 13.01 off Wolverhampton) are 877s, which operate via Gnosall & Haughton (on the Stafford-Newport Road served by Arriva’s 5-see Part Six of this series) in lieu of the Penkridge & Acton Trussell routing of the 878. Incidentally, neither service runs through to Wolverhampton on Saturdays.

At the appointed hour, Select Bus Services long Optare Solo 16 arived on the 12.01 878, and I joined the small queue shown here in boarding;

Most of the passengers were concessionary pass holders, though a young couple in front of me were fare payers, both heading for Coven. Once boarded, I grabbed the back seat and we were off down Darlington Street, then leaving the City Centre by Wolverhampton Wonderers Molyneux football ground before joining the Stafford Road out of town, following the routes of NXWM services 3 to Fordhouses & 4 to Pendeford, the latter having recently been converted to E200 midibus operation, following the transfer to Wolverhampton of several such buses made redundent from the loss of some midibus operated services elsewhere. Whilst the 4 turns off, the 3 carries on along the semi detached clad dual carriageway that would have looked so right with the trolleybuses that introduced the 3 back in the seventies, a very lengthy extension of the Bushbury tram route that it replaced. Today though, the 3 takes a little diversion via the Wobaston estate, before rejoining us just before it’s Fordhouses terminus, at the city boundary. From here, we passed under the M54 motorway, not far from the i54 developments that adopted part of it’s name.

Continuing along the main A449 Wolverhampton-Stafford Road, we passed a new development that certainly wasn’t there the last time I rode the 54, in 2019, this being a dinosaur themed crazy golf course! Shortly afterwards, we turned into the village of Coven. The Chaserider revisions had seen the 876 rerouted to serve this village, making up for the reduction of the 877 & 878, and it would continue to do so for the rest of it’s life, with the 54 also serving the village. We dropped off a fair few here, including the young couple, illustrating the importance of the bus to this community. We then passed the short distance into the small town of Brewood where we dropped off all but a few of our remaining passengers, the driver waiting time here before continuing onwards into a stretch of very narrow country lanes, with us coming to a complete halt when we encountered a Plaxton Centro bodied saloon on the 878 coming the other way, forcing us to reverse a bit to find a space where both buses could just about squeeze past each other!

Travelling onwards, we passed through the small village of Bishops Wood before crossing over the A5 at Ivetesy Bank, where that service via Albrighton & Tong would terminate until curtailed to terminate at Tong, this stretch of the A5 being a stretch of road I remember from living in Telford, this being the route that the X96 from Shrewsbury took to get to the M6 Motorway enroute to Birmingham and beyond to Coventry & Leicester from May 1974 until November 1979, when it was curtailed at Birmingham, the same time seeing several stops introduced along the A5, including at Ivetesy Bank, where I once saw someone actually get on! This would last until November 1983 when the X96 was rerouted via the newly extended M54. Soon after, we entered the tiny village of Wheaton Aston, terminus of the Wolverhampton 22/Midland Red 877. The route of the 878 beyond here largely replaced the tendered 888, introduced during the era of Tony Blair’s Rural Bus Grant, this hourly service running from the Perton estate, just over the Staffordshire border on the western side of Wolverhampton and travelling via Codsall to Wheaton Aston. Operated by Choice Travel, the reduction in funds for such services from 2010 onwards saw the route withdrawn, the Perton-Codsall section replaced by the two hourly 10B from Wolverhampton, then operated by Choice before that firm was taken over by Arriva, and now being operated by NXWM (late 2023 would see the 10B withdrawn in favour of more journeys on the 10A to Pattingham.) Meanwhile, Select’s 878 would replace the rest of it.

After serving Wheaton Aston, we doubled down back to the A5, taking this to Gailey Roundabout, where we rejoined the A449, with me wondering whether this was a rerouting made to counter the loss of the 54. Soon after we passed Rodbaston College, a place that Select run several contract services to, including the 804 to/from Sutton Coldfield which I see one of the company’s Scanias on quite regularly. I was wondering where it was, now I know! Travel is such an education! The main road took us into Penkridge, where we unexpectedly did a u turn by the town’s main bus stop, doubling back on ourselves slightly to turn down a narrow estate road, which took us out of town and onto more country lanes, taking us into the village of Acton Trussell, which was originally served by Midland Red’s 873 from Stafford-Penkridge, which would eventually be replaced by a few 876/76 journeys diverting down here. I actually went on one of these once, on a journey at college kick out times at Stafford, but it was in the midst of winter and totally dark, so I remember little about it, so this was the first time I’d seen the village properly, a pleasant little place, a statement which actually sums up the whole 878!

Soon after, we rejoined the main A449 again, this stretch now being on Select’s 875 Stafford-Cannock via Penkridge service, which was originally Arriva’s 75, introduced to replace the ex Green Bus 1 from Cannock-Penkridge and provide a half hour service onwards alongside the 76. Upon the January 2021 takeover of Arriva’s Cannock garage by D & G, with this company reviving the Chaserider name for the acquired operation, the 75 was renumbered 875 and transferred to Select, D & G owner Julian Peddle also having a 25% stake in Select, meaning that the two operartors cooperate greatly, with Select taking over services more conveniant to it’s Penkridge base, including the remaining Stafford Town services. As we entered Stafford, the 875 wanders off around a housing estate, covering one of the Town services withdrawn when Arriva closed the garage here, subsequently closing the small out station that had initially replaced it! We, however, stuck to the main road, which bought us over the railway by the railway station, then making the tedious crawl around the edge of Stafford Town Centre (which was pedestrianised in the nineties) makinng our way to the Pitcher Bank terminus;

Operating the next 878 out was this Optare Versa that is still in the livery of it’s former owner, Visionbus of Bolton;

I now had just over an hour before my next bus, at 14.40, so I thought it was time to go for a pint! Now, right next to the Pitcher Bank terminus is the Shrewsbury Arms, a Black Country Ales pub, which regular readers will know is a chain that I’m fond of, but the last time I had a drink in Stafford, last summer (see blog “Riding Chaserider”) I discovered the Olde Rose & Crown, my introduction to the wonderful Joules ales, which would be cemented by my visit to the New Inn at Newport, as mentioned in Part Six of this series, so I was looking forward to visiting the Olde Rose & Crown again, so I walked around to it……only to find it closed! So it was back to the Shrewsbury Arms I went, where, given the pub’s name, I thought it highly appropriate to order a pint of Salopian brewery’s Days Of Days, all very Shropshire…..except that we were in Stafford.

After two pints at this very friendly pub, I walked around to the very basic Gaol Square bus station (noting on the way that the Olde Rose & Crown was now open), to wait for the 14.40 828 to Lichfield.

The 828

On the occasion of last year’s “Riding Chaserider ” blog, I’d arrived in Stafford on the Chaserider 826 from Lichfield, so, with a specific reason to visit Lichfield again, I decided to ride the other route from here to that city, also run by Chaserider and making a half hourly service with the 826, this being the 828. For many years, the main service between the county town and small cathedral city was the Midland Red 825, which had run for many years via the most direct route, using double deckers, including the two underfloor engined BMMO D10 buses that ended their days at Stafford garage (see blog “Three Monsterous Beasts!”) but the mid seventies would see the service rerouted, replacing the former Green Bus (not the later Great Wyrley firm I mentioned earlier but the Rugeley based independent that Midland Red bought in 1974) service from Rugeley-Lichfield via Brereton & Handsacre, plus replacing most journeys on services 823 & 824 via Colwich, which passed under two very low bridges, which even restricted the type of single decker that could now be used on the route, with the roof pods of Leyland Nationals unable to get under, causing several Stafford allocated examples to have them removed late in life, although the 1980 delivered National 2s had no such pod, so they appeared on the 825 regularly, alongside Willowbrook (S24) and Marshall (S27 & S28) bodied Dual Purpose Leyland Leopards and later, Stafford’s three 1984 vintage Duple Dominant bodied Leyland Tigers (1704-1706) and the nineties bought Leyland Tigers rebodied by East Lancs.

Deregulation saw the route extended to Tamworth, replacing most of the X25 Limited Stop Stafford-Tamworth service introduced in 1983 (a few peak journeys survived into the nineties) but the desire to increase the Stafford-Lichfield section to half hourly following it’s conversion to low floor Plaxton Pointer bodied Dennis Darts in the early years of this century saw the route curtailed at Lichfield again (Tamworth is today covered by the X65 & 765-see Part Three of this series.) More recently, one journey per hour was rerouted via the Baswich estate in Stafford as the 826 but, after Chaserider took over the operation, they replaced the 825 with a new, hourly 828, which replaced the Colwich section of the 825 by merging the route with the 841, a route that had come to Midland Red North with the takeover of Staffordian Travel (which had previously been Greatrex) on 29th July 1991, the route originally running to Hixon via Great Haywood but subsequently rerouted to Rugeley, with me once riding a Marshall bodied Dennis Dart on the route. So with the 828 covering the Colwich side of the route, it was felt that the 826 could leave this to the new route, sticking to the main road and thus, the two low bridges are no longer served.

At 14.40, there was no sign of the bus, which would reach Stafford on a 74 from Cannock, and I began to think the worst when, around ten minutes late, all white liveried Wright bodied Volvo B7 625 appeared, so I joined the queue. Upon paying my £2 and heading into the saloon, I immediately recognised this as a former First bus by it’s lilac based “barbie” interior colour scheme. I made my way to the back and we were off out in a northerly direction, quite different to the route of the 826 towards Weeping Cross that I’m more used to heading along when going to Lichfield, heading along Weston Road to the County Hospital, which we called into before heading out of town. And then, it was into more stunning countryside, which even today’s very rainy weather couldn’t takeaway the joy of travelling through. We soon reached Great Haywood which, once upon a time, was served by the X41, an occasional service to Birmingham operated by Rugeley based independent Middletons, who had took over it’s previous operator Carneys in the early seventies but would iself run into trouble in the early eighites, it’s services mostly falling into the Stevensons net, including the X41, which became the X49 from Uttoxeter (near to Stevensons Spath home) though I’m unsure if this continued to serve Great Haywood. The village almost inperceptably turns into Colwich, and I soon recognised the road which the 825 used to use, under those bridges which take the West Coast Main Line’s Trent Valley section, and the North Staffs line from Colwich-Stone which enables Euston-Manchester via Stoke trains to avoid Stafford (see blog “The Complications Of The Stone-Colwich Line.”)

We then headed through the quite sprawling village, then joining the A51 road which runs from Stoke down to Lichfield, soon passing the road from Stafford where the 826 joins us. As we entered Rugeley, both routes head onto the Springfields estate, built in the fifties to house miners from nearby pits who had come from closed mines in Scotland. Of course, the local pits would also ultimately go and Springfields is now an ordinary, mostly council estate. Originally, the estate was served by Carneys, then Middletons, with the service ultimately becoming Stevensons 421, though the early eighties bought competition to Rugeley with Key Coachways Blue Bus Services, which also served Springfields, as did the Great Wyrley based Green Bus on it’s 480, later 10 form Cannock (with some journeys to/from Wolverhampton) via Cannock Chase, an original Green Bus of Rugeley service that had become Midland Red’s 841 before being cutback to Harleys Corner before it’s total withdrawal with the Chaserider revisions, when Green Bus used the opportunity to return the whole service, plus it’s Wolverhampton extension. I’ve happy memories of riding the company’s two Leyland PD3s (one ex Caerphilly, the other ex Stockport) on the route over the Chase. Alas, buses no longer serve that route. It was around this time that Midland Red North rerouted the 825 and it’s less regular sisters via the estate.

Blue Bus would go under in 1985, giving Stevensons a virtual monopoly on the three Rugeley Town services to Springfields, Pear Tree & Brereton, with post deregulation times seeing the company’s ex London Transport DMS class Daimler Fleetlines ultimately replaced by minibuses, making a visit to Rugeley far less interesting, with the bus station, which we subsequently pulled into, no longer the alladdin’s cave that it seemed on my early eighities visits. With Stevensons being taken over by British Bus in 1994, the Rugeley depot was closed, with operation of the town services transferring to Cannock. Now, as I discovered on last year’s trip, the Town services have gone completely, with the 826 & 828 covering Springfields adequately, whilst the 826 has been rerouted to replace the Brereton route, and originally, the 63 to Cannock was rerouted via Pear Tree but that estate has now been sacrificed in favour of improving the 63’s reliability, leaving the estate busless!

We left the bus station and continued along the A51, letting the 826 make it’s Brereton housing estate diversion, rejoining us before both routes left the main road to follow the original Green Bus Lichfield route through Armitage (once home of the Armitage Shanks toliet factory!) and Handsacre, before more countryside took us back onto the A51, which now provides a by pass on the edge of the city, which we turned off of, and headed into the City Centre down the old road, soon arriving at this affluent city’s bus station, where we terminated, the driver changing the blinds to 826 for his return to Stafford;

Seftons

And yes, readers of both the “Riding Chaserider” and “Staffordshire Knott” blogs will know full well why I wanted to come to Lichfield, specifically, as there was no hope of a dinner time arrival today, after 16.00 (with the 828 scheduled to arrive at 15.56, though the late runnning meant that we’d arrived slightly after 16.00) for that is when Seftons chippy, just around the corner from the bus station, and by the railway bridge that takes Cross City line trains out of town and also has kept services in the Tamworth direction (originally Midland Red’s 765 & 766 through to Coventry) single deck operated, opens. So I made my way over and bought cod & chips…..but where to eat them? There’s no eat in section so it would normally mean walking back to the bus station, but the benches there are all out in the open, and as you can see from the above photo it was still raining quite heavily! So it was the railways to the rescue! For luckily, there are no barriers to preclude access to Lichfield City station, which also contains handy platform awnings, enabling the benches to be protected from the elements. So I walked inside, just as a load of rail passengers had just got off a train from Birmingham, making their way to cars and taxis….sadly, I suspect not buses! I then made my way up the steps onto the platform, and found a suitable bench. Whilst I ate, people came up to wait for that Class 323 EMU that had now headed up to it’s Lichfield Trent Valley terminus and would return as the 16.43 to Bromsgrove, but most of these headed into the waiting room, leaving me undisturbed. The train hadn’t arrived by the time I’d finished (as usual, the fish & chips were excellent!) so I left the bus station, ready for my next move, which would see me use NXWM to get back into the West Midlands county.

The 8

Walsall Corporation once ran several services into Lichfield, including the 16 from the undertaking’s home town, the 44 to Boney Hay and the 47 to Cannock, plus the short lived and peak only 960 from/to Wolverhampton via Bloxwich, a 1965 introduced rail replacement service (this was when passenger trains on the Lichfield-Walsall line, with trains running on to Wolverhampton, ceased) that ceased itself shortly after the WMPTE takeover of Walsall in October 1969. Once the West Midlands Metrpolitan County Council was formed in April 1974, the now county council controlled WMPTE had little interest in operating outside it’s boundary, so many of the services into Staffordshire were cut over the years. The Chaserider network in 1980 saw the PTE and Midland Red work together in revising the network, with services wholly within Staffordshire, like the former 47 (which the PTE had renumbered 390 & 391 in 1976) to Cannock, passing to Midland Red, the Cannock-Lichfield service becoming the hourly 860. Retaining a half hourly service with this between Lichfield & Burntwood was the PTE’s 394, which then continued onto Walsall via Brownhills. Midland Red North caused a little upset in November 1984 when it introduced an extension to it’s 862 (Cannock-Rawnsley, which had replaced most of the PTE’s 308/309/310 in the Chaserider revisions) from Rawnsley, down into Burntwood, then onto Lichfield…..at exactly the same time as the 394! This would cause the 394 to be curtailed at Burntwood in the summer of 1985. With the passing of the 381 via Shenstone & Aldridge to Chase Buses in September 1986 (now covered by Select’s 36 to Aldridge, see Part Three), this just left the direct Limited Stop 901, which had replaced the 16’s replacing 396 & 397 in January 1985, as the only service between Walsall & Lichfield, with deregulation seeing this massively increased and extended on from Lichfield to Birmingham. 1990 would see the 901 split, with the Walsall side becoming the 991. Whilst the 901 to Birmingham would cease in 1993, the 991 had a long innings, before what was now Travel West Midlands withdrew it in the early years of the century, with the route passing to Choice, who subsequently renumbered it 35 (and rerouted via Aldridge) then sold out to Arriva, who would then subsequently sell the former Choice’s Wednesfield garage’s operations to Diamond, who would withdraw the Lichfield section of the 35 in August 2022…….but what was now NXWM had returned to the corridor by then!

For July 2018 saw NXWM revise it’s Walsall-Brownhills 10/10A routes, the successors to the former 394/395 routes, with the 10A now replacing the 10 (which was rerouted to the previoius 10A terminus at Brownhills West) to Burntwood, then carrying on to Lichfield, almost exactly recreating the former 394, but on double the frequency! (The “Buses For Fun” blog “Lichfield On The 10A” tells of a trip on here.) Which was just as well, as what was by then Arriva had doubled the frequency of both what was by now the 60 & 62 (though the extra 62 was actually a 61, which orignally ran to Cannock via Wimblebury but by then had been cutback to terminate at Boney Hay) the combined Arriva Lichfield-Burntwood frequency being every fifteen minutes!

A year later, in April 2019, NXWM introduced another route into Lichfield, spurred on by Midland Classic withdrawing it’s Sutton Coldfield section of it’s X12 service to Burton (the Lichfield-Burton section of this route is still run by Midland Classic’s ultimate buyer Diamond.) In replacement, NXWM extended it’s Birmingham-Hillhook service X3 onto Lichfield, a route which, as a Perry Barr garage Sutton Rota driver, I regularly drive! (See blog “NXWM Into Staffordshire Part One-X3 To Lichfield.”) Both routes would seem to do reasonably well….until the pandemic hit! Although demand began to return afterwards (and now, on the X3 at least, seems to be at a level similar to that before the pandemic) economies needed to be made, with September 2020 seeing the X3 lose it’s early morning/early evening trips to Lichfield, as well as the Sunday service, whilst the 10A would be withdrawn, allowing the 10 to run to a twelve mimute frequency replacing the combined route’s ten minutes, whilst the Burntwood & Lichfield section would be replaced by the extension of the less direct route 8.

Meanwhile, since the new Chaserider took over from Arriva, the 61 has gone, so the 8’s competition as far as Burntwood consists of three buses an hour, so there’s a total of five buses an hour over this stretch, which, to be honest, I still think is over bussing it!

With me driving the X3 on a regular basis, I decided that my next move was to get the 8 in the book!

As I walked out of the station, Wright bodied Volvo B7 2122 was laying over at the side of the bus station;

…..so I walked over to the stop and waited with around ten other passengers, which is actually about the average load we tend to carry through to/from Lichfield on the X3. So I settled down towards the back of the bus and we left Lichfield, and headed direct for Burntwood, the route that the 62 takes, with the 60 heading through Chasetown, which the 8 serves on it’s way out of Burntwood. The vast majority of passengers alighted in the Burntwood area, so seemingly prefer the 8 to the 60 or 62.

After leaving Chasetown, we crossed the no man’s land created by the construction of the M6 Toll, then passing into the West Midlands County, signified by the bus stops changing from Staffordshire’s rather bland partially yellow flags, to the red flags of the West Midlands Network, this bringing us into Ogley Hay, where we met the loop used by the still predominantly Dennis Trident operated route 10 (this and the previous 10A were mostly single deck operated, but had occasional visits from double deckers, which I sadly didn’t get to ride on. A low bridge on the 8 keeps the route solidly single deck) and continued into the busy Brownhills shopping centre.

Whilst the 10 continues on it’s direct path down the main road to Walsall, we entered the village of Clayhanger. Due to a very tight canal bridge (since totally rebuilt to make the village more accessable) Clayhanger never had a bus service until 1975, when WMPTE arranged with local coach operator Wicksons to provide service 384, linking the village with Brownhills and using a minibus (this being long before the time when minibuses became used regularly on bus services.) The 384 would last until deregulation, when the PTE, now an organisation that provided support to non commercial bus services, concessionary fares, support for local rail services etc, put Clayhanger into the route of the formerly big bus 347 from Brownhills-Bloxwich, meaning that the route now had to be operated by a minibus. The arms length company created to takeover the former PTE bus services, West Midlands Travel (WMT-what would eventually become today’s NXWM) won the tender, which operated initially from the Walsall garage of the 1984 accquired Central Coachways. Passing to the main WMT Walsall garage in May 1988, the 347 would be greatly extended across Walsall to the Gillity Village estate in 1989 but 1990 would bring a commercial competitor to Clayhanger, when Chasetown independent Chase Bus Services, who had then become a major thorn in the side of WMT’s Walsall operations, took advantage of the recently reconstructed canal bridge to serve the village with new route 362, running from Walsall-Brownhills via Pelsall, Clayhanger, then doing a one way loop via Ogley Hay. Shortly after this, WMT broke up the 347, the company leaving Clayhanger to Chase’s orange and white Leyland Nationals.

1995 would see WMT strengthen it’s opposition to Chase, including the reintroduction of a WMT service to Clayhanger, this being the Leyland Lynx operated 349, which pretty much followed the 362 route, but without the Ogley Hay dogleg. But the locals had got used to Chase which, coupled with the 362’s half hourly frequency compared to the 349’s hourly operation, meant that the 349 was gone in around a year. Chase would be bought by Arriva in 2007, the network then transferring to Cannock garage, after which the 362 would become part of an extended 33, the former Midland Red North minibus service from Cannock-Brownhills, this subsequently being renumbered 63 and eventually, 3, though the Walsall-Brownhills section would be withdrawn, by which time, what was now NXWM had returned to Clayhanger with the 8.

We travelled through the village, dropping off a few, then passing under the low bridge under the mothballed Walsall-Lichfield railway line, that had kept bus routes through Clayhanger single deck operated, we joined the main Brownhills-Bloxwich-Wolverhampton road, which is now also served by Walsall Community Transport’s tendered 23 from Bloxwich-Brownhills, today’s successor to the old 347. We then followed this to the crossroads with the direct Walsall-Norton Canes road, which we turned left onto, this taking us into the attractive village/Walsall suburb of Pelsall, the 9 from Wolverhampton & Bloxwich having joined us at the crossroads, though this would split off once we’d passed the attractive Pelsall Common and make it’s way through High Heath & Shelfield to reach the Lichfield Road, whilst we headed straight down the Pelsall Road to join the Lichfield Road further down, at Rushall, where we joined the plethora of services running along here, including the 9 & 10, into Walsall Town Centre, terminating at Walsall bus station.

Drinkies With John!

After the 8 had left Lichfield, I messaged my old mate John Batchelor, explaining that I was heading for Walsall and wondering if, as a resident of the aforementioned Rushall, if he was avaliable to come for a drink. Seconds later, he phoned me and basically said that yes, he was! Therefore, after arriving at the bus station, I made my way up the hill to the excellent Black Country Arms, another Black Country Ales pub, where John was already in position, and we then spent the rest of the evening driniking copious quantities of North Cotswold Brewery’s Shagweaver Ale and happily discussing various subjects, from politics to Daimler Fleetlines! Actually, Fleetlines were mentioned a lot!

A wonderful evening but it was eventually time for me to make my way to Bradford Place, where I fell on Scania 1880 on the 22.55 route 4, taking this to West Bromwich, where I had time for chicken & chips from a takeaway before boarding Wolverhampton based ex hybrid E400 5401, further evidence that Wolverhampton garage’s Dennis Tridents are well on their way out, on the 23.30 79, which took me the short distance home, verrry, verrry drunk after a perfect day out!