I'm Mark Fitchew and I'm a Bus Driver! I've also been interested in buses as long as I can remember! From around the age of twelve, I've been exploring the Bus, Rail & Tram networks of the Uk, and continue to do so when opportunity allows! These blogs describe my exploits, with nostalgic referances to the past and visits to the odd pub & chip shop! Hold tight!
So, after a visit to the Aldridge (formerly Aston Manor) Transport Museum’s Twilight Event in February (see blog “Aston Manor Twilight Running Day”), my wife Lynn and I found ourselves free to visit the Museum’s Spring Running Day, making up for us not having the opportunity to visit this small museum that’s within a short distance from our West Bromwich home last year.
Because of that short distance, we decided to visit after our usual Sunday attendance at church, where I unexpectedly got asked by our Pastor to be Goliath during his sermon!
Then, we drove out to Aldridge, making use of the museum’s usual Park & Ride site at Aldridge Community Centre, served by the half hourly museum run 57 from Walsall Town Centre to the museum, with the next journey being Trent SON RC 7927, built by the Birmingham Midland Motor Omnibus company (BMMO, more commonly known as Midland Red) in the pre war years, before rapid expansion after WW2 caused Midland Red’s Carlyle Works in Edgbaston, Birmingham, caused Midland Red to cease selling buses to other British Electric Traction (BET) subsidiaries.
This lovely little pre war coach took us the short distance to the museum;
Another Carlyle Works built coach was also present, with 1948 vintage BMMO C1 3301 looking absolutely splendid, standing here next to BMMO D9 5370:
More recent preserved buses featuring today included 2002 vintage NX Coventry ALX400 bodied Dennis Trident 4370:
….and prototype West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive (WMPTE) Metrobus 6832, bought by current owner Lee Hobson;
We paid our £6 each admission and went into the museum, looking at today’s timetable in the programme that comes with the ticket.
Three services were operating, the aforementioned 57 to Walsall, the 5 to the Chasewater Railway and the 53 Barr Beacon Circular, with the bus on the next departure on the latter being of interest to me, so we decided to ride it.
Chase Bus Services Leyland National OJD 858R
Originally known as Chase Coaches, this was a Chasetown based independent run by a Gentleman named Graham Dodd, who diversified into bus operation following the introduction of bus service deregulation on Sunday 26th October 1986. Their local bus service operation actually began a month early, in September, upon winning the tendered operation of some Saturday journeys on otherwise Midland Red North operated 860/862 Cannock-Lichfield services, using an ex Eastbourne East Lancs bodied Leyland Leopard that the company had previously used on various contracts. Deregulation itself would see the company win the tender for former WMPTE operated service 381 from Walsall-Lichfield via Aldridge, Stonnall, Shenstone & Wall, a service that Chase would continue to run throughout the rest of the company’s lifetime. A few ex Greater Manchester PTE Leyland Nationals would be purchased for this, these entering service in their previous owners orange & white livery, which Chase would adopt as their own livery.
The National would prove very much to the company’s liking, with Chase eventually collecting the largest number of second hand Leyland Nationals of any operator and would continue to operate them well beyond most other operators had moved on from the marque, still forming the majority of the fleet when the company sold out to Arriva on 25th February 2007. Arriva would run a Leyland National day on 28th April 1987, after which the former Chase operations would move to Arriva’s former Midland Red North garage at Cannock, with six Leyland Nationals transferring over for another month until sufficient replacements were available.
Initial growth would be fairly slow, the company beginning to compete with Stevensons 12 Birmingham-Burton On Trent service between Lichfield & Burton for a while in 1987, whilst further tendered work would be won following the April 1987 cutbacks that Midland Red North made due to a perilous financial situation, taking over the X55/X56 Burntwood-Birmingham services. As well as these routes, Chase also bought three 1973 vintage Marshall bodied Dual Purpose Leopards off Midland Red North (originally Midland Red 201, 207 & 209) at the same time, whilst later, East Lancs bodied Leopards from Lancaster City Transport would also enter the fleet, but the National would come to totally dominate the fleet. Other tender gains came from West Midlands Travel (WMT) Chase winning Staffordshire tender 863 from Cannock-Hednesford via Huntington Terrace Road, which the company renumbered 303, as well as WMPTE tendered service 374 (Sutton Coldfield-Streetly).
But it would be Walsall where the company would really begin to grow, starting with tendered services 2 to Palfrey and 3 to Delves Road, designed to replace the remains of Midland Red North’s 1987 introduced Walsall minibus network in November of that year. September 1988 would see the company win new tendered service 563 from Wolverhampton-Little Bloxwich, following this up the following year by winning off WMT tendered 562 Wolverhampton-Bloxwich service along a similar route. 1989 indeed, would see Chase win more PTE tenders off WMT, namely, the following;
326-Bloxwich-Willenhall
327-Wednesbury-Ashmore Park
355-Walsall-Pheasey via Aldridge
356-Walsall-Aldridge via Redhouse Industrial Estate (peaks only)
WMT though, decided to fight back! They extended their 527 (Goldthorn Park-Willenhall) onto Ashmore Park via the 327 route, prompting Chase to cut their Monday-Saturday daytime 327 back to Willenhall. Meanwhile, WMT registered the 355/356 commercially between Walsall and Aldridge, as well as a more direct 376 from Walsall-Pheasey, operating all there with brand new Leyland Lynx single deckers. Chase fought back on here, though after around a year, they let the Pheasey section of the 355 go, briefly operating a minibus connection (using a Sherpa) from Aldridge-Pheasey but this would subsequently become part of Stevensons 655.
I’ve often wondered whether Chase’s next move was as a result of WMT hindering their operation of tendered services, or whether operating commercial services from Walsall, competing with WMT routes, was on the agenda for Chase anyway. Whatever was the case, late 1989 would see Chase introduce four new services that would overlap various WMT services, with the 4 running from Walsall-Wednesbury via Sandwell’s Friar Park estate, served mainly by WMT’s 410 from West Bromwich-Wednesbury, whilst the 5 & 6 would provide two different routes from Walsall-Bilston, the 5 heading via Willenhall, competing with WMT’s 529 to Wolverhampton, then onto Bilston competing with WMT 525/525A, whilst the 6 ran via Darlaston, competing with WMT’s 333/334 from Walsall and the 78/79 Birmingham-Wolverhampton routes from Darlaston-Bilston.
Lastly, there was the 364 from Walsall to the mid eighties Coppice Farm estate that Chase already served with the 562 & 563, with the 364 quickly becoming a thorn in WMT’s side, as it served the Beechdale council estate, where WMT Circulars 370/371 had recently been converted from double decker to Leyland Lynx single deck operation , which had caused a degree of overcrowding on the route, with Chase being so encouraged by loadings on the 364 that they soon introduced a 365, which made up a quarter hourly service to Beechdale, then continued via Bentley to the Wolverhampton estate of Ashmore Park. Not long after that, the 365 was rerouted to follow the 364 all the way to New Invention, competing with WMT’s 341, with Bentley covered by a new 363 to Willenhall, competing with WMT’s 331 midibus route.
Such growth would continue into the early nineties, with two overlapping WMT & Chase networks developing in Walsall, meaning that most parts of the town had a choice of services run by the two operators. Plus, where Chase didn’t operate, another independent stepped in to give WMT passengers another Choice, this being Midland Choice!
WMT would gradually fight back, Walsall being but one battle ground in the West Midlands at that time, with independent activity in most parts. 1994 in particular, would see WMT register several services competing directly with Chase, with DAF engined Nationals from the reserved fleet and, most notably, East Lancs bodied Leyland Fleetlines from Coventry being allocated to Walsall garage to operate these. Chase would return fire by starting on the 529, as well as competing with the 51 Birmingham route as far as Perry Barr with route 50 and the West Bromwich 404 as far as Stone Cross with the 54. It was after this that the competition began to die down, with the 50 & 54 both being very shortlived, though the 529 would last a while longer.
Despite the arrival of Ikarus bodied DAFs and low floor UVG bodied Dennis Darts, the National would continue to dominate the fleet right up until the end. So it was nice to see this example on it’s former patch;
This bus was number 2 in the Chase fleet, and was one of several 10.3 metre Nationals that the company bought from London Transport, this particular example being subsequently rebuilt to remove the centre exit giving a slightly higher seating capacity. The bus would be one of the six to pass briefly to Arriva following the end of Chase operations. Today, very little of the former Chase network survives, with Arriva subsequently pulling back from Walsall.
Not surprisingly, this journey was quite popular but Lynn & I found seats quite easily. As we set off, the clatter of that distinctive exactly when was this heyday? A bus that has something of a marmite factor amongst both enthusiasts and industry professionals, you either love or hate it! Me? I think that, over time, the National evolved into a good bus.
The product of a partnership between British Leyland and the then recently formed National Bus Company (NBC), the National broke the mold, as an integrally constructed (no separate chassis and body) chassis, constructed on an assembly line at a new factory at Lillyhill, Workington in Cumbria. It’s timing wasn’t brilliant, with the industry drifting back to double deckers by the time of the National’s 1972 introduction but NBC’s investment meant that it’s subsidiaries would be “persuaded” to purchase the National to meet it’s single deck needs, some, such as London Country & Midland Red, enthusiastically buying the type, gaining the first and second largest National fleets respectively, Others were less keen, particularly those which had come from the former Tilling Group, such as United Automobile Services, who would buy the Bristol RE for as long as they could, before Leyland removed it from the market and even then, United carried on buying the lightweight, higher floored Bristol LH, not receiving it’s first National until 1978.
By this time, the rather clattery early examples had been replaced by the Phase Two (not to be confused with the 1980 introduced Mk 2, which replaced the 510 engine with a Leyland 680) which saw a slightly quieter version of the 510 introduced. Number 2 is just such an example, it’s R registration suffix indicating that it dates from either the year of the Phase 2’s introduction, 1976, or early 1977, when London Transport would adopt the National for the vast majority of it’s single decker needs. This would also be true of the various Passenger Transport Executives, as well as several municipal operators, although the less charitable could say that, once Leyland had withdrew it’s other rear engine saloons, such as the Bristol RE, from the market and the rival Metro Scania saloon disappeared, there was no other choice for a single decker with a reasonably low entrance.
From 1980, the new National 2 would gradually sell in reduced numbers, largely due to the fall in the new bus market, with double deckers largely taking those orders that were around, leading to the National ceasing production in 1985, to be replaced by the rather more flimsy Lynx. Then deregulation came! And in my opinion, this was the time when the National came into it’s own. With loads of operators, such as Chase Bus Services, looking for reliable second hand buses to operate tendered and commercial services with, the National found itself with a new fanbase, it’s indestructability helping many operators who were then simply unable to afford to buy new!
So we had a nice clatter out to Barr Beacon and back, bringing back memories of rides on Chase Nationals in the area!
We then went and had a look around the museum, which was today host to the Great Barr Brass Band, quite the first time that I’d heard such a band play Madness’s “Baggy Troussers!” We also visited the museum shop. In the last blog that I wrote about the museum (“Aston Manor Twilight Event”) I’d wrote that “Buses” magazine had reported that there were issues about staying in the present premises, to which I’d got a response from the museum saying “don’t believe all that you read in Buses!” Nevertheless, I know that funds are tight for the museum so, with the shop possessing an impressive array of second hand books at very reasonable prices, I decided to buy a few to help with those funds. In truth, they were all volumes that I have somewhere at home but which I’m unable to put my hands on at the moment! They’re also books which provide an invaluable reference to my various blogs, so I was happy to buy them again.
The seminal “Midland Red Volume One” from around 1977 set me back just £10. Some years ago, you’d struggle to get a copy for under £30! From the same stable was “Birmingham Corporation Tramways”, which was just £5. Smaller books were Ned Williams “By Road & Rail To Tettenhall” for £2.50, and “An Album Of WMPTE Buses” by John P Robinson for a mere quid!
Then, it was time for our next bus, also on the 53E Barr Beacon Circular and also on a Leyland single decker, but one of a rather earlier vintage than Chase 2!
BCT 2231
As would be expected of the big city fleet of what was then the UK’s largest municipal bus operator, Birmingham City Transport (BCT) was predominantly double decker based but a small number of saloons was also required, for Special Needs Transport plus a small number of services that passed under low bridges, most notably the 27 which, from July 1952 ran from Kings Heath-West Heath via Bournville Station bridge and which, for the next eleven years, would be BCT’s only regular single deck service (the blog “Feeding Birmingham’s Estates ” tells more of BCT single deck operations).
1950 saw the remaining pre war fleet of Daimler COG5 single deckers replaced by a batch of 30 Leyland PS2 half cab single deckers with 34 seat Metro Cammell (who would pass this order onto their Weymann subsidiary) bodies. There should have been 35 but Leyland persuaded BCT to swap the last five for new fangled underfloor engine integral Leyland Olympics, which would be the only mid underfloor engine buses BCT would purchase.
The purchase of 24 Marshall bodied single deck Daimler Fleetlines in 1965 was supposed to see the PS2s off but the growth of the one man estate feeder services described in the “Feeding Birmingham’s Estates ” blog meant that the PS2s were still needed, with several having the rear of the cab opened up to allow rather awkward one man operation. Their time would finally come to an end when the 1967 vintage AEC Swifts that were bought to convert the 36 (Sparkbrook-Stechford) to single deck one man operation were transferred to Selly Oak for the 27 in 1969, allowing most of the PS2s to be withdrawn, with just a few hanging on long enough to pass to WMPTE following the October 1969 takeover.
Three are preserved, Wythall Transport Museum’s 2245 and 2231 & 2235, with 2231 being here today and operating the 14.45 53E Barr Beacon Circular;
Lynn has a fondness for old fashioned looking single deckers like these and I’ve always enjoyed my occasional trips on a BCT PS2, so we got in the queue early to ensure that we were two of the thirty four who were able to board.
2231 is a full PSV spec bus, being used in 2019 by Quantock Motor Services for a revival of their earlier 300 from Minehead-Lynmouth, including the steep climb up Porlock Hill, which must have produced some marvellous sound effects! A return for the 2020 season was thwarted by the pandemic and a possible return in 2021 was deemed unprudent in the face of First introducing their Exmoor Coaster open top service over the same route. (Correction, I’ve since found out that the bus used on the 300 was actually 2257! So another one is around! Thanks to Roger Burdett for clarifying.)
Today, the bus is owned by Special Day Services, registered to an address on nearby Barns Lane, on the museum’s 57 route into Walsall;
The driver had an amusing repertoire of banter, stating in his thick Black Country accent that there was no power steering, so could we all lean to the side when turning corners! He also told us not to worry as he was due to take his driving test tomorrow morning!
So we sat in the typically opulent BCT interior enjoying the sound that the Leyland engine made climbing up to Barr Beacon, even though it was no where near as steep a climb as it’s previous jaunt up Porlock Hill!
To finish our day, we decided to head into Walsall on the next 57, returning on it as far as the car park. The next bus just happened to be another fifties vintage example from the BCT fleet, a bus that, on the surface. looked far more typically a traditional BCT bus……but all was not what it seemed!
BCT 3002
Yes, BCT 3002 looks very much at first sight to be one of the many “New Look” concealed radiator buses delivered to the undertaking in large numbers between late 1949 & 1954, featuring Metro Cammell or Crossley bodywork on Crossley, Daimler CVG6 or CVD6 and Guy Arab chassis and that would have incredibly long lives, the last Daimler CVG6s & Guy Arabs not bowing out until October 1977.
Once you get on board 3002 though, you can see all isn’t what you expect it to be, for the brown interior finish isn’t wood, but plastic! With plastic and fibreglass featuring heavily in 3002’s construction.
As wonderfully solid as the Standard’s construction was, BCT management were concerned as to their level of fuel consumption, particularly after a siginificant increase in fuel tax in 1951 (this was year’s before the 1968 Transport Act introduced the Fuel Tax Rebate for the bus industry, this evolving into today’s Bus Service Operation Grant, which despite the misleading wording is still exactly that, a fuel tax rebate!) which spurred many manufacturers to look at reducing the weight of their rather solid early post war models!
BCT would order three separate buses to a lightweight specification, the first of these, 3001, consisted of a Guy Arab 4 chassis that was identical to that featured under many Standards, but featured a Saunders Roe body with a pressed metal interior, thus saving considerable weight. The bus made it’s debut at the 1952 Commercial Motor Show, as would 3002…..though only it’s chassis! This chassis was a Daimler CLG5, lighter than the traditional CV range of Daimlers, although for some reason, Daimler would ultimately pull this from the market, preferring to concentrate on CV chassis that would remain in production until the late sixties, the last Daimler CVG6s entering service with Northampton Corporation in 1968. Whilst 3001 would have entered service just after it’s show appearance, it would be sometime before 3002 received a lightweight Metro Cammell body (who would produce what is probably regarded as the most successful lightweight double decker body with it’s Orion) and wouldn’t enter service until October 1954.
The third lightweight bus would be 3103, the first numerically of BCT’s final batch of Crossley bodied Daimler CVG6s but 3103 featured an aluminium body as opposed to steel, this alloy going on most noticeably to feature on London Transport’s Routemaster, with it’s inability to rust contributing to that iconic type’s long life. Entering service in 1954 though, 3103 would remain unique.
And that would be it for BCT lightweights, as the sheer number of Standards and earlier post war exposed radiator buses delivered to BCT between 1947 & 1954 meant that the undertaking didn’t need to buy anymore new buses for a while, by which time, lightweight bodywork would be more universal but would feature for BCT on Daimler Fleetline rear engine chassis.
3001 & 3002 would spend their entire lives at Acocks Green garage, mainly being used on the 31 & 32 Gospel Lane Circulars. 3103, meanwhile, would enter service from Hockley in June 1954 but would join 3001 & 3002 at Acocks Green in that November, returning to Hockley in 1968, being withdrawn in November 1971.
3002 would be involved in an accident in June 1972, the damage not being severe but felt to be beyond economic repair for such an non standard bus, so it was decided to withdraw the bus, with 3001 going at the same time, this being some six months before the two buses regular 31/32 haunt was one manned in 1973. Both 3001 & 3002 would pass into preservation.
So we grabbed the upstairs back seat and we set off, heading along semi detached clad Barns Lane, then heading into Walsall along the Lichfield Road, terminating at the museum’s usual Hatherton Road terminus, right opposite Walsall bus station, where I took this photo. Yep, seemingly a typical Birmingham Standard but look a little closer and you’ll see that it dosen’t look quite right!
We then returned to the car park, where I was able to get a shot of 3002’s most distinctive external feature, it’s very upright rear dome! Note also the rather charming, of the period Heinz Tomato Ketchup ad!
So, day at an end, we returned to the car for the trip home.
Future events at the museum are scheduled to happen on the following dates;
Sunday 19th May-Art In The Museum
Sunday 23rd June-Annual Open & Running Day
Sunday 21st July-Models In The Museum
Saturday 14th/Sunday 15th September-Heritage Open Days
Sunday 20th October-Autumn Leaves Running Day
Sunday 24th November-Collectors Fair
I won’t be able to get to all these dates but I’ll see about some of them. If any of you are free for any of them though, you’ll have a good little afternoon of vintage buses, plus will be helping this small museum to keep alive!
It’s been a while since my wife Lynn & I travelled to my favourite seaside resort of Blackpool by train! The last time we attempted to do this was in February 2022, as recounted in the blog “A Railway Misadventure”, where we got as far as Preston, where the Avanti West Coast Pendolino was unable to complete it’s journey to Blackpool North due to no driver with the appropriate route knowledge being avaliable…….and we were unable to get off the train due to a wind damaged roof, so the train reversed to drop us at Wigan!
With the storm that caused the damage at Preston having caused havoc with the railways across the North West, we admitted defeat and returned to Sandwell & Dudley via Liverpool!
Before that, baring some local journeys that we’d made whilst on holiday in Blackpool in September/October 2019, we’d reached the resort by train on 23rd February of that year, on board a then recently introduced, one way Birmingham-Blackpool North train which left Wolverhampton at 07.40, heading to Blackpool for a Heritage Gold event, the main focus of which was saying farewell to Blackpool & Fleetwood Box Car 40, which would subsequently return to the Crich Tramway Museum in Derbyshire, where it still resides.
We’d both like to reach Blackpool by train more often but various factors, including cost, engineering works and, to be honest, the recent performance of Avanti West Coast has put us off, so we usually drive up instead. But when we both decided that we would come to Blackpool on this April Saturday, Lynn suggested that I look up available train tickets, this taking place just over a month before we made the trip. With our Two Together Railcard, tickets were available from Wolverhampton-Blackpool North for £52 return, not the £20-£30 bargain that was avaliable some years back, including the £33.60 cost of that February 2019 trip but not too bad, any higher, like the £87 they wanted to charge us in 2021, then we’d have driven up, like we did on that occasion. Anyhow, we booked the tickets this time.
The Trip There
So, we arose nice and early on the Saturday concerned, and caught CAF 100 47 on the recently reopened side of the West Midlands Metro, with us soon passing over the new pointwork at Wednesbury that will connect the exisitng Edgbaston Village-Wolverhampton Station line to the new Dudley branch, the reason that the Wednesbury-Edgbaston Village section of the line had been closed for just over a fortnight.
We were looking forward to a smooth, direct run to the front of Wolverhampton Station but the conductor informed us that trams were being forced to terminate at The Royal, just on the edge of Wolverhampton City Centre due to the failure of traffic singnals on the Wishbone Roundabout that the trams cross on the Wishbone bridge, so we walked the ten minute walk from The Royal. Luckily, we’d allowed plenty of time to get to Wolverhampton for our 07.22 booked train, so we still had just under an hour for a latte in the station’s Costa Coffee before heading onto Platform One in time for the arrival of Avanti West Coast Pendolino 390 107;
I was surprised to find that the train was terminating at Preston and not heading further north to either Glasgow or Edinburgh, the normal destinations of the hourly service from London Euston via Birmingham & Wolverhampton. Sadly, that through train that we’d used in 2019 didn’t survive the pandemic, whilst that supposedly through train we’d used on that aborted trip in 2022, part of a then roughly two hourly service, hadn’t survived the return of hourly through trains to Scotland, so it was back to the traditional change at Preston.
390 107 is one of the Pendolinos to feature a recent refurbishment (in fact, I believe the vast majority of Pendolinos have now been done) and this is the first time that I’ve taken a long distance trip on one. My opinion though, remains the same as that first, fifteen minute burst I had on a trip from Wolverhampton-Stafford last year (see blog “Just £2!-Part Thirteen-Staffs & Shropshire”) which was that it certainly smartens up a rather weary, well used fleet and that the seats are fairly comfortable but why do modern train seats have to be that hard?
We found our reserved seats, that were sited right next to a pillar, but the train was really empty at this point, so we positioned ourselves at a nearby table seat, where we discovered that one positive of the recent refurbishment was a wireless charging facility built into the table top, so we both used this to top up our phones to 100%.
We had a lovely, relaxing journey north through Stafford, Crewe, Warrington Bank Quay & Wigan North Western before arriving at Preston, at the opposite side of the station to Platform One, where Blackpool trains habitually go from. However, rather than do the usual ritual of clambouring up the steps and over the bridge, Lynn spotted a lift which lead to a subway that I didn’t know was there, so we used that, this subway obviously being much older than the lifts connecting it, so I reckoned that it had once been used by railway workers for transferring mail and such like.
We then used another lift to ascend to Platform One where I caught sight of something from the railway’s past!
This was 70000 Britannia, which I was subsequently to learn was waiting for a charter train running from Leicester-Carlisle via the Cumbrian Coast line, which was diesel hauled (I suspect by the West Coast Railways Class 57 (a re-engined 47) in the brown and cream livery that I saw in the sidings at Preston on our return journey that evening.
More prosiacally, our train from Manchester Airport soon arrived in the form of a six car set of two Class 331 three car Electric Multiple Units (EMUs) with us boarding the front set, which was 331 017. The train was modestly full but it’s 09,00 Preston departure was really a bit too early for the majority of Blackpool day tripping passengers, which would pass through later. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help pondering that these units, introduced when new in 2019 to the line, following the 2018 electrification of the Preston-Blackpool North line, are a vast improvement on the often two car Class 150s or 156s that often featured on the slower of the two Manchester-Blackpool North trains per hour, which this train was, calling at the stations of Kirkham & Wesham, Poulton Le Fylde and Layton before reaching Blackpool North and that I’d had frankly too many crowded journeys on over this line in the past. Interestingly, both the slow and fast Manchester trains now head to/from Manchester Airport, once the terminus of just the faster trains, for a while run by First Trans Pennine with three car Class 185s before passing to Northern just before the electrification. Over the years, the stopper has terminated at Buxton, Manchester Victoria or, since electrification, Hazel Grove.
So comfortably seated, we set off, taking the left fork at the junction by St Walburgas church, which posesses the tallest steeple in the UK of any church that isn’t a cathedral, which signify’s to me and many others, that our train journey to Blackpool was now on it’s final leg! We left the Preston city environs and made our way into the green Fylde countryside, soon reaching our first stop at Kirkham & Wesham where the still diesel single track line to Blackpool South branches off to run around the coast through Lytham St Annes, Class 150s & 156s being the regular trains on the hourly service to/from Preston. We then headed onwards, passing the remains of the junction with the former Marton line, which provided a more direct route to Blackpool South and the 1964 closed Blackpool Central than the surviving coast line. The Marton line closed in 1966, part of it’s formation being used for the construction of the M55 Motorway that we use when we drive in, as well as Yeadon Way within the town, carrying visiting traffic high above the town on the former railway embankment, into the Central car parks that were built on the site of the many sidings that once used to hold all of the locos and stock that had once bought people into Blackpool, their transformation into car parks illustrating the change in visitors travel habits over the years. Fortunately, despite the flexibility of the car and the various hassles, particulrly cost, that are now associated with rail travel, there is still a strong demand and I must admit that this morning’s journey had been an absolute joy compared to the trials of driving, even though I love driving, and particularly a Saturday morning jaunt up the M6 & M55!
I then found myself looking due south for the view that has greeted generations of visitors to Blackpool, the view of the 1894 built Blackpool Tower! Yes, it was still there! The delightful station in the delightful small town of Poulton Le Fylde was the next call, after which you could see the overgrown remains of the line to Fleetwood, the original route of the 1837 opened Preston & Wyre Railway, of which the line down to Blackpool North was an 1846 constructed branch, a branch that would play it’s full part in developing the town of Blackpool into the succesful resort that it became! Closed in 1966, there are tentative plans for the Fleetwood line to reopen, with Tram-Trains being the latest idea to enter discussion.
We took that 1846 opened branch, seeing housing being built on the former curve that linked the Blackpool North line to the Fleetwood line, once being served by a steam railmotor, and were soon entering the Blackpool suburbs, calling at Layton before reaching Blackpool North itself;
North Station Tram Terminus
Unlike our unexpected walk from tram stop to railway station this morning, we both knew that a continuous tram-train-tram journey wasn’t going to happen here, as Wolverhampton Station was the first of two planned new railway station tram termini to open, doing so last September, despite the fact that the first test tram to actually run up the new extension from Talbot Square (by North Pier tram stop on the Promenade) up Talbot Road to North Station ran considerably earlier than the first test tram on the Wolverhampton extension. The delay here has been due to the new Holiday Inn that surrounds the new terminus still being under construction. Now, I believe that the Holiday Inn has opened but, with the season about to start in earnest, this probably isn’t the time for Blackpool Transport to begin the testing needed before the extension opens to the public, so I suspect that the opening won’t occur util towards the end of the year at the very earliest.
Still, never mind, at least I could take some photos of the new stop!
Bus Service Revisions
Lynn and I had decided to spend most of the day around Blackpool Town Centre (I’ll talk about the one exception later) but I wanted to take a few photos of buses featuring the new route numbers introduced with Blackpool Transport’s January 2024 route revisions.
The idea behind the changes is to simplify (a word we hear a lot in the bus industry) route numbers to certain, specific destinations, with all services to, for example, Victoria Hospital, now showing the number 5, with variants using suffix letters, such as 5A, 5B etc.
Thus the 5 from Halfway House-Victoria Hospital, a route that dates from 2001’s Metro Coastline revisions (bringing route branding to the network, which lasted until 2010) has been extended onto Poulton every half hour, replacing the 2. Meanwhile, the hourly 5A replaces the recently reintroduced 15 to the village of Staining (see blog “A Weekend In Blackpool-Part Two “) whilst a new hourly 5B runs from the Hospital-Blackpool Zoo:
This specific route is actually a revival of a route taken by the 5’s predecessors, the 23 & 23A and from deregulation in October 1986, the 23, 24 & 25, which carried on beyond the Hospital in the summer season to the Zoo, until this was discontinued after the 1987 season, with seasonal service 21 and later 20 serving it via Stanley Park, a route that has been covered in recent years by Transpora’s 22, which will presumably restart once the season gets going after Whitson.
Meanwhile, the former 2C to Knott End On Sea is covered by the 5C, being reduced in frequency from half hourly to forty minutes to improve operational reliability. Unlike the other route 5 variants, the 5C follows the 2C route exactly, using the former 2/2C route between Town Centre and the Hospital via Newton Drive, as opposed to the 5 route via Layton.
The other service along Newton Drive is Transpora’s 24, which makes a roundabout route from Blackpool-Fleetwood via Victoria Hospital, Poulton & Cleveleys, which has recently been increased from hourly to half hourly with Lancashire County Council money that’s come from the government’s Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP), with this Dennis Dart appearing on the route today;
Another renumbered service is the 9 from Blackpool-Cleveleys via Layton, which is now the 7A;
…..to match the more direct 7 to Cleveleys via Devonshire Road.
The 7 still runs across Blackpool to St Annes via St Annes Road but the bus changes number at Blackpool, becoming the 11A, which then continues from St Annes to Lytham along the 11 route via Church Road, this heading from Blackpool via Lytham Road, this meaning that the original Blackpool Corporation use of the numbers 11 & 11A, up until June 1983, has swapped around, with the original, 1935 introduced Blackpool Corporation and Lytham St Annes Corporation joint service 11 having used St Annes Road, whilst the team replacing 11A, introduced in 1937, having used Lytham Road!
The other service linking Blackpool to St Annes and Lytham, the roundabout 17 via Queensway, has been renumbered 11B. As far as St Annes, this service was originally the 1940 introduced 11C! This lasted until November 1994 when it was replaced by the extended 14 from Fleetwood, this being rerouted to Mereside in 2010, when the 17 was introduced, later extended to Lytham.
The Mereside section of the 14 would subsequently be replaced by the revived 6, since when the 14 returned to it’s traditional Blackpool-Fleetwood via Thornton routing, the recent changes returning a fifteen minute frequency to this route.
The hourly 1, which parallels the tramway between Fleetwood and Blackpool Town Centre has once again been joined by a seasonal hourly journey from Cleveleys-St Annes via the Promenade, competing with Transpora’s 21 over the same route and making a half hourly service between Cleveleys and the Town Centre with the Fleetwood 1, with the St Annes journeys now numbered 1A;
There has been a degree of controversy about the changed numbers and, to be honest, I can understand this, as I often find people can get confused by route variations denoted by suffix numbers.
The last service to be renumbered was the 4 from Cleveleys-Mereside via Blackpool, this short MMC E200 operated service being renumbered 3A to match it’s 3 sister service that runs over a similar route, with the 3A now taking over the 3’s route beyond Cleveleys to Cleveleys Park…this originally being part of the 4 when the two routes were introduced with the 2001 Metro Coastlines revisions.
The 3 is now the main haunt of Blackpool Transport’s oldest buses, the 2015 vintage Mercedes Benz Citaros;
The Blackpool Transport fleet is thus extremely modern, the rest of the fleet consisting entirely of Alexander Dennis Limited (ADL) products, consisting of MMC short and long E200 single deckers and MMC E400 double deckers. Despite this modernity, today’s fleet won’t be around for too long, as Blackpool Transport has received a government ZEBRA grant to replace the entire fleet with electric buses, this government grant (which basically covers the difference between the cost of a diesel and electric bus) being supplemented by a loan from Blackpool Transport’s sole sharehilders, Blackpool Council, to be paid back from company profits, this arrangement being similar to that which financed the purchase of the ADL MMC fleet, though this was frustrated by the pandemic, which knocked any profit out of the operation, which then struggled a little to get back on it’s feet, not helped by the bus driver shortage that has afflicted the industry from 2021 onwards, though the tide nationally seems to be turning here.
Nevertheless, Blackpool Transport have decided not to rebid for the Lancashire County Council tendered 74/75 Fleetwood-Preston services that they won back in August 2020-not the best time to commence new operations (see blogs “Return To Blackpool” & “A Weekend In Blackpool-Part Two”) preferring to concentrate on their core operations in the Borough of Blackpool and the urban parts of Fylde (basically Lytham St Annes) & Wyre (basically Cleveleys & Fleetwood) with the company’s operation of the 74 & 75 due to come to an end on 17th August.
Blackpool Transport apparently initially ordered Yutongs for it’s electric fleet but have changed this to BYDs with familiar to the company ADL bodies, though this has attracted a legal challenge from the ADL/BYD’s main rival in our electric bus market, the Northern Irish firm of Wright, whose Bamford owners claim that the purchase of Chinese built chassis is against the principle of the ZEBRA funding……not that I’m aware of any particular pro British clause in the ZEBRA process. Certainly, the Fakirk & Scarborough built MMC Enviro bodies qualify as British! One hopes that this situation can be resolved successfully.
So, though a few black clouds feature on the horizon, the future’s looking fairly bright for Blackpool Transport.
Showtown!
We went for breakfast at the Hive, a restaurant/cafe recommended in a vlog by the Macmaster youtuber on his last visit to Blackpool. Located on Church Street, near to the Winter Gardens, the food here is as excellent as the review stated, with me having a bacon & cumberland sausage barm cake that was incredibly fresh, all the produce being of top quality. A place where I’ll certainly call at again.
We then headed to Showtown, the recently opened museum located in the building that was the former Palace Nightclub on the corner of Adelaide Street & Bank Hey Street, right next to the Tower. Costing £15 admission, which includes re-entry for twelve months, the museum tells the story of Blackpool, particularly from the point of view of it’s entertainment industry, telling tales of the performers of the past and the influence the place has on the likes of Ballroom dancing and so on. Split into seperate areas, featuring the stories of dance (not just the Ballroom Dancing scene but things like the Syndicate Nightclub, a rather notorious venue for the early 21st century dance music craze) the illuminations, the Circus and so on.
Centrepiece is a giant screen which tells the story of Blackpool in around twenty minutes, told by a donkey and two seagulls who have chips for beaks!
This screen has a little of transport interest, including the periodic passing of a typical Blackpool Leyland PD3!
….as well as Balloon Car 707 in it’s 1975 Empire Pools advert, the first allover ad on a Blackpool tram!
….and then there’s one of the two lost children bus that was stationed on the Promenade. 1937 vintage Burlingham bodied Leyland TS7 number 9, which became the Lost Childrens bus upon withdrawal from normal service in 1956 and 1940 vintage Burlingham bodied Leyland TS8 17, which became a Lost Children’s bus in 1957, both buses having their engines removed before adopting their new role. They would be replaced in the late sixties by rather boring porta cabin thingies that performed the task when I was little, meaning that there really was no point in being a lost child by that point!
A fascinating attraction that is just the sort of thing Blackpool needs to pull it out of it’s current doldrums! Yes, the town needs to look to the future but if it can do so by showcasing it’s illustrious past, then all the better!
68th UK Coach Rally
Back on the prom, I noticed that the Tower Headland, next to the Comedy Carpet, was acting as an overflow for this year’s Blackpool coach rally, the main event taking place on Middle Walk, North Shore. Here’s some photos:
Elmer The Elephant
From today until 9th June, Blackpool is being invaded by around thirty elephants! All painted in bright, colourful liveries representing different aspects of the town!
Before anyone calls the RSPA, I ‘ll point out that they’re not real elephants but models named Elmer, with people able to follow a trail to find them all!
My favourite is the example by North Pier that features the green and cream tram livery:
631
Of course, a trip to Blackpool isn’t a trip to Blackpool without a tram ride, particularly one of the Heritage fleet!
Three Heritage tours were operating today, a Coastal Tour out to Fleetwood in the morning, which I believed used Balloon double decker 700, and two Promenade tours in the afternoon, departing at 15.10 & 16.30, both of which were operated by Brush Car 631, a tram that I’d not ridden in a while, and a nice change from the usual Balloons, open Boat cars and Grand Old Lady Bolton 66, which seem to monopolise the normal tours, outside of the enhanced running events that take place at times (this year scheduled for late Spring Bank Holiday weekend, Fleetwood Tram Sunday, August Bank Holiday weekend and the Tramway Anniversary weekend in September.)
631 was numbered 294 before the 1968 renumbering that Blackpool put the trams through due to a new computer and was one of 20 single deck trams (284-303) built by the Brush company of Loughborough, following on from 45 quite similar looking single deckers known as Railcaoches, that had pioneered General Manager Walter Luff’s much lauded modernisation plan that basically allowed Blackpool’s trams to survive beyond the closure of all the other mainland UK tram systems, taking them up to the time when trams came back into fashoin here, following the 1992 opening of Manchester Metrolink, Walter Luff’s thirties vintage cars being the mainstay of the Blackpool system until the modern Flexities entered service on the modernised system in 2012.
The rest of the thirties fleet was built by Preston based English Electric, so the 1937 Brush built single deckers became known simply as Brush Cars.
They were ordered to make up for lost capacity caused by the closure of the Lytham St Annes tramway, which not only ran into Blackpool as far north as Gynn Square but also provided trams to Blackpool Corporation on hire at busy times.
Although the thirties fleet also included the 27 Balloons (13 of which were originally open top before gaining roofs in 1940) the fleet of 65 fully enclosed single deckers saw Walter Luff favour using small capacity, rather luxurious trams on a high frequency service, a strategy that would ultimately fall foul of increased staffing costs from the mid fifties onwards, which saw the Balloons move to greater prominance in the busy, summer months.
The Brush Cars would outlive the earlier Railcoaches (although several of those would be rebuilt into the towing cars of the Twin Cars from 1958-1961 and the One Man OMO cars from 1972-1976) with 12 (plus a 13th rebuilt as illuminated Trawler 737) surviving in operation until 2004, when most of them were mothballed in a reduction of the operational fleet at that time.
631 was one of three Brush Cars that were heavily refurbished in the nineties (of the other two, 630 now survives in fully refurbished condition at the Crich Tramway Museum, where it will make an interesting comparison with 298, a Brush Car which Crich are restoring into original 1937 condition, whilst 626, sadly, is in a somewhat derelict condition in Birkenhead, plans for it’s operation on the Birkenhead Heritage Tramway falling through) and was initially the only operational survivor in the Heritage fleet, so a start was made upon turning the car into more of a traditional condition, with swingover seats replacing the bus style seats fitted in the nineties, thus it’s interior looks something of a hybrid;
After this project was started, several other Brush Cars in a more traditional condition would enter the Heritage fleet, with the first Brush Car 621 being refurbished as part of a project by inmates at HMP Kirkham in time for the Brush Cars 80th anniversary in 2017 (see the “BusesForFun” blog “Brush Eighty”), this making a second operational Brush Car in the fleet, whilst the Fylde Transport Trust’s 632 is also at Rigby Road awaiting it’s turn for restoration, as is the former Permemnant Way car 624.
Also a resident until last year was 634, bought from Blackpool Transport by enthusiast Andy Ashton who, with his daughters Beckie & Jess, restored the tram’s external & internal condition to a high standard before they returned the tram back to Rigby Road. Plans to restore 634 to operational condition at Blackpool were unable to come to fruition, so the tram has now moved to the East Anglia Transport Museum, Carlton Colville, near Lowestoft, where it re-entered service over the Easter Weekend this year, operating alongside fellow Blackpool trams Marton Vambac 11 and Standard 159, with another Museum resident, Sheffield Roberts Car 513, having also spent time in Blackpool.
Another place where you can ride on a Brush Car is the Heaton Park Tramway in Manchester, where wartime liveried 623 is one of the regular runners there. Lynn and I last rode it on the occasion of the Greater Manchester Transport Museum Twilight Event last October (see blog “Debut Twilight “)
At the moment, work is taking place on the roof at Rigby Road depot, meaning that it’s currently unable to be used for the actual operation of trams, but a small fleet of Heritage trams is currently based at the Flexities Starr Gate depot to keep the Heritage operation going. The condition of the roof has meant that the Tram Town Tours that have been taking place (see blog “A Weekend In Blackpool-Part One”) are currently only able to take in the tramway workshop but are still avaliable, bookable on the Heritage Tramway website.
With a reasonable load on board, we set off north, heading past the Metropole Hotel before beginning the gradual climb of the cliffs along North Shore, dropping again as we passed Gynn Square but climbing ever higher towards Cabin, offering superb views over the Irish Sea. The journey continued out to Bispham, where the illuminations end, with us carrying on out to Norbreck, then turning around on the 1937 constructed (thus it’s the same age as 631!) Little Bispham turning circle, which now features a community garden in it’s centre;
We then headed back towards Blackpool, passing beyond North Pier and heading down a bustling Golden Mile and onto the Pleasure Beach, where we turned around on the loop and returned to North Pier;
With it now being tea time, we walked up to Yorkshire Fisheries on Topping Street, probably the best fish & chip shop in Blackpool, though there are a fair few other contenders for this title! Sitting in the restaurant, I enjoyed a large cod & chips which was exemplary, thoroughly justifying the shop’s reputation. Lynn was similarly impressed with her burger!
Return Journey
After this, we made the short walk to Blackpool North Station and waited amongst other visitors, tired but happy after a marvellous day in Blackpool! 331 011 was our stead, on the 18.22 to Manchester Airport, again part of a six carriage train which gave all on board sufficient comfort for the journey. Again, this was also a stopper to Preston, calling at Layton, Poulton Le Fylde and Kirkman & Wesham, a lovely, Spring early evening run across the Fylde countryside.
At Preston, we had around half an hour before we boarded the 19.18 to London Euston via Birmingham, delayed due to the late running of the direct via the Trent Valley, Euston train in front of it. 390 001 was our stead, with us finding that out reserved seats this time actually had a window next to them, a good job, as there were precious few other seats available on this busy service.
A smooth, relaxing journey was had back to Wolverhampton, far more relaxing than driving! We then found that the West Midlands Metro was fully operational down to Wolverhampton Station again, so we caught the trwm back home from right outside Wolverhampton Station, with it hopefully not being too long before we’ll be able to seamlessly board/leave a tram at Blackpool North too!
Around twenty minutes later, we were back home, after another fine day in my favourite seaside resort
So, after the lengthy day out on the previous day, another day off made me plan another bash, albeit a little less rigouress…..and considerably less costly!
Therefore, I arose two hours later than the day before, had a leisurely breakfast and once again made my way to catch West Midlands Metro replacement service 79A, today operated by another of the ex hybrid E400Hs that currently dominate the 79A and it’s more permanent 79 sister, today’s example being 5409, which, with me noticing that the track lifting crane that was by the Metro yesterday wasn’t there anymore, took me quickly to Wednesbury, the driver checking at the bus station to make sure that everyone knew that this wasn’t a 79 to Wolverhampton!
Satisfied that we all knew where we were going, he then made his way to Wednesbury Parkway, where the eight or so of us on board got off and made our way past the slightly fuller car park than yesterday, featuring around nine cars, onto the platform and waited a few minutes for CAF 100 54 to come from Wednesbury Great Western Street, this second week of the closure seeing work on the new junction (for the new Dudley branch) sufficiently complete for trams to reach the stop adjacent to those works, although I noticed that the tram was running on battery power, the power obviously being off for safety, proving how useful the batteries can be, also demonstrated the week before the closure, when battery running was being used between Black Lake and Dudley Street on account of work being done by Sandwell Council on the bridge that carries Dudley Street itself across the Metro line.
Once on board, 54 took me swiftly to Wolverhampton, where I got off at Pipers Row, next to the bus station….although the first bus that I wanted to catch didn’t depart from here! My main reason for visiting was to use the loo!
Ablutions completed, I walked over to Lichfield Street, opposite the rather fine architecturally Art Gallery and waited for Select Bus Services route 877.
The 877
Regular readers will remember that last year, I tried to ride the 877 before (see blog Just £2 Part Thirteen-Staffs and Shropshire.” Actually, I’ve only just noticed that it was Part Thirteen, was that the reason for this mishap? I doubt it, I’m not superstitious!) but the bus failed to turn up, forcing me to get a train to Stafford instead. The 877 had been on my list to do for a while since, so today seemed the perfect opportunity!
Today, I was more fortunate, with Optare Versa 27 turning up on time;
A small queue boarded, including myself, paying the current maximum £2 fare and I went and sat down.
Above the door was a faded, Stagecoach Express notice, whilst the interior and very luxurious seating also indicated that the bus came from that big group. I would later find out that the bus, plus another example that Select had purchased, had come from Stagecoach’s Fife operation.
There are two Monday-Friday departures in each direction on the 877, plus a couple of short school journeys. From Wolverhampton, these through journeys leave at 10.05 & 13.05, making up an hourly frequency with the more regular 878 which shares the same route between Wolverhampton & Wheaton Aston. On Saturdays, incidentally, neither route reaches Woverhampton, with the 878 just running three journeys between Stafford & Coven, whilst the 877’s two journeys just run between Stafford & Bradley.
I did manage to ride the 878 last year (see blog “Just £2-Part Ten-Staffordshire Triangle”) so I’m glad that I’ve now got both routes in the book. The numbers 877 & 878 both began to be used on this corridor on 3rd December 1973, when Midland Red took over many of the former Wolverhampton Corporation country services that went far beyond the boundary of the about to be created (from 1st April 1974) West Midlands County Council, which would gain control of the West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive (WMPTE) which had taken over Wolverhampton Corporation on 1st October 1969, the PTE also taking over the West Midlands county services of Midland Red from 3rd December 1973, with the Midland Red takeover of those ex Wolverhampton country services being a recipricol part of the deal. Previously, these services had been the 22 to Wheaton Aston and the 52 short working to Brewood. The Brewod service commenced on 16th August 1922, following a special service running on the 7th & 8th August that year. Wheaton Aston, meanwhile, was first served by Midland Red, reaching there via Albrighton & Tong on 1st March 1922 and was later joined by a service via the main Wolverhampton-Stafford Road, first served by Midland Red from 24th June 1920, to Gailey, then reaching Wheaton Aston via the A5 and Stretton. Wolverhampton Corporation would takeover both routes on 2nd March 1927, the Tong service being curtailed at Ivetesy Bank at the same time. 12th August 1929 would see the service via Gailey replaced by an extension of certain journeys on the Brewood service, creating the services which would go on to become the 22 & 52, these becoming the 877 & 878 respectively upon the December 1973 Midland Red takeover.
The Chaserider Market Analysis Project (MAP) revisions of 1980 saw Midland Red reduce their operations on the route, with most off peak 878 journeys being taken over by Green Bus of Great Wyrley, that independent with a penchant for older buses and cheap fares, later adding to this with a service numbered 12, which followed the 877 to Wheaton Aston, then headed into Penkridge.
Green Bus would go under in the early years of this century, never really coming to terms with the more complex needs of more modern buses, with Choice Travel briefly running service 3 in replacement of the 878, before Select Motor Services of Penkridge, an operator that would cover a lot of former Green Bus routes, in which bus entrepreneur Jullian Peddle would later gain a 25% share, took over. They would develop the services into today’s 877 & 878, running through to Stafford, becoming the only thorugh bus services between Wolverhampton & Stafford when the final service along the long established former Midland Red served main road route through Penkridge, latterly covered by NXWM’s 54/54A, was withdrawn in April 2020, the introduction of the Covid 19 lockdown just a few weeks before depriving me of a final ride on this service. Such is the strength of the train service that the direct bus service has died.
We left Wolverhampton down Darlington Street and up Waterloo Road, passed the Molyneux Stadium of Wolverhampton Wonderers Football Club, before joining the semi detached clad Stafford Road for the run to the city boundary, after which we passed under the M54 Motorway and headed into Staffordshire countryside. We branched off the main road to head into Coven, which the then main road service 876 was rerouted to serve upon the 1980 reduction of the 877 & 878 but now, the 877 & 878 are the main services through the village once again. Coven’s a rather spread out village, with many houses having been built for former Wolverhampton residents anxious to escape the urban life, doubtless helped in the years before mass car ownership by the presence of Wolverhampton Corporation’s 22 & 52 buses.
A short rural interlude took us to Brewood, which has a larger centre than Coven but similarly built up for former Wolverhampton residents. As befitting the place where most journeys on the routes once terminated, all the other passengers got off here, leaving me to travel on alone! As we left Brewood (incidentally, pronounced Brude) a van coming the other way signalled our driver to stop, which he did. Both drivers had a brief conversation whilst I noted a pheasant in a nearby field watched on! It turns out that the road had been blocked further along, therefore, our driver got out of his cab and phoned the garage, from where he presumably received instructions to turn around, reversing in a nearby side street and head back into Brewood, where we encountered the Wolverhampton bound 877, which was being run by the other ex Stagecoach Fife Optare Versa, who had come in from a different direction.
We then headed eastwards out of the village along a very narrow country lane, which bought us onto the main A5, onto which we turned left, heading towards the former Ivetesy Bank terminus of the curtailed former Wheaton Aston service, that service through Tong & Albrighton also passing to Wolverhampton Corporation, later losing the Ivetesy Bank section, before also passing back to Midland Red in December 1973, sunsequently integrated into the 893 service to Telford & Shrewsbury. Here, we rejoined the route of the 877 & 878, heading into the village of Wheaton Aston, another quite spread out village, though not to the same extent as Coven & Brewood are. Another sign of life here is the canal, where several narrow boats were berthed.
It’s here where today’s 877 & 878 split up, the more frequnt 878 heading back towards the A5 and down to Gailey, then joining the A449 Wolverhampton-Stafford road into Penkridge, then heading to Stafford via the village of Acton Trussell. whilst the two journeys on the 877 proceed through more of the village to head onto narrow country lanes, the route now becoming extremely rural.
We entered the village of Church Eaton, a more quintessentially English village than those served on the more frequent section of route, really quite tiny, with a church and a pub seemingly the main centres of this community, who didn’t need the bus today. It was then more country lanes to the similar village of Bradley. From here, we joined the main A518 Stafford-Newport Road, served by Arriva’s 5/5A Stafford-Telford route, originally the 481, which has it’s origins in the January 1992 combination of the Midland Red North (then owned by Drawlane, later to become British Bus, then sold to Cowie, who would rename themselves Arriva in 1997) 81 from Wellington-Edgmond via Newport service with the 415 Newport-Stafford trunk route of Happy Days, formerly known as Austins, whose local bus services had been bought out by Midland Red North in 1991.
One Saturday, around 1994, I was in Stafford, intending to get the next 481 to Newport, to connect into the Midland Red North 519 from there to Shrewsbury. However, I noticed that a 482 (presumably replacing another ex Happy Days route) to the village of Gnosall, on the 481, so I decided to ride this to that point, with a Reeve Burgess bodied Dodge minibus being my stead. The route went along some delightful country lanes serving out of the way villages, which I’m convinced included Church Eaton & Bradley, as well as the next village that the 877 would serve, turning off the main road to enter the village of Derrington. Here, we passed a bus shelter where two people were waiting and I wondered what bus they were wiaiting for, as I’d passed the 877 in the other direction at Brewood but as we continued in, we made a loop around the houses and I soon found out that these two villagers were waiting for our bus!
With these two on board, we headed back onto the main road, passing under the M6 and heading into the town of Stafford, the town’s castle looking down on a hill to the left, and the Highfields council estate, with it’s single multi storey block of flats, to the right. This estate is served by the 9, one of the more frequent (currently every fifteen minutes) Stafford Town services, these now being in the hands of Select, following Arriva selling their Cannock garage operations (which covered Stafford after the closure of the Arriva garage in the town in 2016) to Julian Peddle owned D & G in January 2021, with the company reviving the Chaserider name for this operation, with it being decided that it was more economical for Select to takeover the Town services. Before reaching the Town Centre, we set off around some back roads to serve some new housing, from where we gained no passengers.
Upon heading into town, we found ourselves amongst roadworks, which slowed down our passage, and myself and most other passengers got off at a stop before the Pitchers Bank terminus;
The 5A
Without doubt, the linking of Midland Red North’s 81 with the ex Happy Days 415 was an overwhelming success, although the Wellington-Telford Town Centre section would subsequently be detached, with the route then terminating at Telford Town Centre. The conversion of the route to low floor, Rural Line branded Wright Cadet bodied DAFs around 2004 would see the route increased from hourly to half hourly to enable the smaller seating capacity of the DAFs to cope with loadings! The DAFs would be replaced by the present Wright Pulsar bodied VDLs in January 2014, with the route being renumbred 5 in a July 2015 Telford area route renumbering.
Soon after arriving at the Chells Road terminus (which I’d manage to establsh was still in use, despite the presence of roadworks further down the street) 3784, one of that 2013 registered but entering service in January 2014 batch of Wright Pulsar bodied VDLs that replaced the DAFs on the 481, turned up on the next journey, which was on a 5A, for recent years have seen alternate journeys run direct along the 1985 opened Newport-Donnington Road instead of taking the original route through Lilleshall Village, which is now the 5A (there’s also a 5E evening variant) creating a 40/20 minute interval service over this stretch which, at Donnington, makes up a twenty minute service onwards through urban North Telford with the hourly 6 from Donnington Wood.
Befitting the route’s commercial, more frequent status, a much larger number of passengers boarded 3784 than had been on the 877. We set off back out through the roadworks, then taking the main Newport Road out of town once again, heading out through the villages of Haughton & Gnosall, the latter featuring a lenghty run introduced by Happy Days around a seventies built housing estate, before reaching the point, by the village shop, where I’d got off that minibus on the 482 and waitied around half an hour for the 481 all those years ago!
We passed from Staffordshire into Shropshire just before entering the town of Newport, where I got off at the noughties introduced town bus terminus by the town’s Waitrose store;
Newport
I couldn’t help notice that the bus shelters here have recently been replaced, the previous rather grotty all metal versions being replaced by these smart looking Telford & Wrekin council shelters;
Newport’s a typical Shropshire market town, not so olde worlde as similar such towns in South Shropshire, like Bridgnorth or Ludlow, but quite pleasant, it’s wide High Street containing a fairly prosperous selection of shops. Last time that I was here (see blog “Just £2-Part Six-More Telford Tenders”) I’d discovered a chip shop that it was then too early in the day to sample but today, this wasn’t the case, so I headed along the High Street trying to find it, which indeed, I did…..only to discover workmen busily converting the shop into a Dominos Pizza shop! I therefore resorted to Catherines Bakery for two large hot sausage rolls, which filled the spot. Having eaten them, I made my way to the New Inns, the Joules pub that I’d discovered on that last visit…..finding Jones chip shop immediately opposite! Ohhh well! Win some lose some!
Inside the wonderfull charecter filled pub, I consumed two pints of the superb Joules Slumbering Monk and then decided to have sausage and chips from the chippy just before it closed anyhow, taking them back to the bus terminus to eat them. They were OK!
The 102
On that last trip, as described in “Just £2-Part Six-More Telford Tenders”, I’d ridden the 103, the more interesting of two then recently introduced Telford & Wrekin Council tendered services linking Newport with Wellington, another Shropshire market town but one which has become totally dominated by the adjoining Telford New Town, with Telford Town Centre having taken away many of Wellington’s original shoppers These two services are operated by Chaserider and are designed to provide more of the area with regular bus services. The 103 is a truly magnificent route, serving villages which had either lost their bus routes in the pandemic (the aforementioned Arriva 519 to Shrewsbury, serving Edgmond, Tibberton & High Ercall) whilst the rest of the route served villages that lost their bus services long ago, like Walcot & Wrockwerdine. The 102, meanwhile, covers a more well trod path, following the 5A through Lilleshall then providing a direct service from various parts of the Donnington area to the Princess Royal Hospital and Wellington, links to these places having disappeared from these parts over the previous twenty years or so.
Nevertheless, the completist in me wished to get the 102 in the book too, so I’d timed my itinerary to catch the 14.40 departure off Newport, which was operated by Telford & Wrekin branded MMC E200 543;
So I boarded the bus and, for this approximately seven mile trip, paid just 50p!
Yes, during this week of the school holidays, Telford & Wrekin Council had introduced a bargain 50p fare on it’s tendered services, meaning even more of a bargain than the maximum £2 fares that I’d been using to get around over the rest of the day!
Nevertheless, I was the only person taking advantage of the offer on this trip, the bus leaving Newport with only myself on board! Travelling out along the High Street, I nostalgically drifted back to my first visits to the town in 1984. I was then a student at what had just been renamed Telford Colege of Art & Technology but then known universally still by it’s previous name of Walker Tech in Wellington. I was on a Business Education Council (BEC) course, and each Wednesday afternoon, each of us went to work experiance, with our first apppointments being allocated close to our homes, with me doing my first spell on the Halesfield Industrial Estate, near my then home at Woodside, but we all swapped around after Christmas, with no one wanting to go to an accountants in Newport, so I volunteered for it on account of the bus ride out there every week.
I remember then using the 2 bus route there from Wellington on it’s way to Edgmond, this being the former Midland Red 917, which ran through from Shrewsbury until November 1979 (a peak journey survived, with college service X7 being the spiritual survivor of this) but was renumbered 2 in September 1981, as part of a general renumbering of buses in Telford. Returning home, I used to take the 16.15 X82 Shrewsbury via Telford Town Centre service as far as the latter point, this service having commenced in early 1982. That time of the afternoon in Newport Town Centre was a bustle of local coach operators, including Happy Days, all operating school services.
With much complication on the post deregulation journey afterwards, the 2 & X82 would evolve into today’s 5 & 5A. These, however, follow the final section of the former Happy Days 415, which carried on beyond Newport to Church Aston (not to be confused by my earlier visited Church Eaton) a village that had really developed as a suburb of Newport, so from what I can remember, the 102 is the first regular service to turn right onto the direct road towards Lilleshall & Donnington in a very long time. We took this road and headed out of town, soon reaching the straight 1985 built road that today’s 5 now follows, whilst we took the current 5A route (as well as that used by evening service 5E) that turns left into Lilleshall, a prosperous, spread out village that was once home of the National Football Academy. We twisted our way around the village’s narrow roads, again with no takers, before reaching the old main road, with the 1985 road in the distance beyond heading straight to Donnington. We turned left onto the old road and headed into Muxton, on the edge of the built up area of Telford.
We turned left into Sutherland Drive, which, years ago, was the terminus of 916 service from Wellington, from April 1978 operated by the indepedent Excelsior until September 1981, when it was replaced by the 3 to Donnington Roundabout (although I remember one morning peak journey that still headed to Muxton Corner) this being operated by Excelsior until their ultimate demise (and it was a long drawn out, complex demise which I’ve talked about before, mostly in the “Buses For Fun” blogs “Buses In Telford-Part’s Two & Three”) in 1989, when Midland Red North would finally take it over. 1984 would see Sutherland Drive used as a regular terminus again, when Britannia International Travel began a B1 service from Muxton Corner-Telford Town Centre, which Midland Red North responded to with their own 31 running five minutes in front!
Following my college course, I went on a YTS (Youth Training Scheme. Kids, ask your Parents, it might make your eyes water!) at Britannia, during which time the company would inexplicably have then Secreatary of State for Transport Nicholas Ridley take the licence for services B1 and B2 (Town Centre-Wellington via Overdale, which Midland Red North similarly attacked with route 32) off Britannia, inexplicable because the same Transport Minister was pushing forward his “Buses” White Paper at the time, which would ultimately lead to the 1985 Transport Act that gave us deregulation which, of course, encouraged such free enterprise competition! May 1985 would see the 31 withdrawn, replaced initially by a 33 which did a different loop around Donnington and extended beyond the Town Centre to new housing in Priorslee. The 33 would subsequently be replaced by the Telford minibus network in May 1986, and the usual complexities of deregulation has affected bus routes in the area since.
Much new development had come to the area beyond the old Muxton Corner terminus since, and we headed into this, before heading into the older area of Bell Green & Donnington Wood, which I recognised as the site of the former Britannia garage where I had worked all those years ago. Houses now stand on the site, the business coming to an end in the early years of this century, with West Bromwich based Petes Travel latterly renting part of the garage off Britannia for use on competitive & tendered services witihn Telford, a return to the spirit of the B1 & B2?
We then made our way through the Donnington area, where Arriva’s 5/5A/6 & 7 are the main services, though we picked up a few. In his regular “Inside Track” column in “Buses” magazine, Julian Peddle stated that the new Telford tendered services were doing well passenger wise, although higlhy unlikely to become completely commercially viable, which was good to hear after my early runs on the other new routes had revealed very few passengers and this seemed to be the case on this 102 journey but, of course, this may have been down to me travelling agaonst the natural passenger flow of the day, with people heading out of Wellington at this time.
We made our way tantalisingly close to the Town Centre, passing through the affluent housing of Priorslee, which the aforementioned 33 first served back in 1985 and has largely been served by tendered services following deregulation, with the 8 & 8A through to Bridgnorth & Much Wenlock respectively providing an hourly link to the Town Centre today. We then hit the Queensway dual carriageway which took us more to the north of town, coming off close to the Princess Royal Hospital, also served by the trunk Arriva route 4 from Leegomery-Madeley via Wellington & the Town Centre. We followed this the short distance to Wellington bus station, where I got quickly off and boarded Arriva Wright Streetlite 3322 on the aforementioned 4, which was loading at the time, which took me out of Wellington Town Centre, down to Holyhead Road, where I noticed that the long established Cock Inn had become a Joules pub, so must put that on my to visit list. Less fortunate has been the Bucks Head, further along, which has long succumbed to the fate befalling that Newport chip shop and had become a Dominos pizza joint! This was where I once had the occasional, illicit under age drink, as the Telford College of Art & Technology where I studied back in the midsts of time (well, 1984!) is just over the road and, as usual when I pass here by bus, memories come flooding back onto boarding those Tellus branded Midalnd Red North Leyland Nationals on the 15.49 11 back home to Woodside, the bus usually being absolutely wedged! Happy days!
We then took the course of that 11, along Holyhead Road, the route of the old A5, into Oakengates, leaving this passed the Greyhound, another pub that has become a Domino Pizza. Here, the old 11 did a loop around the Ketley Bank estate (now served by Arriva’s tendered circular 99A/99C) whilst today’s 4 would normally head up the road to Snedshill, though this was closed today due to roadworks, so we headed onto the Queensway dual carriageway route of the former 11, though it was then called the Eastern Primary Road. As we came off, we were able to serve the 4’s normal Telford Central stop (the station didn’t exist during my college days, opening in 1986) before heading to the Town Centre bus station, where I got off. The picture below shows 3322 just leaving the bus station, right at the bottom, continuing it’s journey to Madeley, not a direct replacement route wise but very much the spiritual successor to my college journeys on the 11!
Meanwhile, the Telford & Wrekin liveried E200 that stands out amongst all the Arriva liveried buses here, is actually an Arriva bus too, one of two E200s that are the regular buses on the aforementioned 99A/99C that began last year, replacing several separate tendered services.
I had around half an hour wait for the next Banga Buses 891 back to Wolverhampton, which appeared in the form of Optare Solo SR SR!0 KSU, which I thought had been the regular Optare Solo SR that had featured on the 891 on my various £2 journeys on the route over the past year but was in fact a different example, with more basic seating. I used my card to pay for this trip, not only because I’d run out of coins but also because last year, the company, for some reason, insisted on card payments only on the route, though I noticed this had now ceased, with several other passengers paying cash.
A fairly full bus thus left the bus station, picking up a few more passengers in the Staffords Park Industial Estate before leaving Telford behind and travelling through the countryside to Shifnal, then on towards Tong, the village where, years ago, Wolverhampton Corporation had cutback their original Wheaton Aston service to terminate. Now, the small village is unserved, though quite visable just off the A41. The formerly Arriva operated 891 would serve it until 2015, after Banga had started competing on the route (due to Arriva briefly attacking Banga’s main 530 service from Wolverhampton-Rocket Pool) but sticking to the main road instead of serving Tong, which Arriva would copy in July 2015, when they renumbered their service 8. One year later, Arriva left the route to Banga (see “Buses For Fun” blog “Requiem For The 8”). Over the years that I’d travelled the route, I can only recall passengers boarding or alighting in Tong around twice, but today, someone actually wanted the village, so asked the driver to drop him off nearby, which he did!
Then, it was through the RAF dominated Cosford before turning off the main road to serve the larger village of Albrighton, then passing into Staffordshire, passing through the small village of Kingswood before entering the Wolverhampton suburbs along Tettenhall Road. As seems to be usual form with the last two trips on the 891, the driver didn’t bother serving the bus station, turfing us off at the St Georges stop, presumably then heading for garage, so I walked down to the Pipers Row tram stop and caught CAF 100 50 to Wednesbury Parkway, from where I caught NXWM E400H 5405 on the 79A back home.
Final Thoughts
So three days of quite intensive bashing came to an end, all three days exploring different aspects of my hobby. Monday had seen me head off into the past, riding vintage buses at Wythall Transport Museum (see blog “Return Of 5399 & Happy 50th 4413!”), whilst Tuesday saw me head up North to play on trains with the aid of a Lancashire Day Ranger (see blog “Lancashire Day Ranger 3”) whilst today was spent closer to my West Bromwich home, riding the mostly rural bus services featured in this blog.
People often ask me how I never get bored with the current transport scene, particularly those whose main interest is the more charecter filled vehicles of days gone by, and my answer is always to keep things varied, travelling to different areas, splitting things between bus and railways and, of course, taking any opportunity to revisit that more charecterful past by visiting places such as Wythall! These three days have been a fantastic example of the variety still out there to be explored by those of us with a bent to do so, something I plan to carry on doing as long as I’m able to.
Now though, it’s time to get back to making my own contribution to keeping the British bus industry going, driving buses to enable me to pay for those wonderful trips!
Until the second Great British Rail Sale (see Part’s One & Two of that title ) I hadn’t really booked any train trips in advance in recent years, partially due to the bargains been less keen than they used to be but mainly because the level of industrial action taking place was making the possibility of a last minute (well, two weeks notice, as union’s need to make before taking such action) cancellation all too possible. Granted, I would get my money back but couldn’t be bothered with the hassle of going through the reclaiming process. However, the fact that the RMT action has largely finished means there was just ASLEF (th train drivers) action to worry about, with me being lucky in that the next bout of industrial action was due to start later in the week, so for today’s trip, I was fine!
I’d last used a Lancashire Day Ranger back in 2021 (see blog “Lancashire Day Ranger 2-Part’s One & Two”) when we were just emerging from the restrictions of the pandemic and had found a very quiet railway on that day. I’d been meaning to go back since but time, money and the aforementioned industrial disputes had really prevented me from doing so. For, to get the most out of such a ticket required getting to it’s territory as close as possible to the ticket’s Monday-Friday validity start time of 09.00. Now, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that peak fares generally are rather expensive and that using Cross Country from Wolverhampton-Manchester would, even with advanced booking, still have been enormously expensive thanks to that franchises strict “no cheap fares before 09.30” rule. Fortunately though, I had another alternative, in fact, one that I’d used on my previous Lancashire Day Ranger. For the LNWR (London North Western Railway) side of the West Midlands Trains franchise has a far more liberal policy towards advanced fares on early trains, so, upon checking just over a month before my trip, I found a single fare from Wolverhampton-Liverpool on the 07.22 train for just £11.50, with a corresponding return for the same fare on the 20.33 from Liverpool, therefore, a bargain return fare of £23, not quite as cheap as the £11 fare I’d booked to Liverpool for my second Great British Rail Sale trip but still very good value, so I booked them. Of course, a further advantage of going to Liverpool rather than Manchester is that I’d have the pleasure of a ride on one of my much loved Class 350 Electric Multiple Units (EMUs) rather than on a less than loved by me Cross Country Voyager!
The Trip “Ooop North!”
Of course, those of you who’ve read my last blog “Return Of 5399 & Happy 50th 4413”, will recall that I had to leave Wythall Transport Museum’s Easter Bank Holiday Monday Running Day early because I was unable to get a holiday for my night duty that day, meaning a finish at 00.04, with me then driving swiftly home (I normally use the staff bus at the end of a late night, leaving my wife Lynn the use of the car but the need to be up early the following morning made me decide to use the car) and getting to bed for just turned half twelve. A further complication was the West Midlands Metro being closed from Wednesbury-Birmingham due to the construction of points at Wednesbury for the new Dudley line, so I had a mere four and a half hours sleep before arising at five, had some breakfast and was out in time to catch a National Express West Midland (NXWM) 79A Metro Replacement service, operated by Wolverhampton garage E400H 5416, which took me towards Wednesbury, with a view of a crane that was obviously there in connection with the Metro works. I got off at the Wednesbury Parkway tram stop, the 79A terminus;
…..where I walked through an empty car park to the platform, catching CAF 100 car 51 for the trip to Wolverhampton Station, where, having just under an hour for my train, I bought myself a latte and croissant to wake myself up a little, watching a couple of trams gliding in and out of the tram terminus, all this feeling very continental!
Then, I made my onto Platform 2, where the train was scheduled to depart from, with an announcement coming on just before the train was due to arrive telling of a platform alteration to Platform 3, it being quite unusual for a northbound train to call here. Therefore, the waiting pasengers, including myself, crossed to the other side of this island platform, where 350 369 appeared bang on time;
350 369 is one of the ten 350/3 units delivered from October 2014 onwards, supplementing the earlier 350/1 & 350/2 units that have regularly operated the Birmingham-Liverpool service since the 350/1s began to enter service in 2005, these later being joined in 2020 by the 2014 vintage 350/4s that entered service with Trans Pennine on Manchester-Glasgow/Edinburgh trains before being replaced by new 125 mph Class 397s, the 350/4s then being cascaded to join their sisters at West Midlands Trains.
As I stated in the “Great British Rail Sale Part Two” blog, the Birmingham-Liverpool service is destined to see it’s 350s replaced by the LNWR examples of the new Class 730s (see blog “Sampling The Class 730”) so the reign of these fine units will be coming to an end on this route soon, with the 350/2s going back to their train leasing company, although the other three sub classes will continue on the other services that they currently feature on, this being evident in the refurbishment that those three sub classes have recently received, featuring re-moquetted seating, which 369’s interior features.
The affects of the coffee had cast off any residues of tiredness in me, so I enjoyed the run out into the Staffordshire countryside under the early morning dawn, calling at Penkridge and Stafford before hitting the fast tracks of the West Coast Main Line (WCML), speeding past two container trains heading up the slow lines, one hauled by a Class 66, the other by two DRS electric freight loco Class 88s, the Tesco name on their containers signifying this to be the daily Crick-Glasgow Tesco train.
The approaches to Crewe were their usual choo choo city self, with a two tone green liveried Class 47 and a brace of Class 86, 87 and a 90, electric locos that once dominated the main WCML long distance trains before being replaced from 2003 onwards by the Pendolinos that are the current mainstay of Avanti West Coast’s operations. On the other side of the line were two of the aforementioned Class 730 EMUs, one in LNWR green livery, signifying that it will be one of those replacing 350s on Birmingham-Liverpool trains, whilst the other was in the West Midlands Railway orange of West Midlands Trains other operational fleetname, this destined to soon enter service on the Birmingham Cross City Line and other electric Birmingham area local services.
Calling at the station, we picked up a fair few Liverpool bound commuters and this railway mecca produced one more surprise as we left, with an adjacent platform featuring an all white Class 321 “Dusty Bin” EMU, a distinctly southern class that had entered service on various parts of the Network South East system from 1989, including the Euston-Birmingham semi fast service where they would be displaced by the 350/1s. What this now withdrawn from service unit was doing here, I don’t know!
With both the Crewe railway excitement and Costa coffee caffeine now wearing off, I drifted off to sleep for a bit, missing the train filling up at it’s Winsford, Hartford and Acton Bridge calls but waking up on pulling into Runcorn, where more joined and we carried on over the bridge that straddles the River Mersey and the beginning of the Manchester Ship Canal, a sight which always means to me that Liverpool isn’t too far off, with a rush through more countryside being broken by the massive Haleswood Jaguar (previously Ford) plant on the city’s edge. Then, it was a call at Liverpool South Parkway, then passing through semi detached suburbia before reaching Edge Hill, where sidings produced an on test Avanti West Coast Class 805, the Hitachi built bi mode units that are destined to replace the diesel Voyager units in the Avanti fleet, alongside a virtually identical Class 802 of Trans Pennine Express, these having been in use on Liverpool-Newcastle & Edinburgh trains since 2020.
Then it was into the magnificent limestone cuttings that make such a dramatic entrance to the great cathedral of a station that is Liverpool Lime Street.
Lancashire Day Ranger
I then went to buy my adult Lancashire Day Ranger, which came to £29.80. Back in 2021, it had cost £25.90, so a £3.90 rise in three years! It’s not so bad when you consider the area that it covers, basically most of the traditional County of Lancashire north of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway, the ticket being valid on this line but not the Liverpool-Manchester via Warrington Central line that lies further south, though the Cheshire Day Ranger covers both routes between the two cities. The territory then heads north up to Carnforth and Silverdale on the line towards Barrow In Furness. and Wennington on the Bentham Line from Morecambe-Leeds. Eastwards, the limit is Hebden Bridge, Burnley and Colne.
I suspect that the only users of the ticket are railway enthusiasts, no one else would be able to make it cover it’s cost!
Looking on the next train indicators, the first thing I noticed was that the next Trans Pennine Express Class 802 to Newcastle was calling at the small town of Brighouse, as opposed to Huddersfield, a call that I would notice all such trains making that day, indicating that engineering works, presumably part of the finally granted (though largely as a consolation prize for the cancellation of HS2 to Mancheater) electrification of the core Manchester-Leeds line over Standedge, therefore trains are currently being diverted over the Calder Valley Line through Hebden Bridge.
I though, looked for the next avaliable train to Wigan, which was the stopper at 09.14, formed of 331 030;
Liverpool-Wigan
There are three trains an hour from Liverpool-Wigan, an hourly fast train running through to Blackpool North and a half hourly stopping service, both of these now being operated by the CAF Class 331 EMUs that entered service for the then Arriva controlled (it was taken under government control in early 2020) Northern Trains in 2019.
The last time that I’d bought a Lancashire Day Ranger, in 2021 (see blog “Lancashire Day Ranger 3-Part One”) I’d made the same move, catching a Class 319 , the 1987 vintage former Thameslink EMUs that had moved north from 2015 onwards to operate the newly electrified lines from Liverpool-Manchester & Wigan, later extending to Blackpool North, as well as from Preston-Manchester. I’d first ridden one “oop North” just after that electrification in 2015, featuring in my first “Lancashire Day Ranger” blog published on my previous page “Buses For Fun”, riding one to start the bash on a stopping service from Liverpool-Manchester and finishing it with one on a fast Manchester-Liverpool train (fast services over the Liverpool & Manchester are now totally in Trans Pennine Express hands) and finding myself surprisingly more enamoured with the class than I had on my occasional rides on then down south, and this affection would grow over the next few years, particuarly after the line from Preston-Blackpool North was electrified in 2018.
My next Lancashire Day Ranger (see blog “Pacer Hunt 3-Lancashire Day Ranger”) bash in July 2019 saw me take a Liverpool-Blackpool North train as far as Preston and again, I would finish that bash with one of the class, travelling all the way through from Blackpool North-Liverpool, this being shortly before that service became operated with Class 331s. Now, the Class 319s have gone (well, almost, as we’ll discover later!) the final units ceasing last December, with Class 323s from the West Midlands in the process of heading North as replacements, with more due to come once the replacing Class 730s are in service on the Birmingham Cross City Line, meaning that things are pretty tight for avaliable EMUs in both areas at the moment. The 323s are based in the Manchester area, so it’s solid Class 331s as far as Northern EMUs in Liverpool are concerned.
We set off back through the Lime cuttings, soon calling at the original 1830 Liverpool & Manchester Railway terminus at Edge Hill, following this pioneering line out to Huyton, after which we branched off towards St Helens, the 331 taking me efficiently and smoothly along the line, although without the noise and charecter that I felt that the Class 319s had. Approaching St Helens, we passed through the largely closed Pilkingtons Glass Works before calling at St Helens Central, then it was onwards, heading into a brief patch of countryside before calling at Bryn, bringing us out of the Metropolitan County of Merseyside and into that of Greater Manchester, briefly joining the WCML before journeys end at Wigan North Western;
Wigan Wallgate
I then made the short walk from Wigan North Western which, as the name implies, used to belong to the original London North Western Railway (LNWR) that operated the WCML and many surrounding lines, to nearby Wigan Wallgate, which once belonged to the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway (LYR), the LNWR’s great rival in the North West, it’s territory covering large swathes of the counties that it was named after. The two rivals amalgamated on 1st January 1922, a year before the Railway Grouping would have seen both railways become a major part of London Midland Scottish (LMS).
Literally only around a minute walk apart, there have been plans made to merge the two stations over the years but nothing has happened yet!
There are currently four trains an hour calling at Wallgate, one terminating and the other three running through in each direction. The terminating service is the normally Class 158 operated service to Leeds, which provides one of the two trains an hour down the Atherton line to Manchester Victoria, then heads onwards to Leeds, being the regular train over the Calder Valley and Brighouse route that Trans Pennine Express trains were being diverted over. The other train per hour down the Atherton Line is that from Headbolt Lane, the new station on the edge of the large Kirkby area, where connections can be made with the new Class 777 Stadler EMUs of Merseyrail for the run into Liverpool Central, more on these services later. One of these trains called as I arrived, formed of the service’s usual combo of Class 150 & Class 156 diesel multiple units (DMU) this continuing over the Atherton line to Manchester Victoria, then onwards to Blackburn via Rochdale, Burnley Manchester Road and the Todmorden Loop, very much the long way around.
I let this go, however, as it was the type of trains used on some of the other two trains per hour, both of which come off the Southport line, which branches off from the Headbolt Lane line just beyond the station. These trains both then continue towards Manchester via Bolton. Once, there had been an all stop service via this route from Wigan North Western, once using Class 142 Pacer units but this service disappeared with the Pandemic, the extra calls from Bolton onwards being put onto the slower of the two services from Southport, this running through to Stalybridge via Manchester Victoria. The other, semi fast service, runs from Southport-Manchester Oxford Road.
The December 2018 timetable change had seen the original semi fast Southport service, which had previously run to Manchester Airport, diverted to run via Manchester Victoria-Leeds, making a half hourly Manchester-Leeds via the Calder Valley & Bradford route with the equally new Chester-Leeds service, both subsequently becoming operated by the new Class 195, diesel equivalants of the 331s but there were complaints about Southport losing it’s through service to Manchester Piccadilly, with it’s connections to London Euston and other destinations to the South, prompting a rejigging of the timetable in 2020, with the Southport-Leeds service ceasing, replaced by the aforementioned Wigan-Leeds via Brighouse service, whilst the fast Southport train was rerouted to Alderley Edge via Manchester Piccadilly. But this was one of many services using the congested through platforms 13 & 14 at Piccadilly, the number of trains calling here causing havoc with reliability, therefore, cutbacks were planned to reduce the number of trains on this section, and unfortunately, Southport would be one of the losers, though the fast service being curtailed at Oxford Road, the station before Piccadilly, so at least passengers wanting Piccadilly could change onto one of the still frequent services for the one stop trip to Platforms 13 & 14, where onward connections can be made.
Class 769
One of the unfortunate side effects of the North West’s increased electrification has been that more services from still non electrified lines now travel under sometimes lengthy sections of wires. Trans Pennine Express’s bi mode Class 802 address this problem on the Liverpool-Newcastle/Edinburgh service but the many Northern services that do this were unable to justify the costs of leasing new bi mode stock, so a solution that Northern Trains and two other operators with similar issues, GWR (Great Western Railway) & Arriva Trains Wales, soon to be replaced by Transport for Wales (TfW) turned to a solution offered by Brush Trains, builders of such locos as the Class 47 in the past, who, in conjunction with leasing compnay Porterbrook, took hold of redundent Class 319 EMUs and fitted MAN diesel engines under each driving trailer (basically, one at either end of a five carriage train) enabling the unit to run under diesel power when away from the wires but taking advantage of the juice when running under the wires.
The partnership between Brush & Porterbrook was announced in 2016 and orders subsequently placed by the three operators but the project was slow in development, with the pandemic coming along before any had entered service. GWR would receive their first example in August 2020, the intention being to use their 19 examples on the Reading-Gatwick & Reading-Basingstoke lines, which featured Southern Region third rail electrification at their ends, hence GWR’s 769s also retained their dual overhead and third rail capabilities, as well as their new diesel engines but, such was the delays in testing that eventually, despite having received more units, GWR would abandon it’s plans to operate them, meaning that the planned cascade of more Class 165 turbo DMUs to GWR’s South West operations wouldn’t take place.
Transport for Wales would beat Northern into getting their 13 769s into service first, doing so in November 2020, operating on the Welsh Valley network out of Cardiff, but the ordering of new stock, including tri mode (powered by electric wires, a diesel engine & a battery!) Stadler Class 756 units and Class 398 tram trains (electrification spreading throughout the Valleys) with the 769s being the first class to be abandoned following the spread of the new trains, the last bowing out on 19th November 2023.
Northern’s eight 769s would enter service in May 2021, frustratingly just a week after my last Lancashire Day Ranger bash had taken place! They would enter service on the Southport line, taking advantage of the wires from Bolton onwards. Unfortunately, reliability with the units would be rather suspect, leading to frequent substitution with the ubiqutous Class 150 DMUs, and a period of running wholly in diesel mode, as there had been issues with the diesel/electric changeover. As I missed out on the opportunity of riding a TfW example, whilst no one had an opportunity to ride those briefly owned by GWR, I wanted to have a go on the Northern units before any decision was made to withdraw them, not something that has occurred yet but with the current drive to bring down the railway’s operating costs, a non standard set of units such as the 769s must have been a prime target!
Fortunately, I’d used the website realtime trains.com to tell me when the next 769 was due here, this being on the next Southport-Manchester Oxford Road train, which arrived in the form of 769 442;
So I boarded what had become, to me, a familiar space over the past nine years but with a very unfamiliar sound bubbling away underneath the floor! Suddenly, I was struck by the similarity of the interior with the slightly earlier built (1985 onwards) Class 150 Sprinters that are incredibly common in these parts (and coincidentally, are also operated by the other two owners of 769s) , both featuring British Rail Engineering Limited (BREL which should never have been closed, in my opinion!) bodywork derived from the Mk 3 Inter City coaching stock built in the seventies. When pulling out though, I could hear a somewhat deeper pitch from the MAN engine than is the case with the Cummins engines in the 150s. Odd how I’d never noticed the similarities before but I suppose the totally different front end of each type, plus the totally different sensation of travelling on an electric train previously took my attention away from the similarities between the shells of the two classes!
Heading out of Wigan, after being joined by the spur from Wigan North Western, I noticed the presence of new catenary, ready to carry wires for another section of the much delayed 2015 North Western electrification programme, delays having come about mainly due to cost overruns and government funding cuts. However, the catenary indicates that the wires are coming, enabling the 769s to begin electric operation from Wigan instead of Bolton. Hindley was the next call, after which we split off from the Atherton line, heading towards Bolton.
I’ve always thought that Wigan really has much closer ties to it’s west, heading towards Merseyside than to the Greater Manchester Metropolitan County that it became a part of on 1st April 1974 (so just over fifty years ago) and this is alluded to by the much more built up nature of the Wigan-Liverpool line compared to the rural surroundings that I was now passing through, the same also applying to the line via Atherton, which I travelled along last year (see blog “Dawn Of The Bee!”)
The only intermediate station beyond Hindley is Westhoughton, right on the edge of Bolton, so the urban surroundings resume here, the archetypal Northern cotton Mills featuring frequently in these parts, although almost exclusively in other usage now. Coupled with Coronation Street style terraces and Moor covered hills in the background, the area just seems so resolutely Northern!
The presence of active electric wires indicated that we were now joining the main line from Preston, soon after pulling into Bolton Station. Now, having heard about the previous fully diesel running, I wondered if the train’s pantograph was actually going to rise here, and for a moment, I thought not, as the diesel engine continued to burble away! But then, just after the whistle was blown, the train went silent and we pulled out with a gradual whirring of the electric motors, the unit suddenly becoming the Class 319 that I had become so fond of over the past nine years!
As we picked up speed, running fast towards Manchester, I pondered on how different my attitude to the 319 had become since their migration north to when I first rode one, back in 1988 from Blackfriars-King’s Cross (the old York Road station) when sampling the reopened Snow Hill tunnel under London, with me frankly being not that overwhelmed! But I think that, in our hobby, familiarity can breed acceptance, as we become more used to the ambience of travelling on a specific class over the years. Plus, there was the fact that, at least on the Southern side of what had become Thameslink, they had replaced Southern Region slam door stock, which I was, to be honest, barely familiar with, but had greatly liked on the rare occasions that I got to travel on such trains. Fortunately, although the 319s were amongst the earliest units to begin replacing Southern Region stock, the sheer number of the latter meant that many would survive into the early years of this century. Although I would travel on the odd 319 subsequently, the sheer variety of transport interest in the Capital meant that trips on them were few and far between. Notable trips include catching one to Kings Cross St Pancras from Bedford, after riding the Bletchley-Bedford line, and also the evening when I rode one down to Moorgate, before the widened lines alongside the Metropolitan Line were severed at Farringdon to allow the Thameslink platforms to be increased in size to accommodate the 319s Class 700 replacements.
But it’s been their Northern lives where I’ve really got to know them, particularly after the Blackpool North line was electrified in 2018. So it’s nice that there are these eight 769s still flying the class’s flag, at least for now!
We called at Salford Crescent, then headed towards where the centres of Salford and Manchester collide, which is also where the lines towards the traditional Victoria and the 1989 opened Windsor link that provided access to Piccadilly from the north, thus adding significantly to the number of trains calling at Piccadilly 13 & 14, which previously consisted mainly of Altrincham-Alderley Edge Class 304 EMUs. After calling at Deansgate, we then passed the magnificent bridge that crosses the Irwell on Castleford Curve that 2018 opened piece of infrastructure allowing trains to run directly between Piccadilly and Victoria but, due to the cancellation of a planned platforms 15 & 16 to supplement 13 & 14 as Piccadilly through platforms by then Transport Minister Chris Grayling, the curve has become a bit of a white elephant, with just the hourly Class 185 operated Trans Pennine Express Manchester Airport-Saltburn train currently using it, anymore trains would put unacceptable pressure on 13 & 14.
This is the reason why our train, plus the half hourly stopper from Liverpool via the Warrington Central line, terminates at the small Oxford Road, the station before the Deansgate line reaches Piccadilly, with 442 terminating in the bay platform:
Return To Bolton
I decided to reboard 442 for a trip back to Bolton, the reason, quite simply, because it was dinner time! Therefore, I had a nice electric thrash back to Bolton;
I had intended to take a before and after photo of the pantograph lowering but, once I’d got off, I found that it had already dropped, so I took a photo of the Class 769 Power Changeover sign;
I then walked out of the station, crossing the bridge that took me into the bus part of the Bolton Interchange;
inside where I noticed a full stock of timetables, including a yellow example proclaiming the renumbering of Wigan bus services, which previous operator Stagecoach had renumbered into a single/double digit series some years before. The previous week had seen the start of Tranche 2 of the franchised Bee Network, covering Bury, Oldham, Rochdale & North Manchester. Bolton, incidentally, was part of Tranche 1. If franchising beings forth the return of timetable leaflets, as opposed to having to look everything up on the internet, then bring it on!
But my main reason for being here wasn’t, in itself, transport related! For just over the road from the Interchange, in the red brick building just visable from the photo taken from the bridge, is the Olympus Fish Bar, a place (actually, their plaice is pretty fine!) I usually frequent when visiting this town! On the past three occasions, with my friends Phil Tonks & Paul Collins, we’ve visited their marvellous, Harry Remsden-esque restaurant, complete with a pianist tinkering the ivories but today, wishing to move on relatively quickly, I opted for the takeaway, so I bought cod & chips, then took them onto Platform 4 of the station, eating them there whilst waiting for my next train, which was the 13.35 to Blackburn which turned up in the form of 150 133;
The Blackburn Line
To be honest, I was quite surprised to see the train advertised as terminating at Blackburn. as I was used to trains on the line terminating at Clitheroe, on the 1994 reopened Ribble Valley Line, and I then double checked the train’s calling patterns, in case it was heading in the other direction, reaching Blackburn via Manchester & the Todmorden curve but no, that service, as I’ve mentioned, runs through from Headbolt Lane via Wigan & the Atherton line before passing through Manchester Victoria, but then I remembered that the service along the direct Blackburn line had recently been increased to half hourly, with the extra trains terminating at Blackburn, with this being one. In fact, both trains per hour continue to/from Manchester Victoria onto Rochdale, providing a all stop service alongside that Todmorden curve run! But I was heading in the opposite direction, over the direct route, the line branching off to the right immediately after leaving the station.
150 133 is one of many 150/1s around here that originally ran in my native West Midlands before being displaced by Class 172s in 2010 so, even with the refurbished Northern moquette that the seats now carry, the unit felt incredibly familiar and yes, I did notice how similar the interior was to the Class 319 derived 769 that I’d just been on, with just the different pitch of the engine really marking it out! Unlike the 319s, I’ve realy never been that much of a follower of the 150s but certainly recognise their position in the railway as a solid, reliable workhorse that has served the railway well over their nearly forty year life so far. As I’ve mentioned, other operators include GWR and, shortly due for replacement, TfW, although their fleet has been a lifeline for the operator in recent years, covering for the newer but troublesome Class 175s, which have now been withdrawn.
Northern have recently placed tenders for units to replace the 150s plus the newer 156 & 158 Sprinters that they have, as well as the 769s, looking at alternative power sources to diesel such as battery or hydrogen but have yet to secure funding for such purchases, so the 150s look to be around here for sometime yet, as is the case down in Devon & Cornwall with GWR, as no plans have even been announced for their replacement, this not being helped by GWR abandoning it’s 769s, meaning that 165s turbos will have to continue covering the Reading-Gatwick & Reading-Basingstoke lines, and will unable to be cascaded to replace 150s in the South West.
So I settled down for a trundle along this mostly single track line that I’d last rode around 2007, the first call being Hall I’The Woods, on the outskirts of Bolton, after which, we headed out into the attractive surrroundings of Tonge Moor before calling at Bromley Cross, This is one of those lines that is really scenic but dosen’t seem to attract the attention that more famous lines, like Huddersfield-Barnsley or the famous Settle & Carlisle line does but it’s a plaeasnt little trip, and I’m glad to see that the line now enjoys a half hourly service. We passed the occasionaly served Entwistle, located in a heavily wooded area, before entering the town of Darwen. My friend John Batchelor and his wife Nicky have recently moved here (I would have arranged to meet up for a drink but he’s currently suffering from a broken ankle!) and seems quite happy here. Looking at the town’s traditional, stone built terraces, with hills visable in the distance, I can well understand why! Back in the nineties, the town was the location for the TV series “Hetty Wainthrope Investigates”, a rather gentle series about a pensioner who becomes a Private Detective, starring Patricia Routledge, who’s more famous for portaraying the outrageously snobbish Hyacinth Bucket (pronnounced “Bouquet” not Bucket!) in the slightly earlier “Keeping Up Appearances.”
Until 1st April 1974, Darwen was also home to it’s own municipal bus fleet, it’s main trunk service run jointly with it’s larger neighbour Blackburn, running to that town, the council of which absorbed it’s smaller neighbour as part of the Local Government Act of that year, the two municipal bus fleets becoming one, Blackburn Borough Transport, using a livery which took Darwen’s former red and added it to Blackburn’s green & white, a noble idea but the result looked awful! Deregulation would see a much more pleasant green & cream scheme adopted but unfortunately, the company would be hit badly by competition, ultimatley selling out to Transdev, who had took over the former Ribble East Lancashire operations from Stagecoach, in 2006. Today, the Blackburn-Darwen route 1 has been extended to Bolton, along the route of the former Ribble 225, and the photo of Bolton Interchange features one of the route’s current MMC E200s, the blue single decker in the top right hand corner of the photo;
The route onewards to Blackburn is largely urban, more of the Victorian “Coronation Street” style terraces that typifiy so much of this area, before we pulled into Blackburn;
Blackburn station once had a magnificent Victorian frontage, that I first discovered in 1988. I hadn’t arrived by train so couldn’t comment on the interior but remember being charmed by the frontage, this being fronted itself by the fifties vintage concrete shelters of Blackburn bus station, then full of Blackburn Transport Leyland Atlanteans and various types of Ribble buses (more Atlanteans, Bristol VRs, Leyland Nationals & Olympians) as well as various independents with a wide variety of stuff so typical of the early years of 1986 introduced bus industry deregulation. The nineties, however, would first see those wonderful (though to be honest, probably not that effective) concrete shelters replaced by more modern and efficant but less attractive shelters, then the Victorian facade of the station was swept away in a fit of modernisation!
Now, the bus station has moved away from the trains, although many services still stop outside the station. The new bus station is one of several recently constructed by Lancashire County Council offering impressive passenger facilities, so all good on that front. The railway station, though, is a little bland, but I suppose it does the job.
A Class 195 To Preston
My next destination was the city of Preston, very much the dominant urban centre of the post 1974, smaller county of Lancashire. Two, hourly train services link this city with Blackburn, the stopping service which continues beyond Blackburn to Burnley & Colne, which actually, at Preston, would change to the train that I then wanted to travel on, but before that was due was the York-Blackpool North service, that originated between Leeds & Blackpool (initially running two hourly) in 1989, bringing a regular passenger service back to the Copy Pit Line that links the Calder Valley Leeds-Bradford-Manchester Victoria line to the East Lancashire line (not to be confused with the preserved East Lancashire Railway from Bury-Rawtenstall) that had hitherto been solely served on a regular basis by the Colne-Preston service. Previously, the main passenger services over the Copy Pit line were holiday expresses and excursions from West Yorkshire-Blackpool North, a type of traffic that was then in heavy decline, so it was good that the newly formed Regional Railways sector of British Rail began this more regular express service, keeping that link from Yorkshire to the flesh pots of Blackpool alive!
Initially using the Class 155s that would mostly end up split into single car Class 153 units but a small, West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive sponsered batch survive to this day on local services around that county and I would travel on one from Blackpool-York (in the days when the service ran through to Scarborough every two hours) with then head of the then Strategic Rail Authority Richard Bowker on board from Blackpool-Preston, presumably then heading for a then Virgin train to London, he obviously having visited the 2002 Labour Party Conference then on in the seaside town. Class 158s would later take the service over but from 2019, the service would become one of the first to use Northern’s new CAF Class 195s, basically the diesel version of the Class 331, with 195 105 turning up on my train.
Basically, the interior was identical to a Class 331 but with the burble of a diesel engine coming from beneath! All very smooth and modern, 103 took me non stop to the fine and busy station that is Preston, pulling onto Platform 1, the time honoured Platform for Blackpool, which I’ve walked and occasionally ran across the station bridge to reach on the journey to my favourite seaside resort…and will be doing so again in a few weeks time!
Preston
I had around fifty minutes here before my next train which, as I’ve said, would arrive as the next stopper from Colne, so I could have waited for it at Blackburn but I felt it would be better to have a slightly longer wait under the magnificent train shed, watching trains passing too and throw at this busy station, with a plethora of lines connecting into the main WCML. Appearing on this heading north was Avanti West Coast’s Pride liveried Pendolino, which I’d seen earlier that morning, upon arriving into Liverpool Lime Street on 350 369, the Pendolino sitting on one side of the station whilst another Pride liveried train, a Class 802 of Trans Pennine Express, sat on the other. Since then, the Avanti West Coast train had been down to London Euston and was now heading up to Glasgow Central, illustrating how the speed of rail shrinks our Nation!
Soon, my next train arrived, a far more prosaic Class 150, in fact, another ex Tyseley set, 150 105, which followed on from my last train, 195 105, quite nicely!
The West Lancashire Line
As I’ve said, this unit had worked in on the stopping service from Colne which, in 1987, was linked operationally with the previous shuttle from Kirkham & Wesham along the single track branch to Blackpool South, this being about the time that the Class 142 Pacer units replaced traditional DMUs on both lines. This had the effect of increasing loadings considerably on the Blackpool South branch, with East Lancashire folk taking advantage of the new through service to reach the seaside, with the newly opened Blackpool Pleasure Beach station also contributing to that growth. This service survived for many years but the problem was that the journey through Preston was prone to delays which would effect the punctuality of services down the all single track Blackpool South branch, often leading to trains being curtailed at St Annes On Sea or even at Kirkham & Wesham, a situation that couldn’t be allowed to continue, so the service was split back into two again in 2018, with trains off Blackpool South still running through to Colne, but as a separate service with more time allowed at Preston. Then, on returning from Colne, the train would then run the next service down the branch to Ormskirk, thence returning to Preston and forming the next Blackpool South train.
So I boarded the Ormskirk train and we set off, leaving the WCML at exactly the same point that the line from East Lancashire joins it, my journey in on 195 105 crossing over the WCML on a flyover, whilst now, I was heading up a single track branch line, one of the survivors of Doctor Beeching’s dreaded branch line axe……except it wasn’t quite, rather becoming a branch as a result of rationalisation! For before the good Doctor had begun his mission to rid the railways of unprofiable lines (something he really failed to do, as today, virtually known of the network could be described as profitable!) this was part of the former Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway Main Line from Liverpool Exchange-Preston, carrying expresses to Glasgow & Edinburgh plus, probably much more numerous holiday and commuter trains to Blackpool. The line out of Liverpool as far as Ormskirk had been electrified in 1913, following on from the electrification of the line to Southport in 1904, developing as a busy commuter route into Liverpool, this later becoming part of the Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive’s (MPTE) Merseyrail network from 1977.
Railway rationalisation following in the footsteps of Beeching would see the longer distance trains rerouted via the Wigan line, leaving just the electric service to Ormskirk and a connecting, all stop DMU service from Ormskirk onto Preston and thus the line has stayed ever since. I’ve ridden the line only once before, around 2006 on board a single car Class 153 that were then the regular fayre on the line, so it was long overdue another trip from me.
We headed out into delightful West Lancashire countryside, good agricultural country, with potatoes being a particularly strong crop around here, the area giving birth to many a Blackpool chip! Croston was the first call, followed by Rufford, then Burscough Junction, once the location of two curves that connected this line to the Wigan-Southport line and there are tentative plans to reopen these curves, which would allow th operation of an additional Liverpool-Southport service running via Ormskirk, using the battery capability of the new Merseyrail Stadler Class 777 EMUs, which could also enable the return of through trains from Liverpool-Preston via Ormskirk, whilst reopening the other curve would allow the return of a Preston-Southport service that last existed before the Preston-Southport via Banks line, the original West Lancashire Railway, was closed to passenger services in September 1964.
A delightful little line which I really must ride again considerably sooner than when I took my last trip! Soon, we arrived at the single platform Ormskirk station, with me alighting from one of the oldest trains on the National Rail network at the one end of the platform;
…….and walking along it, passing a set of buffers which seperate the electrified and non electrified line here, to board one of the network’s newest trains!
Merseyrail
So I boarded my second of the new Merseyrail Class 777 Stadler electrics (see the blog “The Second Great British Rail Sale-Part Two-Liverpool, Southport & St Helens”) that have now very nearly completely replaced Meresyrail’s previous Class 507 & 508 units (just a few 507s left) after my previous trip on one from Southport, for a run down the busy commuter line towards Liverpool, calling at the village like stations of Aughton Park & Town Green, the frequency of the service making these places far more bustling than the villages on the Preston side of the line. Then came the relatively new (opened in 2018) Maghull North, followed by Maghull itself, following which the line gets more suburban, running alongside the retail parks of the A59 as it calls at Old Roan, these large retail stores being swapped for the home of the Grand National as we approached Aintree. The next two stations of Orrell Park & Walton are well within Liverpool suburbia, with the line from Kirkby & Headbolt Lane joining us before the next stop at Kirkdale. I would have made a connection here onto that branch but experiance has taught me that what’s now the Headbolt Lane train is due to arrive at exactly the same time as the inbound train from Ormskirk and, sure enough, a Headbolt Lane train pulled in as we did. Therefore, I carried onto the next station, Sandhills, where we also join the line from Southport, though trains on this line were currently only running to the Southport suburb of Hillside thanks to engineering works to improve capacity on the Merseyrail part of Southport station.
I thought that the next Headbolt Lane train should get me there easily in time for what realtime train.com told me was the next Headbolt Lane-Manchester train at 15.54 but I’d reckoned without the Headbolt Lane extension of the Merseyrail Kirkby service having seen a reduction of the off peak service from every fifteen minutes to half hourly…..and I was on the wrong fifteen minutes! Unsure of my next move now, I boarded the next train, 777 019, into Liverpool Central, passing a set of the still surviving Class 507 EMUs on a Hillside train on the way out, the rear set being 507 001, the set repainted into the unit’s original British Rail blue & grey. Had I been in Central for that, I’d have ridden it to Hillside, caught the replacememnt bus into Southport, then rode the line to Wigan but what I decided to do was to catch the next train to Headbolt Lane anyhow, and basically do a “Geoff Marshall” at the new station, giving it a good look over before catching the next train to Wigan, it being too late by then to make my way to Manchester, then back to Liverpool in time for my 20.33 train back to Wolverhampton.
So I hung around at the incredibly busy two island platforms at Liverpool Central, admiring the swift departures controlled by a guy with a mic instructing everyone to stand clear of the closing doors of the frequent trains, before the next Headbolt Lane train arrived, formed of 777 146 which I boarded for the trip back out to Sandhills, then up the Ormskirk branch to Kirkdale, then onto the Kirkby branch, with it’s Rice Lane & Fazarkeley calls before reaching the previous terminus at Kirkby, the large area of mostly council housing built as an overpill for Liverpool in the years following World War Two.
Kirkby had previously been a single platform terminus similar to Ormskirk, with buffers seperating the electrified Merseyrail line from the diesel Northern service that ran from here to Manchester and, like Ormskirk, this used to run as a through route, forming a very roundabout third Liverpool-Manchester route (actually, the Cheshire Lines Commitee provided an even more roundabout fourth route between the two cities but this is long closed) alnog originally with a through line to Bury which has now closed but the electrification of the line to Kirkby in 1978 saw the through service from Liverpool-Wigan severed.
Now, the third rail powered 777s turn to their batteries to continue along the line to the brand new, 5th October 2023 opened Headbolt Lane station;
Headbolt Lane
Along with Ellesmere Port on the Wirral Line, I’d say that the Kirkby branch of the Northern Line is the quietest on the Merseyrail network and I’d say this is largely down to both areas being generally poorer than most other parts of the Merseyrail network, meaning that, certainly in the case of Kirkby, car ownership is, on average, lower than elsewhere, meaning that, wheras elesewhere, many passengers would drive to the station, this isn’t possible for many Kirkby residents, so many away from the station would likely get a bus into the city instead. Thus the reduction of off peak services to half hourly has probably been able to cope well for the time being. I believe the plan is to ultimately return to a fifteen minute service at some point.
Headbolt Lane is situated in the far north of Kirkby, quite close to the Tower Hill estate served by Stagecoach bus route 20, which calls in at the new station on it’s way around it’s terminal loop around the estate;
Also serving here is a Sunday extension of the 14 from Kirkby bus station, the service providing a more roundabout run to Liverpool, plus the 217 from Bootle-Huyton, which I once rode from Kirkby-Huyton on a Stagecoach Alexander bodied Leyland Olympian some fifteen years ago!
The station consists of three platforms, two for Meresyrail services, whilst Platform 3 for trains to Wigan and beyond is sited the other side of the station building;
Full of facilities, including a toilet that came in handy during my wait, the staffed station seems very well equiped, typical of how a fully accessable, modern station should be. A fairly well filled car park was present, possibly used by residents from other parts of Kirkby but also possibly used by people from elsewhere, perhaps the nearby seventies built New Town of Skelmersdale, a town without a railway of it’s own.
Another source of traffic for the new station is the new housing that was springing up around the area, supplementing the fifties semi detached housing that the 20 bus has been serving since it’s origins as a Lverpool City Transport route.
It was good to see such positive railway development here, although to be honest, my time here was a little long!
Headbolt Lane-Wigan
Fortunately, my train towards Wigan turned up, formed of a four car Class 156/150 combo which regularly feature on this Headbolt Lane-Blackburn via Wigan, Atherton, Manchester Victoria, Rochdale and Todmorden curve service. At the front was 156 412, which I thought that I’d travel on, being as I’d already been on two Class 150s today;
….but the guard informed me that this unit would be closed off for this trip, I assume due to the platforms on the section to Wigan being too short for a four car train, so only the front car of the unit was now in use, which of course, upon reversal, would be 150 123;
Still, never mind, I’d enjoyed my two trips on the ex Tyseley 150s today, so a third wasn’t really a hardship! Besides, my last trip along this line, on that same 2007 day that I’d bashed the Preston-Ormskirk line, had been on board a Class 156, so a 150 was new traction for me over the route!
It’s funny how you react to trains over the course of their lifetime. Like my first trip on the 319, I was a little underwhelmed by my first Class 150 ride, which had been from Birmingham-Nottingham in 1986, on my way to a running day of former Newark independent bus operator W.G Gash. No, I wasn’t that impressed, nowhere near the level of charecter of the traditional DMUs that the 150s were replacing on this fairly recently (1983, if I remember correctly) introduced service. Plus, they were also being used to replace loco hauled stock on longer distance services, reducing costs dramatically but also reducing passenger comfort by a similar level. Of course, their use on such trains would mostly give way to trains like the 156s & 158s which were more suitably designed for longer distance work.
Then the 150s would gravitate towards shorter distance work, including the West Midlands local network that I would first encounter 133, 105 & 123 on. To be honest, I wasn’t that sorry to see them head north back in 2010. My subsequent visits up this way would largely see me seeking out the Class 142 Pacer units that have operated largely alongside the 150s in the North West, though usually to be found on the more lightly used lines, with this stepping up once it became known that the 142s were on the way out due to revised disability access regualtions starting in 2020.
The 150s will never be my favourite trains but I recognise what a workhorse it has become and, yes, I suppose I’ll miss them come thier ultimate demise, whenever that maybe. In the meantime, it’s time to ride them along the interesting set of lines that they serve!
Like this line to Wigan Wallgate! Although not quite as rurally attractive as the Preston-Ormskirk line, it’s still a pretty run, calling at Rainford, Upholland and Orrell before entering Wigan Wallgate.
From here, I walked over to Wigan North Western, just managing to board 331 018 before it departed on a Liverpool stopping service, meaning that I was finishing my Lancashire Day Ranger move where I’d began it, a fairly busy journey (though no where near as busy as trains leaving Liverpool or Manchester would be at this time of the evening, around 17.50) taking me back to Liverpool Lime Street;
Return Journey
It had now turned six so I had just over two hours before my booked 20.33 train, so I entered the North Western Weatherspoon inside the station and had a pint of Peerless Brewing Company’s Double Act, which went down very smoothly. I thought about having another but I think the tiredness of such a long day was begining to come through, so I left the pub and went to watch the buses passing Lime Street. Not as atmespheric as the days of Meresybus Leyland Atlanteans, of course, but current operators Arriva & Stagecoach put up a good show with now mainly double decker operations, after some years concentrating on single deckers. I couldn’t help thinking that it was about time that I came here for a proper bus bash, my Great British Rail Sale trip having aroused my interest for this! So that’s another move added to the ever increasing “to do” list!
The beginnings of raindrops made me retreat inside the station, which I’d probably rank as my favourite station, such is the drama of the maginificent train shed combined with the ride thorugh the incredible Lime cuttings on the way in/out!
350 264, one of the 37 350/2 units that will be leaving the West Midlands Trains fleet when the LNWR 730s enter service, would be my stead back to Wolverhampton. Even though these contain 3 x 2 seating that is less comfortable than that in the other 350 sub classes, such was my level of tiredness that soon after sitting down and departing, I was fast asleep, not waking up until a strong gust of rain bombarded against the train’s side as we called at Winsford!
It was then a smooth, uneventful journey back to Wolverhampton where, just after 264 had left, one of the LNWR liveried Class 730s destined to replace 350s on the Birmingham-Liverpool service passed through on test! The future is arriving!
I walked up to the bus station and caught NXWM E40H 5405 on the 22.13 79 to West Bromwich, not wishing to bother with the change from Metro to bus at Wednesbury Parkway at this hour and in this rain. So I reached home around eleven, tired but extremeley satisfied after having a good wander around one of my favourite parts of the UK, getting a new class of train (sort of!) and a new station in the book, plus riding on several lines that I haven’t travelled on for around twenty years!
I always look forward to returning to the Wythall Transport Museum on Easter Bank Holiday Monday, the first chance that I get following the Twilight Running Event the previous October, if I was able to manage to get to that (which, last year, I did, see blog “Wythall Twilight 2023.”)
This year, my anticipation was raised when I saw that what is probably my favourite bus in the collection was returning to the road after a couple of years absence, making two trips on the day, whilst I also found out that another of my favourite Museum buses would be doing a run to commemorate the 50th anniversary of it entering service!
My wife Lynn would be joining me today but there was a further complication in that the holiday that I’d booked from work for the day, hadn’t been granted, so we would have to leave around three for me to make my late night duty at 19.22. This, coupled with the West Midlands Metro south of Wednesbury being closed for the installation of points for the new Dudley line made us decide to take the car, so we drove from West Bromwich, down the M5 and M42 to Junction Three, then saw a sign stating that the Museum’s semi regular Park & Ride site at the Pheonix Business Park was in operation and by way of confirmation, 2002 vintage National Express West Midlands Dennis Trident 4321, now part of the museum’s collection and a regular performer on the Park & Ride service 758, passed the other way, heading towards the museum.
Upon reaching the car park, and then walked towards the growing queue waiting for the next bus. I thought that this was likely to be the other low floor double decker in the museum’s collection, Optare Spectra 4001, but instead, an earlier double decker from Birmingham Central garage’s fleet turned up in the form of 1985 vintage West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive (WMPTE) Metrobus 2 2811, decked in it’s final Travel West Midlands livery with branding for Pershore Road services 45 & 47;
If memory serves me correctly, 2811 spent it’s whole life at what was then Liverpool Street, becoming Birmingham Central in 1986, initially entering service, along with several of it’s sisters, with 900 Halesowen-Coventry posters on it’s side, appearing regularly on this new route until deregulation in October 1986, when the coach seated Timesaver Metrobuses took over. It’s currently preserved in it’s final livery, for the 45 & 47 services along the Pershore Road, the final regular routes at Birmingham Central to feature Metrobus operation.
2811 took us quickly to the museum, where we paid our £10 each admissions and had a brief look around before queuing for our first proper ride of the day, this being the bus that I was most anxious to ride upon.
BMMO 5399
One of 345 BMMO D9s built by Midland Red at their Carlyle Works in Edgbaston, Birmingham, 5399 entered service in July 1965 from Cradley Heath garage, in the heart of the Black Country. The garage would be closed on 28th May 1971 (reopening as a one man garage on 3rd December 1973 to operate former Wolverhampton Corporation country services in exchange for West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive-WMPTE-taking over Midland Red’s main West Midlands services, finally closing on 6th February 1977, the day before the new Cannock garage opened, the services transferring there) from when 5399 was transferred up the road to Dudley, then heading to Hartshill in July 1973. There’s a theory amongst many that, in the months before that December 1973 WMPTE takeover, that Midland Red moved it’s better buses out to garages that were staying with the company, with 5399 being supportive of that theory, as the bus was taken out of use in December 1973, re-emerging at staying with Midland Red Stafford in February 1974.
The spreading of one man operation at Stafford would see 5399 transferred to Leicester Sandacre garage in February 1976, transferring in February 1979, before Sandacre’s May 1979 closure, to nearby Southgates garage, the final home of the company’s D9s, operating their final routes, the 92 (New Parks-Thurnby Lodge) 93 (New Parks-Scraptoft) and the 94 short from New Parks-Leicester Charles Street. 5399 would have the honour of being one of the final six D9s (along with the Aston Manor Transport Museum’s 5370, see blog “Aston Manor Twilight Event”) in operation on their last day, 31st December 1979…….but that wouldn’t be the end for the bus!
For 5399 would be chosen by Carlyle Works, no longer a bus builder but still the company’s main works, for preservation, being repainted from it’s final National Bus Company (NBC) poppy red livery into the traditional Midland Red. Carlyle Works would become a separate entity in September 1981, when Midland Red was split into a coach operator (Midland Red Express) and four bus companies, with Carlyle Works doing a deal with one of these, Midland Red North, to loan 5399, with the summer of 1982 seeing the bus allocated to Ludlow garage, where it was used on Sunday journeys on the X92 Birmingham-Ludlow service, with me getting the opportunity to ride 5399 on the route on five occasions, thanks to me then being in the possession of a Midland Red North Red Rider card, giving me a 10p fare at weekends and during the school holidays on all Midland Red North buses!
5399 would return to the X92 on Easter Sunday and Monday in 1983 but the closure of Ludlow garage the following May and the X92’s full transfer to previous joint operator Midland Red West would see 5399 transferred to Cannock and operate Summer Sunday journeys on the X90 (Lichfield-Bridgnorth).
Unfortunately, now being too old for a Red Rider card, I was unable to get a ride on 5399 on the X90 but I did manage a ride on what would turn out to be it’s last trip for Midland Red North! This was an excursion on a Sunday in October 1983 to fellow NBC subsidiary Trent’s 75th Anniversary Open Day at it’s Derby garage and main engineering works. The trip started from Birmingham Bull Ring Bus Station and ran via Sutton Coldfield and, avoiding the bridges that restricted the former 112 service to single deck, Lichfield, where it met up with another former Ludlow resident now allocated to Cannock, ex Trent Daimler Fleetline 2543, which had come from Cannock, both buses then following each other up the A38 to Derby. An absolutely fabulous day, where I first met my friend, the now sadly late Mark Dawson.
But as I say, this was to be 5399’s last duty for Midland Red North! For the following spring, possibly on account of the company changing from traditional Seteight ticket machines that had originally been designed for conductors, to new Timtronic electronic machines, the company terminated the loan.
Therefore, arrangements were made for 5399 to be placed on long term loan to Wythall and the rest is history! The bus passed wholly into Wythall ownership when Carlyle Works was closed in the mid nineties.
2019 would see the bus somewhat controversially repainted into the NBC poppy red that the bus ended it’s main service days in, which wasn’t well received by some but, as someone who grew up in this era, I really like it!
So, fueled by my early memories of the bus on the X92, 5399’s time at Wythall has really cemented the bus in my affections, easily my favourite member of the very varied Wythall fleet, with frequent trips taken over the years, notably on the former 750 service that was the number used for the Birmingham run when Wythall ran a fleet of full PSV registered buses, meaning that fares could be charged on them, these services also including the 757 to Henley In Arden, a regular double decker haunt where 5399 could regularly be seen and ridden on.
Then the pandemic happened! But in truth, there was another cloud on the horizon. For in the final running days of 2019, 5399 appeared with a poster on explaining that the upcoming introduction of the Birmingham City Centre Clean Air Zone (in the event, that didn’t come into operation until 2022) would apply to PSV registered, fare collecting vehicles that weren’t fitted with Euro Six engines, obviously including buses of this age. This really spelt the end for Wythall’s PSV fleet, with the 750 being such a crucial part of this operation. Since then, virtually all of Wythall’s fleet have lost that full PSV status (though safety standards are still equally as rigouress) meaning any bus can run that city service (which is now numberless) but, since the pandemic, to my knowledge, 5399 has only been used once, at October 2021’s Midland Red day (see blogs “Midland Red Heaven Parts One & Two”) with me grabbing a short ride on 5399 during the event’s “Happy Hour” intensive running session.
Since then, 5399 has been rested, something that needs to happen with regularly used preserved vehicles, to make sure the bus’s condition remains in a satisfactory condition. But Wythall’s announcement that this year’s October Running Weekend will feature a celebration of 120 years since the Birmingham Midland Motor Omnibus (BMMO, to become more commonly known as Midland Red) company was formed, was accompanied by an announcment that the museum hopes to return no fewer than four Midland Red buses to the road, with the first of these to be 5399. Probably attracting more attention is the fact that 4482, now believed to be the only complete survivor of the D9’s predecesor, the BMMO D7, is away featuring heavy restoration, indicating that this, hopefully, will be ready for a grand reappearance in October. What the other two buses are remains, at present, a mystery!
So we boarded and headed upstairs, glad to see that the pink interior had been patched up, and that the posters dating from the era of the bus entering service were still present, including the advert for W Devis & Sons, a butchers with branches in Great Bridge, Tipton & Dudley, all towns on the route of the 244 from Cradley Heath-Wednesbury which, with it’s 243 short from Cradley Heath-Dudley, was the main trunk route operated by 5399’s first garage, Cradley Heath, back in the day, so is a poster that the bus is highly likely to have carried back in it’s youth! A nice touch. Sadly, the 244 no longer exists, the through service being split at Dudley in September 1985, long after the era of Cradley Heath garage, 5399 and indeed, Midland Red, the 243 & 244 having become WMPTE services upon the December 1973 takoever. The 244 continued to run between Dudley & Wednesbury until deregulation in October 1986, when it was replaced by new service 310 from Walsall-Dudley. Over the years, this service would be rerouted away from Great Bridge.
We had a nice run out to Maypole;
………and back, duplicated by this lowbridge AEC Regent that operated for Bamber Bridge Motor Services, an independent from that small, Lancashire town that was taken over by Ribble in 1967.
This bus, which features the old Bamber Bridge Motor Services livery, was one of several buses bought here today by Troopers Lodge Motor Services of Moreton In The Marsh, a company that specialises in vintage bus hire. Other Troopers Lodge buses present included a Southampton City Transport AEC Regent and a North Western Roadcar Marshall bodied Bristol RE;
…..the RE present today to feature in the usual Bristol Day that Wythall normally features on Easter Bank Holiday Monday, though this year, this came mostly in the form of various Bristol MW, RE & LH saloons;
Cheltenham District 1000
The ECW bodied Bristol RE to the right of the above photo, the museum’s Cheltenham District 1000, would be the next bus that Lynn & I would ride on, taking a delightful trip out into the sourrounding countryside, over another of the museum’s former PSV routes, the old 746 to Alvechurch & Beoley. Normally a route that I tend to make a bee line for BMMO built saloons over (such as BMMO S16 5545, S23 5956 and, most recently, S17 5767) 1000 made a change as we headed out through Weatheroak, through the small town of Alvechurch, then towards Redditch and into the village of Beoley before making our way back along the A435, a stonking trip on this, easily the most sucesseful of the rear engine saloons introduced in the sixities, and a beautiful representation of the latter days of the original Cheltenham District fleet, which became a subsidiary of Bristol Omnibus Company when Cheltenham District’s Red & White owners sold out to the state British Transport Commission in 1950, and was eventually absorbed into the Bristol Omnibus Comapany upon the creation of NBC in 1969.
WMPTE 4413
Lynn opted to take a break for the next trip that I wanted to do, so I ventured solo for a trip to Yardley Wood garage on WMPTE’s 1974 vintage Metro Cammell bodied Bristol VR 4413;
…….which, as the posters on board explain;
……….is celebrating it’s 50th birthday this year!
As the poster explains, 4413 is one of the first batch of 100 Bristol VRTs delivered to WMPTE in 1973 & 1974, featuring a standard, Metro Cammell built WMPTE style body fitted onto a Bristol VRT (the T standing for it’s transverse engine) chassis, substituring for poor avaliability at that time of the PTE’s standard Daimler Fleetline chassis, with those Fleetlines that the PTE bought from 1973-1975 featuring Park Royal bodywork.
Apart from occasional loans, the Bristol VRs would feature at Walsall and the Wolverhampton garages, and a secind batch of 100 would join them in 1975 and early 1976. However, they were never the most reliable of buses, in my opinion, down to the weight of the Metro Cammell bodies, the VR having been designed for the lighter ECW bodies that so many examples for NBC fleets featured. As a result, the PTE decided that many of the first batch wouldn’t receive a Mid Life Overhaul, so these were withdrawn from service after only a seven year life, with 4413 being one of several sold to NBC subsisiary National Welsh in 1982.
Some of the 43xx numbered examples of the first batch would survive until 1985, whilst the second batch would survive mostly intact until that time, the last being withdrawn from service at deregulation, the type being concentrated from 1983 at Walsall garage.
Preserved and restored by Museum Member Dennis Hill, 4413 is another of my favourite members of the museum’s fleet, happily reminding me of my days bashing the type, particularly in the type’s final years at Walsall, although 4413’s Mander Centre advert gives away the fact that the bus was allocated to the Wolverhampton garages. So it was a fine nostalgic trip into the South Birmingham suburbs.
BCT 2707
Time for one final trip before we needed to head for home so, after meeting up with Lynn, we both decided to take a trip on 1950 vintage Daimler CVD6 2707, one of the iconic buses to feature “Birmingham Standard” bodywork, with a new look concealed radiator, a type of bus which would become a typical Birmingham bus for many years. Renowned for high quality bodywork, we enjoyed a fine run out to the Maypole and back, again duplicated by the Bamber Bridge AEC Regent;
Travel West Midlands 4001
Sadly, it was now time to head back to the Car Park, on board Travel West Midlands first low floor double decker, Optare Spectra 4001, entering service around the time I became a bus driver in 1998 from Birmingham Central garage, where it was joined later that year by another 20, these being allocated mainly to the 50 (City-Druids Heath) a route which the Museum plans to celebrate it’s 70th birthday on this year’s Late Sprong Bank Holiday Weekend.
Expertly driven by Acocks Green garage Driver Training Officer Andy Walcot, who also owns Metrobus 2 2462, we soon got to the car park, dirivng the car back home for a quick chippy tea before I drove to Perry Barr garage and spent the evening driving 2016 vintage MMC E400 Platinum standard 6820 on routes 907, X4 & X5, bringing me back to the twenty first century after a happy day of riding some buses from my past!
My recent blog on the 60 (“The 60 & Me!”) one of Birmingham’s most unaltered bus routes, got me thinking about other long established routes in the city that have used the same number throughout their lives.
Two routes from Birmingham-Dudley, the 74 via West Bromwich and the 87 via Oldbury, gained their numbers as tram routes in the twenties (74 in 1924, 87 in 1928) whilst the 87’s long standing sister service, the 82 to Bearwood, gained the number B82 when buses replaced the 29 tram route on 1st October 1939, with the 87 tram replacement and it’s various short workings all gaining B prefixes, indicating Midland Red’s presence as a joint operator, this lasting until the closure of Birmingham City Transport’s (BCT) Rosebery Street garage in June 1968.
Going back earlier, one service number survives from Birmingham Corporation’s original commencement of using service numbers (two separate series, one for it’s then small bus network and one for the much larger tram system) and this is the 1, then City-Moseley (College Arms), now Five Ways-Acocks Green.
This blog, however, concerns the first bus route to be introduced by Birmingham Corporation following that 1916 allocation of numbers, this service being introduced, after the end of World War One permitted a return to such expansion, the route, numbered the 9, starting on 3rd March 1919, so this year marks the route’s 105th anniversary, over which time, only one major change to the route has occurred!
In fact, National Express West Midlands (NXWM) has also chosen to recognise this anniversary, as I mentioned in my recent blog “A Little, Local Freewheeling” where a ride on 6931, one of the current branded 2018 vintage Platinum standard MMC E400s used on the route, showed that the regular buses have “1919-2024” & “105 Years Of The 9 Bus Route” programmed into the route’s destination, as seen here at Halesowen bus station;
As well as this, at the sugestion of Pensnett (the garage that currently operates the 9) driver Karl Totney, Pensnett have been loaned Yardley Wood allocated 2007 vintage Enviro 400 4722, one of two buses in the NXWM fleet currently painted in the former Birmingham City Transport (BCT, as Birmingham Corporation became in 1937) livery. 4722 is seen here at the Holly Bush, the route’s former relief point from 1949-1997, the lifespan of the nearby Quinton garage, which ran on the 9 throughout this period;
Whilst my trip that featured in the blog “A Little, Local Freewheeling ” was very nice, I felt that, in wishing to tell the full story of the 9, I’d like to ride the route throughout it’s current length, from Birmingham-Stourbridge, with the opportunity to do so occurring on Good Friday of this year.
Friday 28th March 2024
After a fairly late finish on Thursday, I had a leisurely breakfast before I headed out, repeating the trick that I made on the bash described in the blog “Bromsgrove With Phil!” by just missing one of the suddenly common again Dennis Tridents on the 79, thanks to the temporary metro replacement 79A service to Wednesbury Parkway, that service turning up after a few minutes in the form of NXWM’s former hybrid E400H 5410, which I boarded for the short run to West Bromwich bus station.
Following on from the statements I made in that Bromsgrove blog about the different coloured interiors in the company’s E400s giving the early light blue examples a different ambience to the later, beige coloured examples, these E400Hs offering a different spin again, with it’s green based interior symbolising the environmental credentials that these hybrids had, with their new Euro 6 engines being even cleaner! The same interior also features in the still hybrid Wright Gemini bodied Volvo B5s that are based at Birmingham Central garage.
With no trams in action on this side of the West Midlands Metro (thanks to the construction of points for the new line to Dudley from Wednesbury) I resorted to a service with another really long established route number, the 74 from Dudley-Birmingham, it’s normal six minute frequency from West Bromwich-Birmingham (twelve minutes through to Dudley) enhanced to four minutes to help cope with extra Metro passengers like myself, which at least makes this busy route more bearable. Personally, I really think that the 74’s original, pre pandemic five minutes to West Bromwich, ten minutes to Dudley frequency could do with returning, such is the heavy loadings, particularly through Handsworth.
The 74 number was first used on the service on 1st April 1924 (so will be 100 years old on this Easter Bank Holiday Monday!) when Birmingham Corporation took over from the British Electric Traction (BET) group subsidiary South Staffs Tramways, the main tram routes through West Bromwich, these having previously ran from Birmingham-Darlastion, this having been extended over the tramway to Bilston in 1923, and the service from The Hawthorns (Birmingham City Boundary) to Dudley, this service being unable to enter the city of Birmingham due to that Corporation insisting on closed top trams being used within the city, the then low height of Dudley Port railway bridge restricting the Dudley route to open toppers. Fortunately, Birmingham’s replacing trams could get under the bridge, so the 74 was born, the trams giving way to BCT and West Bromwich Corporation buses from 1st April 1939, both becoming part of West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive (WMPTE) on 1st October 1969.
Darlaston & Bilston tram passengers were less lucky, with Birmingham Corporation decreeing the track onwards from Wednesbury to be in too poor condition for the undertaking’s liking, so the 74’s sister service became the 75 to Wednesbury (the Wednesbury-Darlaston section would ultimately pass to Walsall Corporation, becoming part of the 37/38 Walsall-Wednesbury-Darlaston Circular bus services, whilst the Darlaston-Bilston section would pass to Wolverhampton Corporation, becoming part of trolleybus services 2 & 7 from Darlaston-Wolverhampton & Whitmore Reans) becoming the jointly operated 75 bus at the same time as the 74. PTE days would see a new 79 commence on 28th February 1971, running beyond Wednesbury to Wolverhampton via Darlaston (though not reaching there along the old tram route) and Bilston (replacing part of the now motor bus 2 & 7) so the 75 became a short working of this, ceasing completely, along with the other short working numbers on the corridor, on 6th June 1976.
The 74 & 79 would survive virtually unaltered until July 2011, when the 79 was cutback to run from Wolverhampton-West Bromwich, with the 75 returning as a Birmingham-Wednesbury service. Despite a subsequent, short lived extension to Darlaston, the 75 would cease in September 2016, with an increased 74E & 79 covering, meaning that my local bus stop lost it’s through service to Birmingham!
My stead would be 2014 vintage 74 branded E400 4971, which took me out along the Birmingham Road to the M5 Motorway Island, then on past The Hawthorns, home of West Bromwich Albion football club and also the boundary with the city of Birmingham. Then, it was into Handsworth, where the bus gradually filled up as we made our way through the Victorian/Edwardian shops that are now owned by various multi cultural businesses. Then, it was through Hockley then along Great Hampton Street, on the edge of the Jewelley Quarter and possesing some fine, if faded in grandeur buildings. I got off on Snow Hill, on the edge of the City Centre, then crossed the tram free metro before passing the front of Snow Hill station, actually on Colmore Row and long the terminus of the 74 & 75 buses & trams, until the late sixties, then noticed that 9 branded Platinum MMC E400 6931 was loading on the 9 stand…..and then pulling off! So I waited ten minutes for identical Platinum 6924 to appear;
Riding The 9
As stated, the 9 began on 3rd March 1919, running from the point where all of Birmingham Corporation’s bus services from the City Centre (of which there would only have been three before the 9 started) then started from, on New Street, this soon developing into what would became known as the City Loop, with these routes initially operating alternate journeys in each direction around New Street, Corporation Street, Bull Street & Colmore Row, the clockwise and anti clockwise routing lasting until 1933, when a one way traffic system forced all buses to follow the loop in the anti clockwise direction. The city loop would last for many years, mostly used by Birmingham’s earlier bus routes, the later tram conversions largely sticking to their original termini. The end would finally come for the City Loop in September 1991, when the pedestrianisation of the upper side of New Street and the reversal of the traffic flow down Corporation Street would make taking a bus around the city loop impossible, so then began the general instability of Birmingham City terminal points that continues to this day. Initially, the 9 followed the new route of the Harborne services by following the Inner Ring Road all the way round to Colmore Circus, then onto Colmore Row, but pretty soon, it was rerouted in via Great Charles Street, Snow Hill, Old Square and Corporation Street, this lasting until the construction of the present Metro route down Corporation Street began (around 2003) and the 9 has been doing it’s current loop, coming in via Great Charles Street & Snow Hill to terminate at Colmore Row ever since. Of course, as an important part of the City Loop, the 9 has been a prominant sight on Colmore Row for the vast majority of it’s life!
Grabbing the front seat and settling into the high backed, E leather trimmed Platinum seat for the through run to Stourbridge, we soon set off, heading out down Newhall Street, left into Edmund Street, amongst the council buildings that at one time would have contained the offices of the Transport Department where the decision was made to begin the 9 by Corporation Manager Alfred Baker back in 1919, then along Margaret Street & Great Charles Street to the currently redeveloping Paradise Circus, where the Crucible, destined to be Birmingham’s tallest building, is springing upwards. Alongside this is the current stop used by Flexbus coach services, with one of it’s bright green liveried coaches loading on the 020 to London.
It was then around into Broad Street, now containing currently unused tram tracks. Upon the Metro’s 2022 extension up Broad Street, one poorly researched journalist made the claim that trams were returning to the street, which was totally and utterly wrong, as Broad Street never featured on Birmingham’s original tramway, this being the route of horse buses out to the more Middle Class, artisan suburbs of Edgbaston & Harborne, considered not densely populated enough to justify tramways, particuarly after conversion to electricity made this the cheap mode of transport for the masses, something that the more snobbish residents of these suburbs clearly wouldn’t countenance gracing their tree lined thoroughfares!
Nevertheless, the Hagley Road would indeed gain a tramway in 1913, this being a branch off the Ladywood (a far more “working class” area!) route along Bath Row, branching off at Five Ways. This meant that the Midland Red (the Birmingham Midland Motor Omnibus company, BMMO, a BET subsidiary who bought the Birmingham Motor Express company that had bought the new fangled motor bus to the Hagley Road, in 1904, but the unreliabilty of those early motor buses meant that Dobbin would return until 1912, when Midland Red’s discovery of the Tiling Stevens petrol electric engine saw the motor bus return to stay) were unable to serve Hagley Road, as the city council’s licencing commitee protected it’s trams.
Along came October 1914, and agreement was reached between the Corporation and Midland Red for the Corporation to take over Midland Red’s services within the city, which mainly consisted of the routes along Broad Street, and in return, Midland Red services from outside the city would be allowed to run in, subject to protective fares being charged alongside Corporation bus & tram routes. This would lead to Midland Red re-introducing services along the Hagley Road, only these heading beyond the Bearwood tram terminus and out to Kidderminster & Bewdley and, particularly relevent to today’s 9, Stourbridge.
As Broad Street came to an end, we went to follow the tram tracks under the now bus & tram only underpass when, coming out in the opposite direction was a bus that, again, Pensnett driver Karl Totney, had arranged with management to appear on the 9 today. It was originally planned to run along with 4722 today but unfortunately, the BCT liveried E400 brokedown the previous day, so I was glad that I’d got that bus the previous week!
2102 is the 2012 vintage Wright bodied Volvo B7 saloon that has been painted into a heritage livery based on WMPTE’s livery that was used on it’s 1977 & 1978 vintage dual purpose Leyland Nationals, two of which, 6852 & 6853, were allocated to Stourbridge garage, so would have featured occasional trips on the 9 after it’s extension to Stourbridge on 25th November 1983, until Stourbridge’s closure on 26th January 1985, so seeing 2102 on the 9 revived memories of those days. I calculated that 2102 would be two buses behind 6924, so I decided that I would wait for it at Stourbridge.
We then passed the Edgbaston Village tram terminus, where workmen were taking advantage of the trams absence to do some maintenance on the grass filled trackbed here. Plans are afoot by the current West Midlands Mayor Andy Street to gain funding to extend the metro, intitially to Bearwood but the ultmate aim is to reach Halesowen. Doubtless, this will have an effect on the 9 but, being many years in the future, if it happens at all, the 9 is safe for the forseeable future!
We continued along the Hagley Road, where the former old houses would largely be converted into hotels, although the further out you go now, the more have been converted into flats and carehomes. As well as the 9, the twenties would see the corporation introduce various other routes branching off the main road, with the first to branch off being the 26th September 1927 introduced cross city 5/7 (Perry Common-Portland Road), which branched off at the Portland Road that it would follow to it’s city boundary terminus, with services 12/12A/13/13A branching off here today (see blog “A Little, Local Freewheeling”.) The next route to branch off was the Sandon Road 6, introduced on 29th September 1926, branching off along that thoroughfare, with nothing branching off here today as the Portland Road serving 12/12A/13/13A all turn left into City Road, which brings them onto Sandon Road just beyond the Hagley Road junction. A final BCT service to turn off the Hagley Road was the 19th May 1940 introduced 10 to Quinton Road West, which turned left just opposite Sandon Road, heading down Westfield Road, though it was rerouted away from the Hagley Road on 6th November 1966, being rerouted from Five Ways to serve Augustus Road, which the surviving, peaks only Kevs Coaches operated tendered 10 still does.
In addition to all this, Midland Red’s services to points beyond the city boundary would expand greatly, including a group of routes out along Sandon Road to serve the Warley area, which would eventually replace the 6 and evolve into the aforementioned 12/12A/13/13A. That Bewdley via Kidderminster service became the 132 in Midland Red’s 1928 renumbering scheme, which would be joined in 1932 by the 192 going onwards to Ludlow, whilst the postwar years would create the 133 to Stourport. More minor services were the 190 to Ludlow via Bridgnorth, 191 to Tenbury Wells, 193 to Worcester via Holte Heath and the Sunday 409 to Hereford. The sixties would see the minor services go but bring forth Limited Stop services, such as the X43 to Worcester via the new M5, the X1 to Kidderminster with it’s X11 & X19 sister services to Stourport & Leominster respectively, these later being replaced by the X92 to Ludlow, also absorbing the 132 & 192. 1977 would see the 133 replaced by the X93 onwards from Stourport to Worcester (coverng a bit of the former 193) and a 302 all stop service to Kidderminster, which would be curtailed to terminate at Halesowen in 1980. The Limited Stop services would go great guns in the eighties but go into decline in the nineties, with the 192 all stop service returning for a while, but this century saw this service, like the 302 before it, curtailed to terminate at Halesowen and is today operated by Diamond.
The Midland Red services that headed into the Black Country would be taken over by WMPTE on 3rd December 1973, these including the Sandon Road services, the125/126 to Wolverhampton, the 137/138 to Gornal Wood & Kingswinford respectively and the 140 to Dudley. Also, that 1928 renumbering would see the Stourbridge service become the 130.
Other Midland Red services along the Hagley Road developed over the years included the 208 to Woodgate, cutback in the late sixties to terminate at Bearwood, whilst another service to head along the Hagley Road to Bearwood was the 134 to Hasbury. From 1960, the Bromsgrove-Halesowen 335 was extended to Bearwood, this lasting until the December 1973 takeover, when the 335 was cutback to terminate at Halesowen again, WMPTE acquiring the peak 206 short of the 335 from Halesowen-Romsley, and extending this to Bearwood as a partial replacement for the curtailed 335.
Another service to Romsley was the 136 from Birmingham-Romsley Hall Hospital, taken over by WMPTE and renumbered 906 in 1975. Both the 206 & 906 would be withdrawn in 1980, with the 208 being reduced to peaks only and extended to Halesowen, replacing the 209, at the same time, this lasting until total withdrawal in November 1983.
We soon reached the former Bearwood Kings Head terminus of the Hagley Road tramway, which was numbered 34 when the Corporation adopted route numbers in 1916, and just around the corner from the 1904 introduced tramway from Bearwood via Dudley Road, which became the 29 and is now the 82 bus, although the tracks were never connected physically. Despite an experimental First Class service being offered in the lower saloon to attract the route’s well to do passengers, the Hagley Road was never the most successful of Birmingham’s tram routes, not being helped by the parallel Corporation bus services that would abstract traffic from it, the first of those bus services to be introduced being the 9, from 3rd March 1919, only six years after the trams had started!
The purpose of the 9 was to serve the Hagley Road beyond Bearwood, to the 1911 extended boundary of the city at Quinton, presumably offering more frequent buses to the Midland Red buses heading out that way, which would now be subject to Corporation protecting higher fares anyhow, through traffic gradually growing to the point where it wouldn’t be able to cope with the local passengers anyhow, remember we’re talking about early motor buses, with limited capacity, here.
Actually, the Hagley Road from Bearwood would actually feature the city boundary through it’s middle…and still does! For what is now the boundary with the Metropolitan Borough of Sandwell was then the border with the County Borough of Smethwick and, further out, the Urban District Council of Oldbury. Obviously, it was impractical for the 9’s to head out to Quinton but not return, so agreement was reached for the 9’s to run technically out of the boundary for that return trip!
The 34 tram would become Birmingham’s third tram route to be abandoned, on 10th August 1930, though it was felt that demand was strong enough for a direct bus replacement, which would also be numbered 34 (only a few tram routes received the same number in the bus series when replaced, other examples being the 44 to Acocks Green, the aforementioned 74 & 75, whilst the other tram route to Dudley, the 87, became the similar sounding B87 until June 1968, when it became the 87 again) which began on the day after, the 11th August. 12th January 1931 saw the 34 linked with the 33 to Kingstanding (Ellerton Road, later extended to Finchley Road) as a Cross City service, adopting the Birmingham tradition of using a different number in each direction on cross city services, showing 33 to Kingstanding and 34 to Hagley Road, as the Kings Head terminus continued to be known as. The suburbs beyond Bearwood were obviously growing at this time, as 2nd December 1931 saw the 33/34 extended via the 9 route to it’s Quinton terminus. Wartime economies would lead to the cross city 33/34 becoming peak only from 25th September 1939, leaving a City-Kingstanding 33 at other times. The off peak cross city service was never reinstated but it continued to run in the peaks up until final withdrawal in the PTE’s November 1980 cutbacks, the last of Birmingham’s Cross City services to use a different route number in each direction.
Before moving on, I should mention a little known morning peak service introduced in 1976 numbered the 30. This ran in one direction, from Priory Queensway in the City Centre, via the route of the 101 Birmingham Centrebus round to the junction with Broad Street, then up this road to Five Ways, providing a link from Moor Street & New Street Stations for commuters up to the Five Ways offices. Presumably, this used Quinton buses coming into town on various peak duties, which then did a 30 to Five Ways on the bus’s way back to garage. November 1980 saw the 30 extend to Bearwood, supporting this theory, getting the buses closer to garage. The 30 would be withdrawn with the November 1983 revisions.
We headed over the Kings Head traffic lights, along the early seventies constructed dual carriageway, with Bearwood Bus Station, serving routes in the Smethwick & Warley direction, on the right hand side, right alongside Lightwoods Park where the young me would develop the gentile art of bus spotting from the swings, which conveniantly looked onto the Hagley Road, with it’s myriad of Midland Red buses passing by, alongside frequent BCT, soon after becoming WMPTE 9s! The other side of the Hagley Road features the large, well to do housing of the final stretches of Edgbaston, giving way to newer, smaller houses as we headed up to the junction with the Wolverhampton “New” Road, served by Midland Red buses straight after the Prince Of Wales, later the short lived Edward the Eighth, had declared the road open in November 1927, with the service being numbered 125 from the 1928 renumberings, being joined by the 126 via Dudley’s Priory Estate in the fifties (there was also initially a 195, later rerouted via the 126 route as the 196 through to Stafford, withdrawn in 1967 on the same day as another service along the Wolverhampton Road, the legendary, 1930 introduced X96 from Northampton-Shrewsbury, was joined by Limited Stop services X93/X94/X95 from Coventry & Birmingham to the developing Telford New Town. These would all be replaced in May 1974 by a rerouted X96 along the M6 Motorway). 1980 would see the 125 replaced by an increased 126 which still survives today, although only heading out as far as Dudley.
After this, the only services running alongside the 9 now are the Limited Stop X8, which replaced the former 140 to Dudley in August 2018, then carries onto Wolverhampton over the former 126 route, and the X10 to Merry Hill, with one journey per hour heading out to Gormal Wood, thus being today’s successor to the 137 (the 138 being replaced by an increased 137 in December 1976.)
From here, the Hagley Road had been dual carriageway for longer than the stretch from Bearwood, longer than I can remember. We descended the hill that had gained a lot of semi detached houses in the interwar years and beyond, turning the 9 into the busy service that it became. It was around here that I first became aware of the 9. For the route was crossed here by the Midland Red 201 from Smethwick-Worlds End, which, along with it’s 203 sister service to Brandhall (today, both routes are covered by NXWM’s 54/54A through to West Bromwich, which follows the 9 between Clive Road & College Road) my Mom & I would use on Saturdays to visit a friend of my Mom who lived in Chestnut Road, which ran between the two routes after they’d split off (actually, my Mom’s friend, Aunty Ricky’s second husband was a Midland Red driver who would become a PTE Inspector, and he was responsible for giving me my first PTE bus map, thus leading to this fascination I have with the West Midlands bus network! Sadly, both are no longer with us.) This (the early seventies) was the time of Midland Red suffering from heavy staff shortages (there’s nothing new about this problem) and I remember a few lenghty waits for 201s on Saturday evenings, that must have made my Mom decide to use the 9 from the Stanley Road/Clive Road stop (the name of this stop having changed from Stanley Road, on the Oldbury of the road, to Clive Road on the Birmingham side) to Bearwood, then get the 215 or 220 (also Midland Red, though he 220 had been joint with West Bromwich, so I suspect Mom felt these were a safer bet) back to our then Smethwick home.
The 9 was still crew operated then but I remember those Saturday evening journeys featuring ex BCT Daimler Fleetlines, though I do remember making the odd weekday daytime trip on the regular BCT “Standard” Guy Arabs that were allocated to the 9’s Quinton garage home, these buses, according to my friend and “main BCT man” Steve Taylor, having particularly loud Gardner engines as they roared up the hilly sections of this part of the Hagley Road. In fact, the next stop, traditionally known as the Holly Bush after the typically thirties built pub that is now a Toby Carvary, with the stop now being known as Quinton Lane Island, was the nearest to the 30th October 1949 opened Quinton garage, a short walk along Ridgacre Lane until it crossed Ridgacre Road, where the garage was sited on the opposite corner of these two roads (The 3A along Ridgacre Road was extended to terminate outside the new garage, later becoming the 3 and extended along the other side of Ridgacre Lane to Four Dwellings, then, in PTE days, extended onto Woodgate Valley North. Today, this is covered by the 24) so the Holly Bush became the relief point after the 9 was transferred from Harborne garage (the route having been allocated there since it’s October 1926 opening. Before that, the 9 ran from the Corporation’s pioneering Tennent Street garage, near Five Ways and taken over from Midland Red in October 1914) and would become Quinton’s busiest service until the garage closed on 18th June 1997 (the day I moved into my current house, incidentally!) The 9 would then transfer to Birmingham Central garage, where it would stay until July 2010, when the closure of Lea Hall garage meant that room was needed at Birmingham Central for that garage’s services, so the 9 transferred to the 1998 opened Pensnett garage, deep in the Black Country!
The Guy Arab’s reign on the 9 would come to an end on 17th February 1974 when the route was one manned. However, ex BCT Standards could still be found on part of the route at lunch times, for BCT had run shorts for the office workers in the Five Ways area seeking out lunch in the City Centre, the number 9B being used for Five Ways shorts, whilst some went a little further up the Hagley Road, terminating by the Ivy Bush as the 9C. Other garages participating in this work were Harborne and Hockley and these would continue to feature Standards after the main route was one manned, those Standards normally being used on Hockley’s last crew route, the cross city 15/16 whilst Harborne & Quinton’s would feature on their shares of the 11 Outer Circle. With all shorts renumbered 9E in 1975, the Standards would feature until their eventual demise, Hockley’s ceasing with the one manning of the 15/16 (with 15 ceasing to be used) in December 1976 and the other’s going with the final demise of the Standards on the Outer Circle in October 1977.
Beyond the Holly Bush, the Hagley Road climbs again towards Quinton, running either side of the tunnel which is the beginning of the sixties built Quinton Expressway, which accessed the extending M5 and provided a quicker route for expanding motor traffic to Halesowen, a town that was becoming a desirable place to live for Birmingham heading commuters. Those Limited Stop services that I’ve mentioned used the Expressway, and the route that I didn’t mention was the 1966 introduced peak X2, to the housing estates of Hasbury, where a lot of these commuters lived, supplementing the peak 134 from Bearwood-Hasbury. The X2 would be the only one of the Limited Stop services to pass to WMPTE in December 1973, being renumbered 902 in the PTE’s “Special Services” (which included Limited Stop services, alongside Football services, Hospital services, Supermarket free services etc) in 1975. The 134 would finally cease in 1980.
Passing from Stourbridge garage to Liverpool Street (which became Birmingham Central in 1986) upon Stourbridge’s January 1985 closure, the 902 would be joined that May by another Liverpool Street operated Limited Stop service, the 900 from Halesowen-Coventry. Deregulation would see the 900 extended to Hasbury, replacing the 902 and the all stop 131/132, which I’ll talk about anon. September 1988 would see the 900 split in Birmingham, which would see the Hasbury side replaced by Quinton’s 19. This service would have a good innings but was replaced by the peak only 919 in January 1998, though the use of the 19 for the service would soon return. The 919 would reach Halesowen via the same route taken by the 9, which, as the Midland Red (by this time Midland Red West) Limited Stop services had all ceased, left the Quinton Expressway busless, which I’ve always felt a shame. The tentative plans for extending West Midlands Metro to Halesowen would involve the tramway being built down the Expressway. The 19 would cease in 2006, severing the through service between Hasbury & Birmingham.
We, on the other hand, climbed up towards the centre of Quinton, and the city boundary. I’m unsure as to exactly where the original 9 terminus was but the construction of both the Quinton Expressway and the M5 would force the route’s extension to a new turning circle at Ridgeway Avenue, just over the boundary but reached by agreement with Midland Red, which is where I would know the 9 terminus to be.
The Stourbridge Extension
Sunday 25th November 1983 saw extensive revisions occur across the Dudley & Sandwell areas, the centrepiece of which was the extension of the 9 to Stourbridge, replacing the 130. This revision had an extremely long duration from the original proposals to it’s commencement, with consultation leaflets issued as early as Spring 1981, with several of the proposals changing before coming to frution, most notably the original plan to extend the 9 to Dudley, replacing the 140 and it’s 141 Dudley-Bearwood short working! In the event, the 140 survived, though the 141 would go and the 9 extended to Stourbridge instead. The reason for the changes in the proposals, I believe, was political, with May 1981 seeing control of WMPTE’s controlling West Midlands County Council pass from Conservative to Labour control, with the new boys in power being less keen on the cutbacks that their predecessors had been implementing to reduce the PTE’s losses. I suspect that journeys to Dudley would have run, at best, every twenty minutes, with alternate journeys continuing to terminate at Ridgeway Avenue. By contrast, the existing seven/eight minute headway of the 9 would remain throughout, greatly increasing the previous fifteen minute headway (twelve minutes in the peak) of the 130!
1980 had seen one Monday-Saturday journey per hour on the 130 extended to Kinver, replacing the 250 (although this continued on Sundays) and, whilst the 9 extension didn’t directly replace this, the 250 returning as a daily service, two peak journeys, heading to Birmingham in the morning, from Birmingham in the evening, would run through to/from Kinver as a 250, with through fares being avaliable, this through running surviving until September 1985, when the 250 was replaced by an extended 257 from Dudley via Gornal Wood.
So, as we approached the city boundary, around a few hundred yards before the former Ridgeway Avenue turning circle, we turned left onto Spies Lane. This wasn’t on the route of the 130, which had carried on past Ridgeway Avenue and down Mucklow Hill to Halesowen, though the 1981 proposals would have seen the 130 being rerouted this way, with an increase in frequency to every twelve minutes.
Spies Lane was originally served by Midland Red’s 207 (Birmingham-Halesowen via Howley Grange) a route which became a short working when the 137 & 138 were rerouted via Spies Lane in lieu of Mucklow Hill in the early postwar years, before the 207 ceased in the sixties. The 137 and it’s Pensnett Trading Estate peak variant 136 (introduced in December 1976, although these were initially numbered 137 before a 1977 renumbering took place to avoid passenger confusion) were rerouted down Mucklow Hill to replace the 130, forming a fifteen minute frequency with the 131, previously a 1980 introduced Stourbridge operated single decker service to Hasbury that had replaced the Midland Red 302’s Birmingham section, and a new 132, which formed a circular with the 131, both routes now using double deckers from Hartshill garage, which also operated the 136 & 137, the routes interworking at Birmingham’s Bull Ring bus station.
The 9 was now jointly operated by Quinton & Stourbridge garages, and it’s this era of the 9 that I remember particularly fondly, with a wide variety of buses featuring, including Stourbridge’s Fleetlines, the oldest of which was yellow ceillinged example 4151, Leyland Nationals (including the DP Nationals whose livery now features on 2102) and that garage’s four Metrobus Mk 2s, whilst Quinton provided more Fleetlines, including more of the yellow ceilinged 1971 batch, plus Quinton’s ex London Transport DMS Fleetlines, 80 of which came to WMPTE in 1979/80, running alongside newer Fleetlines and more numerous Metrobuses of both the original and the 1982 onwards Mk 2 variety, not that I bothered with these when there were Fleetlines to ride!
Unfortunately, such variety wasn’t to last, as Stourbridge garage would close on 26th January 1985, with the garage’s share on the 9 split between Quinton and the ex Midland Red garage at Hartshill. By this time, the yellow ceilinged Fleetlines and the DMSs were on the way out anyhow, so the later, white ceilinged Fleetlines and later still Metrobuses of both Mk 1 & Mk 2 variety would monopolise the route. Fleetlines would largely only appear on Monday-Saturday daytime, although I would soon make the acquantence of Quinton Stourbridge rota driver Rob Handford (he of the 2548 Society, who restored BCT Guy Arab 2548, and more recently has been heavily involved in the restoration of Wythall Transport Museum’ds Birmingham 1931 vintage AEC Regent 431) who would bring the odd Fleetline out on late nights. I also remember riding some Dudley Fleetlines on a Sunday afternoon (this garage producing them on such days until quite late in the type’s life, as did Hartshill but very rarely on their 9 turns) along the Hagley Road (so would have been on the 140) when I spotted that several turns of the 9 featured Fleetlines, so naturally, I then made several trips between Birmingham & Stourbridge getting them in the book! When asking Rob the reason for this, he said that the clocks were being put back on the ticket machine, meaning insufficient Metrobuses were available for service on that day!
Deregulation, from 26th October 1986, would see the end of the regular lunchtime 9E shorts, and also peak hour Quinton shorts that had featured since the Stourbridge extension began, so, on Friday 24th October, Rob managed to arrange something special here too, for not only did he have recently transferred from the closed Harborne garage 1973 vintage Fleetline 4297, which would run for the last time that day, on the lunchtime extras (by then all terminating at the Ivy Bush, with the last trip heading to Holly Bush to return to garage) but he’d also arranged to have Quinton’s final DMS, 5574 (the only other two survivors of the class in the PTE fleet by this time were Yardley Wood’s 5533 & 5534. I’m not sure if they ran on that last day but they were certainly never used afterwards) on the evening peak 9Es to Ridgeway Avenue. My old mate John Batchelor & I were out bashing some of the older, about to be withdrawn Fleetlines that day (see the “Buses For Fun” blog “End Of An Era”) and included both of Rob’s buses that day in our itineary, even buying a bottle of Pomaigne to say our farewells to 5574, the WMPTE DMS class as a whole, and the whole regulated era!
Deregulation would see the 9 reduced to run every twelve minutes through to Stourbridge, with Halesowen shorts making up a six minute frequency from Birmingham. It was originally proposed that these short workings be numbered 39 but someone high up vetoed the idea, stating that it would cause passenger confusion, so the shorts became simple 9Es. This idea wasn’t overwhelmingly successful, so the seven/eight minute frequency throughout would return, over the years coming in handy against a few competitive strikes from Birmingham Coach Company on the route at various times. The 131, 132 & 902 would all be withdrawn and replaced by the 900s extension to Hasbury, this becoming the 19 in September 1988. Midland Red West would take over the 131 between Birmingham & Halesowen, until it was withdrawn in September 1989. Midland Red West would also gain some early morning tendered journeys on the 9, later getting the 00.00 journey off City too, running these until the late nineties.
Hartshill would close on 2nd October 1993, the 9 then becoming wholly operated by Quinton again, staying this way until 18th June 1997, when Quinton closed and the 9 transferred to Birmingham Central. This would be when the Fleetline era on the route would be over, the last Fleetline that I rode over the whole route being 6902 on Good Friday 1997. However, the Birmingham Central takeover would see the occasional appearance of one of the 40 1990 vintage Alexander bodied Scanias on the route, with me getting a couple of rides on these before the following January.
For January 1998 would see the 9 converted to low floor Wright bodied Volvo B10L saloons, with the service integrating with new services 109 & 139, the 109 following the 9 exactly to Colley Gate, then heading to Merry Hill, following Ludlows route 002, which had run from the south Birmingham Weoley Castle estate to the Merry Hill shopping centre near Brierley Hill, this route following the 9 from Spies Lane-Colley Gate (which it still does today, operated by Diamond-see blog “A Little Ticking Off Exercise”) whilst the 139 replaced the 137 (which had passed to West Bromwich upon Hartshill’s closure, me last riding that route from Gornal Wood-Bitmingham on the final Metrobus numerically, 3124, in December 1997) between Birmingham & Merry Hill. The low floor single deckers were so sucessfull that low floor double deckers, initially Plaxton President bodied Volvo B7s, would takeover from 2000. The 109 would be withdrawn sevaral years after, with the 139 rerouted down Spies Lane, and increased to every twelve minutes, the 9 being reduced to this level to provide a six minute combined City-Halesowen service. 2009 would see the 139 renumbered 99, at the same time as 30 E400s (4800-4829) were delivered for both routes, although the 99 woludn’t last, early 2010 seeing the service replaced by a new 141, initially running via Blackheath but soon rerouted via Mucklow Hill, this eventually becoming today’s X10. The 9 has largely been every ten minutes since that time.
The E400s, transferred from Birmingham Central to Pensnett when both the 9 & 141 moved there in July 2010, would be replaced by MMC E400s in 2015, these giving way to today’s Platinum standard MMC E400s in 2018.
Not for the first time, as we headed past the semi detached houses of Spies Lane, did I think about how much an increase in frequency the residents of these houses enjoyed back in November 1983, when the 9 replaced the half hourly 136 & 137 down here. Judging by the current ten minute headway, the move seems to have been justified over the years!
We ended up meeting Manor Way, which is what the Quinton Expressway becomes after passing Junction 3 of the M5, this took us into Halesowen, soon reaching the now ASDA store dominated bus station. A brief unloading and loading then saw us head around the town’s by pass system before reaching the route of the old 130, which stopped on the edge of the Town Centre. Then, the tone of the route changed completely, with the semi detached clad roads of the Birmingham side giving way to older, Victorian/Edwatdian terraced housing, sited alongside small shops with with well kept pubs! In fact, very much a typical Black Country scene!
In fact, I came to the conclusion that a ride on the 9 along this stretch would provide a good pub crawl, with Black Country Ales owned Wagon & Horses and the Whitley only around a mile apart, with the independent King George in between! This section of route has also become synonomous in the world of non league football, as it passes both the grounds of Halesowen Town and Stourbridge, otherwise known as the Yeltzs and the Glassboys, so local derbys between the two teams have become known as the Number 9 Derby! Semi detached suburbia returns to the route by the Whitley pub and continues down to Belle Vale, home of another pub, this being owned by Greene King, so should produce some real ales! Then, we faced the steep climb of Drews Holloway, our ascent not being helped by some temporary traffic lights near the rop, which was causing some delays.
At the hill’s top, we entered Cradley, not to be confused with nearby Cradley Heath, this again being a traditional Black Country area of terraced housing and shops. Beyond here, we reached similar Colley Gate, with the Old Chop House looking like another good stop on the number 9 pub crawl! After this, we entered an area of light industry, including the presence of coach company Prospects Travel, who have recently become active on Megabus coach services, although I didn’t see any such liveried vehicles present in the yard. What I did see though, amongst all the silver liveried coaches, was NXWM crimson liveired Dennis Trident 4576, recently bought by the company for contracts!
This is The Hayes which, before Midland Red began it’s Birmingham-Stourbridge bus service, was already the terminus of a Dudley, Stourbridge & District (another BET subsidiary) tram route, which Midland Red, as a fellow BET subsidiary, would replace by buses in the late twenties, the service from here into Stourbridge being numbered S34 upon the establishment of an S prefix for Stourbridge Town services on 9th January 1926, with S36 being used for shorts of the 130 that went further out, to Colley Gate, whilst S33 was used for journeys that terminated at Lye Cross, where we soon arrived, another Victorian/Edwardian community, with in this case, a by pass making the High Street into a one way gyratory system. There’s also another pub that looks worthy of a visit here, the Windsor Castle, home of the Printworks Brewery.
The S33, S34 & S36 would, by the time of my 1956 Midland Red Birmingham area timetable, only run when required and would cease in the sixties, when a gradual reduction in passengers combined with the 130 becoming operated by 72 seater BMMO D9s meant that they were no longer needed, although the final stretch from Lye-Stourbridge would also be covered by circular services S48 & S49, these also serving the Wynall & Pedmore Fields estates on their other side (now covered by the 7.) The big December 1976 revisions would see the 130 one manned, bringing an end to the era of the BMMO D9 on the route, with those PTE Standard Fleetlines that would hold sway on the 9 for so many years, replacing. D9s though, would replace crew single deckers on the Circulars, which were renumbered 298 & 299 at the same time, until the WMPTE D9’s 1977 demise. The 298 & 299 would have a long life, becoming minibus routes at deregulation, before being extended from Stourbridge to Merry Hill & Brockmoor (replacing the 291 & 292) when converted to Leyland National big bus operation in 1991. Later passing to WMT subsidiary Metrowest, the routes would be split again at Stourbridge (the Brockmoor side becoming the 296 & 297) subsequently passing on tender to Petes Travel. Eventually, these would divert from the direct Lye-Stourbridge road to serve Grange Road & Hungary Hill before their withdrawal.
From Lye, it was a relatively short run along the old tram route into Stourbridge, soon arriving at the town’s Transport Interchange;
Stourbridge
Called Stourbridge Interchange thanks to the presence of Stourbridge Town station, one end of the Parrys People Mover Stourbridge Shuttle down to Stourbridge Junction for onward connections to Birmingham, Kidderminster & Worcester, the Interchange opened on 22nd April 2012, replacing a 1979 opened bus station on the same site. Before that opened, Stourbridge had three small bus termini, with several services actually terminating in the former Midland Red bus garage, the site of which is now the local Mercedes Benz car dealer. Over the road from this was the terminus outside Stourbridge Town station, which used to be sited through what’s now the middle of the Interchange, a new, more basic station being built when the 1979 bus station was built, this having the effect of making Europe’s shortest railway line even shorter!
Once upon a time, the railway went beyond Town station, carrying freight to Stourbridge Canal Basin, this crossing over Foster Street on a bridge. This had an unfortunate side effect for the 130, for it’s low height would restrict this increasingly busy service to single decker operation, until 1948, when a new bus terminus for the 130 and other routes entering from that side, opened at Vauxhall Road, on the other side of the bridge, meaning that the 130 could be converted to double decker operation, initially with brand new AD2 class AEC Regent double deckers, though more powerful BMMO D5s would soon suffice. The bridge would be demolished when the freight line closed, though this lead to a British Rail DMU over running the station buffers in 1977 and making National news headlines as it dangled precariously over the wall!
The 1979 built bus station would link both Vauxhall Road and the Town Station termini and had enough space to accomadate the routes terminating in the garage as well, making me rather sad that I never saw this operation!
2102
Single deckers have always featured quite heavily in the Stourbridge fleet, both on the Town services and some of the quiter services heading out of the town. In WMPTE days, whilst double decker operation increased generally, Stourbridge would end up being the last garage to operate BMMO S23 saloons, partially because of a low bridge in Old Hill, on routes 202 & 235 which couldn’t accomodate the rooftop heating pod of a Leyland National, although the road under this bridge was lowered in 1978, leading to Leyland Nationals returning to the garage, following some being allocated when they were new. The S23s would be replaced by ten of the 1980 batch of Leyland National 2s (7038-7047) and these and earlier Nationals would then make fairly frequent appearances on the 130, including, as I’ve said, the garage’s two Dual Purpose Nationals, 1978 vintage 6853 & 6853, this operation passing onto the 9, so it’s quite apt that today was seeing the use of DP National liveried Wright bodied Volvo B7 2102 on the route;
I therefore boarded this for the run back to Halesowen, where I got off for a brief chat with Bus Station Supervisor Phil Tonks, who was helping out with a passenger with a Swift card that wasn’t reading properly!
After around an hour, I said farewell to Phil and boarded Diamond Wright Streetlite 32307, which was now painted in Diamond’s standard blue but posters inside for NXWM/Diamond Partnership route 40 (West Bromwich-Wednesbury via Friar Park) indicated that the bus had previously carried Transport for West Midlands red livery, which seems to becoming extinct now effectively all routes are in a partnership, with N Bus & N Network ticketing having replaced operator specific ticketing within the West Midlands County. This took me through Blackheath and Oldbury to West Bromwich, from where I caught 2003 vintage Wright Gemini bodied Volvo B7 4486 on the 47 home, happy after a good day riding one of the West Midlands longest established trunk routes!
Another Monday off with a church worship practice at the end of it meant that a local bash was on the cards, plus this was also a day off that was shared with my friend Phil Tonks, whose a Bus Station Supervisor for Transport for West Midlands (TfWM) lead to me suggesting that we did a move that Phil had expressed an interest in doing on a Facebook post some weeks previously, that is to take a ride on a National Express West Midlands (NXWM) double decker on the 20 from Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth (QE) Hospital-Bromsgrove.
Regular readers will remember that I’ve already ridden this service, on the first Monday of it’s extension to Bromsgrove, that trip taking place on 17th April 2023, the Bromsgrove extension beginning the day before (see blog “NXWM 20 To Bromsgrove And Other Gemini Stuff!”) enjoying the double decker trip out into Worcestershire so much that I decided that I’d like to do it again at some point…..with today being the first opportunity that I had to do so! Therefore, I made arrangements with Phil to meet at the QE in good time for the 11.32 20, but being weary of West Bromwich garage’s (yes, the 20 is operated by considerably off route West Bromwich garage, which I’ll explain shortly!) irritating tendency to allocate the odd Scania Omnilink saloon to the route, so we built a degree of flexibility into the plan.
So the morning of the trip saw me scouring through the day’s vehicle allocations on the incredibly useful bustimes.org website, this information coming from the data on the bus’s Innit ticket machine. This activity was a little complex in this case, as, in order to get the buses on the 20 and it’s 20A sister to Cofton Hackett (the 20 terminating at this village just outside the Birmingham boundary before the Bromsgrove rerouting, the remaining hourly journey to Cofton Hackett becoming the 20A) interwork at the QE with the 48 to/from West Bromwich, this route then interworking with it’s sister 48A to Bearwood, so I had to check all buses on all these routes!
Scania Omnilink 1937 was out on an early 20, but this ran private back to West Bromwich from the QE at the end of the peak (I saw it passing through Bearwood running private, whilst in the afternoon, when back at West Bromweich, I would see it leaving on a 5 to Sutton Coldfield) whilst Enviro 200 midibus 813 was making quite a rare appearance on an all day turn on the routes, but this journey would interwork with 20As at the QE, so we didn’t have to worry about that. All remaining journeys were operated by double deckers, including the 11.32 that we planned to catch.
The 79A
I therefore made my way to my local bus stop and cursed having just missed a Wolverhampton based Dennis Trident on the 79 from that city but, looking up the road towards Hill Top, I saw another bus coming down the hill, this being one of the E400H former hybrid but now converted to Euro Six diesel (as this is unbelivably less polluting than the small diesel engine powering a battery) buses that are now the mainstay of the 79, this being 2011 vintage 5403 but it wasn’t on the 79 but a new, temporary sister service, designed to provide extra cover for the currently suspended West Midlands Metro between Wednesbury Parkway and Edgbaston Village, due to construction of the points at Wednesbury for the new line to Dudley.
The 79A makes a five minute service with the 79 from West Bromwich-Wednesbury bus station, then heads to Wednesbury Parkway tram stop for connections onto the still operational tramway thence to Wolverhampton Station. I reasoned that the 79A interworked in West Bromwich with the through 79s to Wolverhampton, which I would ascertain to be correct when I arrived at the bus station, with the Trident in front ready to leave on a 79A and 5403 changing it’s blinds to return to Wolverhampton.
Spending around twenty minutes at the bus station, I noticed that the extra busee required to operate the 79A were seeing a healthy number of Tridents return to the 79, including Wolverhampton Corporation heritage liveried 4535 (apoligies for the rain on the shelter glass! It was a lousy day weather wise!)
The 48
I’d decided to get the 48 before that which interworked with the 11.32 20, this leaving West Bromwich at 10.13, with 2007 vintage Enviro 400 4768 pulling in off the 48A, changing it’s blinds for the 48 to QE Hospital.
4768 is one of the first batch of E400s delivered to what was then Travel West Midlands, entering service in January 2008 and was also the first numerically to be delivered with a grey/beige interior, previous examples featuring a light blue internal colour scheme and all subsequent E400 deliveries to the company would feature the beige interior. The bus was one of fourteen of the batch that featured high backed seating, 4768 entering service at Walsall garage where it’s sisters and it displaced 2005 vintage Wright Gemini bodied Volvo B7s 4680-4686 (these buses now being with Explore Dundee) from the then “Premier” branded 997. Originally featuring E leather covered seats, these were retrimmed in standard NXWM moquette when they were displaced at Walsall by some of the first batch of Platinum standard MMC E400s in August 2015, being transferred to Coventry where they received the two tone sky blue National Express Coventry livery, the batch being used on the 11 Coventry-Leamington and 12X Coventry-Warwick University routes, where they would remain until those services were converted to electric BYDs in December 2022, when 4768 was one of nine of the batch that transferred to West Bromwich garage (four of the others went to Yardley Wood, whilst 4770 is back at Walsall) since when, it has received the current NXWM grey livery.
Taking the front, nearside seat, we soon left, heading past Sandwell College then down Spon Lane, passing under the M5 motorway at the point which was once the boundary between the boroughs of West Bromwich & Smethwick (later Warley) until both became part of the Metropolitan Borough of Sandwell in April 1974. Passing through West Smethwick, by the location of the former Spon Croft pub, the 80 to Birmingham branches to the left, joining the Dudley-Birmingham 87 along the main A457, whilst we carried on up Mallin Street, with the 49 to Bearwood via Brandhall branching right, leaving just the 48 & 48A to continue up onto West Park Road, so called because it’s eastern side is flanked by the recently refurbished West Smethwick Park. Thus begins the, to quote West Midlands bus author Malcolm Keeley “the nebulous housing mass of Warley”, developed from the twenties onwards with a mixture of private and council semi detached housing that rehoused many from Victorian/Edwardian Smethwick & Oldbury.
The 48 is today’s successor to one of the main bus routes developed to serve the Warley area, the 1947 introduced 221 from West Bromwich-Bearwood that was originally jointly operated between West Bromwich Corporation & Midland Red, the service being created by combining journeys of West Bromwich’s 17 from West Bromwich-Spon Croft and Midland Red’s 204 from Spon Croft-Bearwood. The 221 would pass to West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive (WMPTE) when the two operators concerened passed to that organisation, West Bromwich being one of the first four to be taken over, on 1st October 1969, whilst Midland Red’s West Midlands area services would join the PTE on 3rd December 1973. The large Warley Revisions of 31st August 1980 would see the 221 replaced by the 448, which ran through West Bromwich to Charlemont Farm via Sandwell District Hospital (replacing the 438) although this would be split at West Bromwich again in November 1983 (Charlemont Farm being covered by the 408.) Deregulation, on 26th October 1986, would see the 448 extended from Bearwood, via Harborne to the QE Hospital, a deregulation extension that has been unusually long lived, the route renumbered 48 as part pf the October 2012 Sandwell revisions.
We continued passing through suburban Warley, passing the Sandwell Aquacentre that I’d sampled the previous Friday (see blog “From A Haircut To The Theatre Via A Swim!”) then heading down Hurst Road, at the bottom of which the 48 split off from us, whilst we continued into the more affluent area around the delightful Warley Woods, heading down Lightwoods Hill before making our way around the parked car choked streets of Victorian/Edwardian terraced houses that took us onto the busy, shop filled Bearwood Road, which we followed to the boundary with the city of Birmingham at Hagley Road, which we crossed, heading onto Lordswood Road and the 448 deregulation extension, following the 11A/11C Outer Circle down very affluent, detached house filled Lordswood Road into Harborne, with us then following the 23 & 24 routes down the busy Harborne High Street before reaching the Green Man pub at it’s end, where we turned right by the Blue Coat school (where, contrary to popular opinion, they don’t train the entertainment staff at Pontins!) into more affluent housing, around the Richmond Hill Road area. This area was once served by the 21 (City-Bangham Pit) until it’s July 2010 demise saw the district become solely served by the 448/48. This bought us to the extensive Birmingham University, QE Hospital complex, passing the impressive new building at the Cross City Line’s busy University station;
Just beyond here, we reached the rather congested main entrance and bus terminus of the QE, though I noticed that a bus lane now makes bus access a little easier….in theory! I must say though, that access today was surprisingly smooth, with 4768 easily accessing the 20/20A stop, where I alighted, the bus having 20A already on the destination, ready for it’s next trip;
Needing the toilet, I popped into the main hospital building, where I found Phil skulking by the entrance, sheltering from the rain on this rather blustery, wet day. He’d arrived on an NXWM Pensnett garage E200 on the 19 from Dudley, Phil having boarded this in Halesowen and having got quite lost by the route’s wanderings around the Welsh House Farm estate, which I remembered driving Optare Solos around from about twenty (how long!) years ago on the then Perry Barr operated 636 (QE Hospital-Quinton) which the present day 19 covers.
We basically then continued our usual, never ending chat about buses and politics, this time focussing on the upcoming West Midlands Mayoral Elections, with Labour Candidate Richard Parker making “taking control of our buses” a major plank of his campaign, effectively meaning franchising, as is currently being laid out in Greater Manchester, with it’s Bee Network, with Tranche Two of this network having begun the previous day, covering the towns of Bury, Oldham & Rochdale, plus parts of Salford & North Manchester. Eyebrows have been raised over the postponment of Tranche Three, which will see the remaining parts of the county, in Tameside, Stockport and South Manchester covered, and due to begin early next year, as the announcement of the winners was supposed to take place yesterday but has been “postponed indefinetely”.
Is Parker just jumping on a Metropolitan bandwagon, with the Labour Mayor’s of Merseyside, West Yorkshire & South Yorkshire all making progress in heading to emulate the Bee Network, or is the deregulated model of bus operation now totally broken, with the commercial operators hinting at fairly major cutbacks when government funding for the bus industry ends this coming October? (Though funding for the £2 maximum fare continues until 31st December.)
It has to be said that, despite increasing criticism from many regarding the length of time his projects are taking to come to fruition (rail & tramway projects having a very lenghty duration from planning to opening), both Phil & I have been largely impressed by the present Mayor Andy Street, who has championed both extensions to the West Midlands Metro and railway station reopenings, various such projects (the Dudley & Moor Street Metro extensions and the opening of Moseley Village, Kings Heath & Pineapple Road railway stations on the Camp Hill Line) are under construction but, as I say, these things take time, usually considerably longer than a politician’s term of office! Phil says that he will vote for Street again, whilst I am more curious about exactly how much of Street’s Metro plans that Parker will take up and champion, with all he’s said on the subject so far being that he supports the extension of the Metro!
What both of us agreed on though, is that we instinctively trusted Labour more with the future of our public transport systems more than the Tories, with both of us feeling that, General Election won, the Tories would hanker to the Right Wing side of the Party’s hankering for tax cuts, meaning that bus service support would be an easy target, whilst Labour, although I’m not expectibg great windfalls from them in these financially strapped times, I feel would support it’s franchise supporting Mayor’s (including, if elected, Richard Parker) in furthering the programme, at least offering some protection to bus service provision. It’s good to see, though that, in contrast to the past, public transport seems to be quite high on both of the main parties agendas, a legacy perhaps of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s support of buses in general and reopening former railway lines, whilst previous Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn could be said to have sparked this interest off by raising a question to Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May at Prime Minster’s Question Time about the perilous, declining state of bus services in the UK, with cutbacks leaving many of Society’s poorest with less social mobility, something that Mrs May seemed quite taken aback by!
But enough of politics, let’s get back to the buses!
The 20
This century has seen several extensions of the 448/48 take place to the south of the QE, but these have been relatively short lived, the last extension, to Northfield via Weoley Castle, being replaced by the rerouted and taken over by Stagecoach 46 on 1st January 2023. From this time, the 48 would then interwork with the 20 to Cofton Hackett, a service that was previously operated by Yardley Wood garage, mainly using Scania Omnilink single deckers due to it interworking at Cofton with the low bridge inflicted 27, the unlikely transfer taking place because the curtailing of the 48, along with various other service cutbacks, meant that West Bromwich had spare resources, whilst Yardley Wood was then suffering a driver shortage, hence the unlikely transfer was a logical move.
16th April 2023 would see the 20 revised to replace another former Yardley Wood service, when it was split into two routes, the one journey per hour that remained to Cofton Hackett being renumbered 20A, whilst the other would be rerouted and extended way out of the West Midlands county to Bromsgrove, replacing the seventy minute frequency 144A from Longbridge Station-Bromsgrove that had only been introduced the previous year, in April 2022, when First withdrew the Catshill-Birmingham section of the long established, former Midland Red 144 that once ran all the way from Birmingham-Malvern Wells, the 144A being a last minute Worcestershire County Council tendered service introduced to plug the gap! (see blogs “Birmingham No More On The 144” & “NXWM’s 144A & Other Stories”)
The 20’s interworking with the 48 would ensure that double deckers would feature predominantly, this being an obvious attraction over a route that has largely been in the hands of single deckers since the October 1976 one manning of the 144, that saw the end of the glorious reign of the legendary, in my totally biased opinion the most hansome creation of mankind, the BMMO D9 on the route (this also seeing the route lose it’s Malvern section, being curtailed to terminate at Worcester.) Therefore, after riding it on that first Monday, I decided that I would ride the route again at some point but, despite a visit to Bromsgrove last summer, where the appearance of a Scania Omnilink on the route at the time I was there (see blog “A Little Ticking Off Exercise”) put me off a move that I’d really decided not to do anyhow, leaving Bromsgrove on a Kevs Coaches 318 to Stourbridge. So, I’ve not got around to riding the route again, whilst Phil hadn’t actually managed to do so at all, hence the thinikng behind today’s move!
Around ten minutes before the 11.32 departure time, the expected bus, 4763 appeared, so we both walked over to the 20 stand and boarded;
Photobombed by Phil Tonks!
Like 4768, 4763 was one of the fourteen high backed seated E400s delivered in January 2008, though this was one of the final few to feature the light blue interior that features on most of that initial batch, a colour scheme the I personally prefer, signifying a difference between those and later E400s that reminds me of the way WMPTE’s first batch of 200 Fleetlines featured a Birmingham City Transport (BCT) inspired yellow interior before bus 4243 onwards produced a white interior that would feature until the PTE’s last examples were delivered in 1979, not to mention featuring on very similar looking Metro Cammell bodied Bristol VRs, Volvo Ailsas and even six prototype Metrobuses (6831-6834 & Rolls Royce engined 7006 & 7007) that would lead to that type replacing the Fleetline as WMPTE’s standard bus.
Those blue interiored, high backed seat E400s, 4763-4767, would initially enter service at Perry Barr, where I would get to drive them on the recently introduced 993 City-Streetly service, plus it’s subsequently introduced 992 & 994 sisters before the three routes would be replaced in 2009 by Walsall garage route 935 (Birmingham-Walsall via Streetly) with 4763-4767 transferring there, to operate the 935 and former Perry Barr route 934 (Birmingham-Streetly Foley Arms, operated in the main when at Perry Barr by high backed seat Scania Omnilinks 1844-1847, and rerouted to Walsall upon that garage taking the route over.) 4763-4767 would also transfer to Coventry with the rest of the batch upon delivery of Walsall’s Platinums in 2015, receiving the two tone blue livery and would then come to West Bromwich when displaced by electrics in August 2022, since when it has also received the current grey.
We set off and headed down the link road to Selly Oak, the former, early eighties built Sainsburys on the Bristol Road that was replaced some time back by a newer store on a nearby retail park, now having been completely flattened, ready for new houses to built on this site. We then joined the Bristol Road, alongside the 61 & 63 buses from the City Centre to the huge Frankley estate. We soon met the tree lined central reservation of this dual carriageway that had contained the famous Bristol Road tramway, until this was replaced by the 62 & 63 buses (with the 61, then to Allens Cross, beginning at the same time) on 6th July 1952.
The 20 began on 29th August 2021, replacing what had been decreed the weakest of three Birmingham Central operated Platinum services that had been introduced in July 2018, linking the City Centre with Birmingham University, stopping a short distance from the QE to avoid the services being delayed by congestion in the bus turning area. These were the X20 to Rednal Traffic Island, the X21 to Woodcock Lane, Bangham Pit and the X22 to Woodgate, these services proving to be initially over bussed, particularly during the reduced demand of the pandemic, so it was decided to withdraw one of the services, the X20 being considered the poorest performer of the three, so it was replaced by the initially Yardley Wood operated 20.
We followed the tree lined central reservation into the shopping centre of Northfield, a major centre for bus services in the area, with NXWM inter suburban services 18 (Yardley Wood Garage-Bartley Green) & 27 (Kings Heath-Cofton Hackett) passing through and the long, winding 76 to Solihull terminating here, these services being supplemented by Kevs Coaches tendered services 19, 39, 39A & 55. The 61 also turns off the Bristol Road here, whislt we carried on alongside the 63, passing more former tramway reservation through the semi detached clad suburbia, bringing us to the heavily rebuilt Longbridge Town Centre, new retail and housing, plus the resited Bourneville College taking the place of the former Rover car factories that dominated this area for so long.
The Bristol Road, and the 63 with it, turns right here, as did the former Midland Red 144 but the 20 & 20A head straight up Lickey Road, which was once served by the final stretches of the 70 tram route to Rednal, which once famously bought many Brummies out to the nearby Lickey Hills, donated to the City of Birmingham by the Cadbury family in 1905, with the 70 receiving heavy duplication at the height of the summer, particular on Bank Holidays and the like, with tram after tram heading out of the city and using a large turning circle to quickly handle the crowds. The 70 would be replaced by the 62 bus which, although the Lickeys glory days were really over, still did good business for many years, although gradually, the everyday traffic would decline, with the 61 & 63 having the better fortune to serve council estates on their outer ends (the 63 after it’s extension to Rubery Lane on 7th February 1972, before joining the 61 in Frankley in the early years of this century) with, as I’ve always said, the bus industry and council estates have a mutual dependence on each other! The housing density of Lickey Road though, didn’t produce the same level of demand, though those that did rely on the service complained about the initial route of the X20, when it initially served areas to either side, crossing over Lickey Road, the complaints soon seeing the route diverted directly up that road again to Rednal Traffic Island, then carry onto Cofton Hackett, which it had previously passed through.
The 62 lasted until July 2010, having become very much the least important of the three Bristol Road services, when it was replaced by a last, seemingly desperate attempt to get Lickey Road residents out of their cars, with a single deck X62 running Limited Stop from City-Northfield, and carrying on from Rednal in the daytime along Leach Green Lane to the Rubery Great Park Retail & Leisure Park. The tactic didn’t work, and the X62 began to significantly lose money almost immediately, being replaced within around six months by a new, all stop 98, which ran to City via QE Hospital and supplementing the 636 from Halesowen, which was renumbered 99 to match, which ran into City via Wheeleys Lane. Today, the Halesowen stretch of the 99 is covered by the 19 which Phil had arrived at the QE on this morning (more of the history of that route is featured in the blog “New Year Freewheeling.”) The 98 would be replaced by the X20 in July 2018.
Whilst the 20A continues down Lickey Road, passing the former tram terminus (which ceased to be used by the 62 at deregulation, the route then turning around at the previous stop, near to the junction with Leach Green Lane) and onto it’s Cofton Hackett terminus, the 20 turns right up Edgewood Road. This area of fifties built council housing gained it’s first bus service in 1993, when the long 49 (then Solihull-Northfield) was rerouted from it’s former direct Bristol Road routing from Longbridge-Rubery, but the hostility from the local residents to buses running along their road was such, that buses were soon being bricked and drivers threatened, resulting in the 49 soon returning to it’s Bristol Road routing! Today, the 49 terminates at Rubery Great Park and the Northfield section covered by the 27. Therefore, when I heard that the X20 was being routed down there in 2018, I was quite sceptical about it’s chances and safety but, on my one trip over the route around a month after it started, I saw no problems, although no one seemed to get on, though I suspect loadings could have developed if it wasn’t for the complaints leading to the rerouting back down Lickey Road! Nevertheless, the only reason that the 20 serves the road, in this direction only, is because the right turn into Leach Green Lane is very tight due to the presence of a traffic calming bollard, something that must have caused problems for the drivers of the previous X62 & 98, my single trips on both of these routes making the bus driver in me wince when making that turn!
We turned left onto Cliff Rock Road, which bought us onto Leach Green Lane, which we then took into Rubery, the flyover that takes A38 traffic away from this village being built on the site of the former 71 tram terminus, this also marking the Birmingham city boundary, with the 63 turning around here until it’s 1972 extension across the boundary into the Worcestershire village, still a bustling little shopping centre today, and the 63 still leaves the village up Callowbrook Lane, leaving the road ahead to us, the former 144 which served this route for so long, still having a presence due to the survival of the “Salt Road” bus stop flags, reflecting the brand name that First bought to the service in it’s later days, and still used for the surviving Catshill-Worcester section of the route, the distinct, green liveried Wright bodied Volvo B7 saloons still largely holding sway on the route, though, as we’ll see, other Worcester based buses also pop up on the route.
Soon, we rejoined the dual carriageway A38 and enjoyed the double deck views as we made our way down to Junction Four of the M5 motorway (where years ago, the X44 Limited Stop Motorway express to Worcester and, later Malvern, joined the M5) before heading towards Bromsgrove, turning right at Marlbrook to begin the wander around the sprawling Catshill area. I was surprised that Worcestershire County Council stipulated that the 20 and previous 144A served Catshill, as First’s 144 still reaches here, running every twenty minutes through to Worcester. Nevertheless, stipulate they did, so we wandered around, getting gradually closer to Bromsgrove Town Centre, soon reaching the small bus station;
Bromsgrove
The 144 has always been the dominant bus service in Bromsgrove and, with it’s twenty minute frequency, continues to be so, despite no longer venturing forth to Birmingham. As I say, the regular buses are the Salt Road branded Wright bodied Volvo saloons, though other buses do appear, such as the this Plaxton Centro bodied Volvo B7 branded for the X50 Worcester-Evesham service;
The most dominant operator here though, is Diamond, following that company’s opwning Rotola Group bought First operatons at Redditch & Kidderminster, towns to either side of Bromsgrove, as exemplified by this Wright Streetlite on the 52 Kidderminster-Redditch service;
But enough of buses for the moment, time for fish & chips! We walked around to the Market Place chippy and ate in due to the weather. They were excellent, as usual, and Phil again complemented me on my incredible good chippy sense! Then, with a good forty minutes before the next 20, we went for a walk, soon finding a pub, where we both had a pint of Banks Blonde. Going to the loo here, I soon realised that the pub backed onto the bus station, so we both left that way, finding that, as well as NXWM 2003 vintage Wright Gemini bodied Volvo B7 4487, there was another double decker present, First 35158, a 2015 vintage Wright Streetdeck that was one of four originally delivered to Worcester garage for the 44 Worcester-Malvern group of services that largely cover the former 144 route out to Malvern, but these are now largely in the hands of single deckers, the Streetdecks being moved to more general duties, replacing the garage’s earlier Wright Gemini bodied Volvo B9s.
Return Journey
We though, boarded another Wright Gemini bodied double decker, Volvo B7 4487 on the next 20;
4487 is another former Perry Barr bus that I’ve driven, being the final bus numerically that was branded for “Line 33”, replacing the Volvo B10L saloons that had pioneered low floor operation on this route, with Birmingham City Council introducing bus lanes and Centro improved stops as part of the aim to improve the bus travel experiance. The bus would become the first to lose that 33 branding. Having a long life at Perry Barr, the bus wouldn’t transfer to West Bromwich until September 2022, when the garage’s last Gemini bodied B7s were transferred out, leaving Perry Barr with as modern a fleet as was then possible, ready for the move to the new Perry Barr garage in December 2022.
So, sitting upstairs to enjoy the view, it was back out around Catshill, then up the A38 towards Rubery, using the slip road that takes us onto the bridge that crosses over the Rubery By Pass, taking us into Rubery Village, then we headed all the way down Leach Green Lane, reviving memories of double deck rides on the former 64 from Northfield-Longbridge (peak journeys going onto Cotteridge) that would be replaced by the extended 49 in April 1984, with Leach Green Lane then being served by the peak only 48 from Frankley-Cotteridge, the only time that I travelled on this being on a Selly Oak garage Leyland National. The 48 would gradually be reduced over the years, finally disappearing in the nineties. The other service along Leach Green Lane through all this being Midland Red’s 334 from Bromsgrove-Halesowen via Frankley, replaced upon Midland Red West’s closure of Bromsgrove garage on 16th September 1983 by the extension of the 302 Areley Kings-Halesowen via Kidderminster service, this lasting until deregulation, when it was replaced by the tendered 202 terminating at Halesowen again, initially operated by West Midlands Travel and passing through several operators over the years, with Diamond now running the route.
At Leach Green Lane’s end, we turned onto Lickey Road, heading back to Longbridge and then down the Bristol Road, through Northfield, then leaving the road at Selly Oak for the short run to the QE, where we got off, Phil then waiting for the next 19, whilst I reboarded as 4487 became the next 48, enjoying a leaisurely wand back through Harborne, Bearwood & Warley before it returned me to West Bromwich bus station.
I then made my way for the next 47, this being another 2003 vintage Wright Gemini bodied Volvo B7, 4522, though this started life as an Acocks Green bus, transferring to West Bromwich in April 2012 but returning to Acocks Green in May 2015, finally coming back to West Bromwich in January 2019. Standing next to 4522 on the bus station layover stands was 4767, the last of West Bromwich’s ex Coventry E400s to be painted in the NX Coventry sky blue livery on the 74E to Birmingham (the West Bromwich-Birmingham section of the 74 having been increased from every six to every four minutes to cover for the temporarily closed Metro.) I would find out later (thanks Tony Hunter) that this was the last day that 4767 ran in blue, as it was due to go into the paint shop the following day!
4522 soon pulled onto the stop, so I boarded for the short trip home, happy after a nice trip out on one of NXWM’s few services that head beyond the West Midlands county.
A few things to do today, such as going for a Haircut, and then for a swim with my wife Lynn, with us later heading to the theatre but there was a little time for some random bus & tram riding in between!
To maximise my time, I wanted to reach my barbers in Oldbury as soon as it opened, at 09.00, so I was out of the house around 08.10 and caught the first bus which came to West Bromwich bus station, which was National Express West Midlands (NXWM) 2007 vintage Enviro 400 4743 on the 47. At the bus station, I found NXWM Scania Omnilink 1855 on the 4M to Merry Hill, so I boarded this quite full bus and we headed towards Oldbury. This got me to my barbers literally two minutes after he’d opened, so I was his first customer of the day!
Mop chopped, I walked back up to the main bus stops, outside Sainsburys and looked at what was there. Basically, as well as an NXWM Scania Omnilink on the 4 heading towards West Bromwich & Walsall, and a Diamond Wright Streetlite heading the other way on the 4H to Hayley Green, there were two 82/87 branded Platinum MMC E400s on the 87, one heading to Birmingham, the other to Dudley. I considered riding the latter but what I really wanted to ride was the more indirect 12/12A to Dudley, these routes having also made their way from Birmingham, over a more roundabout route through Bearwood & Londonderry as opposed to the 87’s direct course through Smethwick, so I decided to leave the Dudley bound 87 and wait for the next 12 or 12A.
The only problem was that I really wanted to ride a double decker on those routes and, although Wright Gemini bodied Volvo B7s & E400s make fairly regular appearances on these West Bromwich garage operated routes, Scania Omnilink saloons are also common fayre at the moment (hopefully the gradual reduction of saloons in the NXWM fleet with the imminent entry into service of the MMC E400 BYD electrics at Perry Barr & Yardley Wood will ultimately lead to double deckers returning fully to these routes) and, typically, the next 12A would produce an Omnilink. My plan then was to take the next 87 to Dudley but in fact, a more interesting bus turned up first on the 13, what before August 2018 was the 128 (as indeed, the 12 was the very long established 120 before that same date, with the 12A being a new variant introduced then, running via Tower Road instead of City Road) running to Birmingham via the area that renowened West Midlands bus author calls “the nebulous housing mass of Warley!”
Like the 12 & 12A, the 13 was a West Bromwich garage service running via a roundabourt route to Birmingham that is currently operated with the same mix of Scania Omnilinks and E400 & Wright Gemini bodied Volvo B7 double deckers and it was one of the latter, 2003 vintage 4479. that turned up, parking over the road from the loading stop to take it’s dropback;
The 13
Therefore, I decided to abandon my visit to Dudley (still not managed to visit there since the bus station closed for rebuilding into a Bus/Metro Interchange) and go for a ride on the 13 instead, it being a while since my last ride on the service (in fact, I think it may well have been on one of my “beloved” ALX400 bodied Volvo B7s) so having a dose of what was one of the oldest double deckers in the fleet over the route was an opportunity to be grasped!
In fact, I’ve also driven 4479 in the past, as it was a resident at my Perry Barr garage for the vast majority of it’s life, being a 33 (City-Pheasey) branded route upon it’s January 2003 entry into service and was one of the last survivors of the type at the garage, transfering to West Bromwich in August 2022, as moves were made to make the Perry Barr fleet as modern as possible ready for it’s move to the new garage at the other end of Wellhead Lane in December 2022 (and now, electric charging equipment is being fitted at the new garage, ready for that new generation of electric buses to enter service, with me having been typed on E165 the previous week!)
Back to an older diesel bus, I boarded 4479 after it ran round to commence it’s trip and went upstairs (naturally) to enjoy the trip ahead. We left Oldbury up the heavily industrialised Tat Bank Road, the factories giving to the Victorian/Edwardian terraced house filled area of Rood End, with us turning right onto Rood End Road.
Although Tat Bank Road once had a more direct service to Birmingham in the form of Midland Red’s 127, running via Warley Road & Londonderry but being withdrawn in 1968 (being replaced by the 121 between Birmingham & Langley Green, which was withdrawn in November 1983) this first section of the 13 has it’s origins in Midland Red service 229, introduced just after World War Two and running from Bearwood-Oldbury via the many new houses then being built in the Warley area, with the route being extended from Oldbury via yet more new housing shortly afterwards, in the early fifties, to Blackheath. This service had a very long innings, passing from Midland Red to West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive (WMPTE) upon the transfer of the company’s West Midlands local services to the PTE on 6th December 1973, and becoming the last, all day Oldbury garage service to be operated by that classic double decker, the BMMO D9!
Rood End Road took us to the sad, burnt out remains of the former Merrivale pub, at the centre of Langley Green and then, as now, a point where several bus routes meet. The 12 & 12A had followed us from the latter part of Tat Bank Road, the 120 having been rerouted that way in the nineties to avoid the delays at the level crossing gates by Langley Green station, and we’d been joined on Rood End Road by the 49 from West Bromwich-Bearwood via Brandhall. At the Merrivale roundabout, we all split up again, with the 12 & 12A heading up Dog Kennell Lane, whilst the 13 & 49 carried on into Moat Road, although we turned left almost immediately into Brookfields Road, with the currently being demolished Langley Baths sited on the corner, this being one of the two swimming pools that have been replaced by the built for the Commonwealth Games Sandwell Aquacentre, where I was to meet my wife Lynn later.
We climbed up Brookfields Road, filled with fifties built council houses, this taking us to the Beeches area at the top, with great views looking out over the Black Country. Here, we left the original 229 route, which headed into the Hill Top district, whilst we headed down Bristnal Hall Road to Bristnal Fields.
31st August 1980 saw WMPTE introduce a large scale revision of services in the Warley area, leading to the demise of the 229 and the other ex Midland Red routes around here, with new routes 128 & 129 created as replacements, providing a more frequent direct link to Birmingham than the former hourly 124 (Birmingham-Brickhouse Farm) that had previously linked this side of Langley to the second city. Originally, there was just going to be the 129, which followed the old 229 route exactly from Blackheath to the Bear Hotel at Bearwood but complaints from the Bristnal Fields area (my Uncle being one such voice) lead to alternate journeys being numbered 128 and routed down the previously unserved Bristnal Hall Road (which would also gain two new routes from Smethwick, the 444 to Brandhall and the 446 to Oldbury, the combined fifteen minutes frequency of these being hopelessly over optimistic! The 444 would become peak only in November 1983, whilst both routes would be withdrawn at deregulation in October 1986) where we encountered less dense private housing as we reached Bristnal Fields, where we turned left into George Road, once served by the aforementioned 124 and the 233 Oldbury-Bearwood via Causeway Green service, which also met it’s demise in the August 1980 revisions, with the 128 & 446 providing a partial replacement. Today, we’re also joined by the 48A from West Bromwich, which follows us from here into Bearwood.
At the top of George Road, we rejoined the former route of the 129/229 by the George pub. Deregulation would see the 129 withdrawn, with the 128 increased to every twenty minutes to compensate. Midland Red West’s 443 would replace the Hill Top section, which is today served by NXWM’s 54A. At the George, we were joined by the 13A (the former 127) from Blackheath via Brandhall, which provides a fiften minute service with the 13 from here onto Birmingham.
The George had once been the original terminus of the 124, commencing on 12th May 1927, and it’s 224 short working to Bearwood (although it’s possible that a route to Bearwood started earlier) which ran along the route that we were about to take, serving the developing area. During the post war years, when the 229, 233 & 214 (Londonderry-Perry Hill) all started, 224 continued to be used for occasional journeys to the George right into the PTE years. We headed down Pottery Road through more semi detached filled suburbs, then climbing into Abbey Road, where I saw that the former Pheasant pub had been demolished. We then travelled alongside the edge of Warley Woods, a charming green filled area where I used to go sledging on snowy days.
Then, it was down Abbey Road until it met Thimblemill Road, where we were joined by the 12 & 12A, which had followed the more direct route from Langley via Londondery to reach here, from where the 12/12A/13/13A provide a combined 7/8 minute service into Birmingham. Abbey Road becomes Three Shires Oak Road at this point, with Vivtorian/Edwardian terraces lining this road to the Bear Hotel. Here, today’s 48A follows the route of the former 229 & 233 by turning right onto Bearwood Road (at least after the 1952 opening of Bearwood bus station, before which the 229 & 233 terminated at the Bear Hotel, running in a loop via St Marys Road & Bearwood Road) whilst we followed the former example of Midland Red’s old 120, 121, 123, 124 & 127 by crossing over the boundary with Birmingham into Sandon Road.
A few hundred yards along Sandon Road and we were passing the wide junction with Willow Avenue, this width betraying the fact that this was once a bus terminus, for this was once the terminus of Birmingham City Transport’s (BCT) route 6, introduced on 29th September 1926. I’ve always found it quite odd that an operator who normally left some fair sized gaps between it’s, admitedley very frequent routes, would start a service that was only a very short walk from the Hagley Road tram 34 and the 1919 introduced motor bus route 9 (more on which anon) but I suspect the presence of Midland Red along Sandon Road on the services that would become the 120 & co (from 1928) caused Birmingham Corporation (which didn’t become BCT until 1937) to start their own service to avoid Midland Red abstracting traffic within the city, meaning that, under the terms of the 1914 agreement between the two operators, Midland Red were obliged to charge protectionist fares when following a Corporation bus or tram service. The only really major change to the 6 during it’s lifetime occurred after WMPTE’s October 1969 takeover of BCT, with the 6 becoming a cross city service on 28th February 1971, with it’s extension to Perry Common, running alongside the long established 5/7 from Portland Road, with journeys from Sandon Road-Perry Common showing the number 5, as did journeys from Portland Road, with 6 & 7 being shown for journeys heading to their respective western termini. This continued until the routes were one manned in May 1974, when 6 & 7 began to be used in both directions, 5 then being used for City-Perry Common shorts until 1977, when these became 7Es.
The 6 would cease as part of the August 1980 revisions, being replaced by extra 7Es on the Perry Common side, whilst the introduction of the 128 & 129 replaced the Sandon Road side.
Also paralleled at this point by the 11A/11C Birmingham Outer Circle, we followed the grand Edwardian terraced houses of Sandon Road until we were within sight of the Hagley Road, which the 6 and the various ex Midland Red services used to join at this point but today, the 12/12A/13 & 13A all follow the Outer Circle by turning left onto City Road, taking this down to the crossroads with Portland Road, as once served by the aforementioned 5/7, this cross city service beginning on 26th September 1927. The 128 was the first service to follow this route, this occurring at deregulation, with the now Hockley garage operated service (transferred from West Bromwich, where the 128 & 129 had been allocated since the January 1986 closure of the ex Midland Red Oldbury garage) rerouted this way to partially replace the 7, which was then cutback to the City-Perry Common route that it still follows today, the 128 supplementing the 428 from West Bromwich (replacing the former 428/429 Wednesbury-Portland Road service) which covered the 7 from that route’s former city boundary terminus.
Both the 128 & 428 initially operated through the City Centre to Hockley, this being handy for driver reliefs at the route’s new Hockley garage home but 26th January 1987 saw the routes cutback to terminate at the City Centre. September 1988 would see the 428 replaced by a new 129, operating through Smethwick to re-meet the 128 at Rood End, then heading alongside the 128 to Blackheath. September 1995 would see a short lived 138 introduced to follow the 128 until Lion Farm, then follow a 1990 introduced routing of the 129 to Blackheath, the latter route being cutback to terminate at Oldbury, apart from evenings & Sundays (when the 138 didn’t run) when it continued to Blackheath as the 129A. 1996 though, would see the 138 withdrawn and the 129 return to Blackheath full time.
July 2010 would see the 129 withdrawn, with the 80 (West Bromwich-Birmingham) rerouted to serve the outer end of Portland Road, then turning left onto the other side of City Road to make it’s way to city via Ladywood, with the new 127 joining the 128 along the other side of Portland Road. Sandwell revisions in October 2012 would see the 128 lose it’s Blackheath section to the 89 (this stretch now being covered by the 3 & 3A) whilst another new 129 would supplement the 127 & 128 between City and The George, then heading to West Bromwich via Londonderry, though September 2015 would see this transfer from West Bromwich to Pensnett garage and rerouted to Merry Hill.
August 2018 would see the 128 & 127 renumbered 13 & 13A respectively, whilst a short lived 13B would follow the former 129 route to Blackheath, though this was gone within around six months. More recently, from 2021, the 12 & 12A has also been rerouted via City Road & Portland Road.
And so we headed past the large houses of Portland Road, many being flats and student housing today, provoking memories of a party at one of them in the summer of 1992, when my class at the Birmingham Theatre School came to an end, with us spending most of the evening/early morning in the garden, getting verrry, verry drunk! Soon after, we reached the circular building of the Strathallen hotel, where we joined the Hagley Road.
As one of the main thoroughfares out of Birmingham, the Hagley Road has long been host to a good selection of bus services, most of Midland Red origin, heading beyond the city boundary into the Black Country, plus some heading further afield into rural Worcestershire, these latter routes staying with Midland Red once the West Midlands services past to WMPTE, although non of those country services survive running into the city. Over the years, even the number of former PTE services along the corridor have reduced, with now only four services continuing outward beyond Portland Road, these consisting of the 126, once running through to Wolverhampton but now only reaching Dudley, branching off the Hagley Road along the Wolverhampton “New” Road, as it was called in 1927 when Midland Red buses began running along it immediately after it opened. The remaining three routes operate all the way out along the Hagley Road to the city boundary, then continue beyond. Two are now Limited Stop along the Hagley Road, these being the X8 to Wolverhampton, following the former 140 route to Dudley, then covering the former 126 route onwards, whilst the X10 heads to Merry Hill, with one journey per hour reaching Gornal Wood, effectively replacing the former 137.
The X8 & X10 provide a combined ten minute service between City & Quinton (Stag) , with an all stop ten minute frequency duplicating this as far as Quinton (Spies Lane) provided by the route that tends to be mainly associated with the Hagley Road, a route that NXWM are currently making a little fuss of, as it’s reached an incredible 105 years of age! This is the 9 to Stourbridge, a former Birmingham service that commenced on 3rd March 1919, running out to Quinton (City Boundary). Since that date, only one, very significant change has been made to it’s route, this ocurring in November 1983, when the 9 was extended to Stourbridge, replacing the ex Midland Red 130, a route which was actually older than the 9, having began in October 1914, when Midland Red burst out from it’s Birmingham home, an agreement leaving local services to the Corporation, leading to Midland Red spreading far and wide to become the largest territorial bus company in the UK. The number 130 though, didn’t come to use on the route until 1928.
As we pased the Ivy Bush, heading towards the big Five Ways junction, the sight of a Platinum MMC on the 23 from Bartley Green coming off a side street told me that this route had been diverted from it’s normal Harborne Road route in for some reason, this being confirmed by the sight of another Platinum headiing out on the 23’s sister, service, the 24 to Quinton Road West. Just after, we encountered the Edgbaston Village terminus of West Midlands Metro, from where CAF 100 car 44 departed just ahead of us, which we followed down the now bus & tram only Five Ways underpass, then had to stop behind 44 as it called at the Five Ways tram stop, at the top of Broad Street, something that none of the bus routes along here would have to do for just over a fortnight from the following day, as the Wednesbury-Edgbaston Village section of the Metro is closed to enable the point work for the new line to Dudley to be fitted at the new junction with the existing line at Wednesbury.
We then continued behind 44 down Broad Street, turning away from the tramway when Broad Street came to it’s end, with us turning left towards Paradise Circus….where I came across the bus that everyone was talikng about that day! For in celebration of the 9’s 105th anniversary, Pensnett garage (the route’s current home) driver Karl Totney sugeseted to management that it would be a nice idea to borrow Yardley Wood E400 4722, one of two buses in the fleet to be currently painted in a BCT heritage livery (the other, Acocks Green’s Wright Genmini bodied Volvo B7 4651, was unsuitable for operation for Pensnett, as drivers there wouldn’t have been typed on that type of vehicle) and use it on the 9 for a short period. This gave me an idea for my next move!
We headed into the City Centre, making our way down Great Charles Street, then up Snow Hill to reach the 13’s Colmore Row terminus, where the bus was already showing 13A for it’s next trip out of town;
Trams And The 9!
Ideally, I could have caught the next 9 from here, Colmore Row also being the terminus of the 105th birthday boy, but I needed to use the loo and there’s not one present in the immediate area. Therefore, I walked through the St Phillips cathedral church yard, which now rejoices in the nickname Pigeon Park, then headed down Temple Street to use the public loos in the Grand Central shopping centre that surrounds New Street station. I did the necceserries and then realised that the easiest thing to do now was to say my brief farewells to the Edgbaston Village section of the Metro, catching CAF 100 45, featuring a contravision ad wrap for the City Of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the tram then climbing the short but sharp Pinfold Street to reach Victoria Square and the Town Hall tram stop alongside that famous Birmingham landmark. I’ve recently decided that this is my favourite West Midlands Metro stop, being surrounded by interesting archetecture.
Then, it was around to Broad Street, travelling up this thoroughfare which the local press said that trams were returning to on it’s 2022 opening but the reality was that Broad Street never had an original tramway, always having been served by buses! Calling at Library, next to the International Convention Centre and Symphony Hall where the orchestra advertised by 45 mostly plays, Brindley Place and Five Ways, we then dived back under the tunnel to reach Edgbaston Village terminus;
I then walked to the adjacent bus stop for onward travel along the Hagley Road. Current Mayor Andy Street plans to use money that the Government has diverted from the aborted Manchester section of HS2 to move the extension of the Metro onwards along the Hagley Road to Bearwood and ultimately, to Halesowen, with a possibility of a Dudley & Russells Hall Hospital branch along the Wolverhampton Road but Mr Street faces re-election next month and his main rival, Labour candidate Richard Parker, has only thus far stressed minimal support for ongoing Metro extension, with most of his campaiginig so far revolving around bringing London & Manchester Bee Network style bus franchising to the West Midlands, whilst the Government themselves will face re-election sometime over the next twelve months! So things aren’t going to move quickly!
So for now, it was down to the trusty 9 to take me further along the Hagley Road, my aim being to head towards the Holly Bush, the former name of a Quinton pub that’s now a Toby carvary, which is opposite Olivers chip shop, where I was going for lunch! The first bus to arrive was 2018 vintage 9 branded Platinum MMC 6921 on the long established route. I’d been following 4722s progress on the useful bustimes.org website, with this scheduled to reach the Holly Bush on it’s way back to Birmingham at 12.05, five minutes after Olivers was due to open. Therefore, I decided to stay on board 6921 out to Halesowen, where I would have a fifteen minute wait for 4722’s scheduled arrival.
I’m planning to write a full blog on the history of the number 9, following a trip over the whole route to Stourbridge that I’m planning to do on Good Friday, something that I haven’t done for a fair few years, so I’ll refrain here from describing much of the trip along the Hagley Road, out of the city down Spies Lane (actually the route of the 136/137 Gornal Wood routes before the 9 Stourbridge extension, those two routes then rerouted down Mucklow Hill to replace the 130) and then along the dual cariageway Manor Way into Halesowen Town Centre, soon reaching the bus station, where I got off and took a photograph of the especially programmed blinds that proclaim the 9’s 105th anniversary!
4722
One of the first batch of E400s delivered to what was then Travel West Midlands in 2007, 4722 was allocated initially to Perry Barr, where I would drive it and it’s sisters regularly on my Sutton rota services, until they were displaced by new 2013 examples (since replaced on Sutton by the 2016 vintage Platinums) with 4722 being one of the examples transferred to Yardley Wood, where it was branded for the 35 (City-Hawkelsey) before it’s 2020 repaint into BCT livery, adopting the two thick blue “tween deck” lines that featured on BCT’s Standard half cabs, as opposed to the version with a thin blue line on 4651, which was that used on BCT’s Daimler Fleetline rear engine buses.
4722 turned up on time, though I was unable to get a photo of it’s arrival thanks to an NXWM E200 on the 19 to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital being on the stand, blocking my view. Nevertheless, I boarded and we made our way back out of Halesowen, up Spies Lane and into the city of Birmingham, getting off at the Holly Bush, the stop where, from 1949-1997, crews would change over, making the short walk to/from the Quinton garage that operated the 9, making this photograph of a BCT liveried bus on the route rather appropriate!
So I then bought cod & chips from Olivers, waiting for the chips to be cooked, then went back to the bus shelter to eat them, branded Platinum MMC 6930 soon appearing on the 9, so I adopted “covert chip eating mode” and shoved them in my bag, boarding 6930 for the short run to Bearwood, where I continued to eat them on a bench by the bus station, before 2003 vintage Wright Gemini bodied Volvo B7 4510 appeared on the 48A, this being one of two routes that I wanted to catch next (the other being the 48, which stops around the corner in Bearwood Road) so I again adopted “covert chip eating mode” (I think this being the first occasion that I’ve actually smuggled the same portion of fish & chips on board two buses!) for what was left and boarded 4510, the bus heading through the Bearwood Road shops that the 229 & co would have passed down for many years, passing the site of what was that route’s Bearwood garage home until it’s December 1973 closure, then reaching the Bear Hotel, where we met the 12/12A/13/13A again, turning right onto Three Shires Oak Road and then following the 13 route back to The Beeches, from where we headed down the narrow Salop Road, which took us to Hurst Road, where we joined up with the route of the 48 and headed to the small shopping area of Londonderry, where I got off.
Just around the corner from here, just beyond the former Queens Head pub that’s now home to a vets, is the Sandwell Aquacentre, the Olympic sized swimming pool built for the 2022 Commonwealth Games, and replacing the Langley Green baths that I saw being demolished earlier that morning, as well as the fine, art deco Thimblemill baths (which the 12 & 12A pass on Thimblemill Road) the future of that marvellous building having yet to be decided. Here, I met up with Lynn, whose swimming ten lengths a session here for the charity Diabetes UK (if anyone wishes to contribute, I’ve shared her Just Giving page on my Facebook profile, and thank you to those who have already contributed) and I decided to join her today, the first time I’ve been properly swimming (that is, not having a splash around in a holiday centre pool!) in many years!
There was a lot of controversy involved in the centre’s construction, from it’s location in a heavily suburbanised setting, with relatively poor road links, plus the overall cost of construction, but I have to say that the result is highly impressive, with plenty of people using the facility on this Friday afternoon!
After a swim and a rather marvellous hot chocolate, I drove us home, where we had a chill for an hour before heading out, down to the Metro, catching a tram (didn’t note the number) to Grand Central, from where we walked to the Alexander Theatre (the first time I’ve ever been here, having got all the other City Centre theatres in the book, including having appeared on stage at both the Old Rep and it’s replacing Birmingham Repertory Theatre!) to see “Peter Pan Goes Wrong”, produced by the Mischief Theatre company, who were behind “The Play That Goes Wrong” the absolutley hillarious “play within a play” that Lynn & I first saw in London back in 2018, which had me in sticihes throughout with sets falling apart and all sorts of other disasters occurring to the actors within the production, and “Peter Pan Goes Wrong” was in a similar vein, with the cast flying into scenery and all sorts, which kept me laughing throughout! An incredibly slick production requiring impecabble timing from the cast!
Afterwards, we went to the London North Western Weatherspoons on New Street station, where I enjoyed a couple of pints of locally brewed Piffle Snonker. Lynn then asked me if I’d mind getting the tram up to Edgbaston Village (honest!) before we headed home, as she dosen’t get to ride this side of the Metro often, so, with it being the last night before the temprorary closure, I agreed, with us boarding a handily arriving CAF 100 car 40 just as we walked out of the station, this taking us up Pinfold Street, then along a Broad Street that was bustling with Friday nightlife (just think of travelling on a Blackpool tram along the Golden Mile on a similar evening, without the seaview!) up to Edgbaston Village, where I got out for a quick photo;
Then, with the tram forming the 23.44 to Wednesbury Parkway, about the last but two departure from Edgbaston Village before the close of service, we took the front seats for the view ahead, gradually filling up as the tram went through the City Centre. As we sped our way home, I couldn’t help thinking how useful it is for us to have the Metro, giving us a fast, direct link into Birmingham City Centre, enabling us to do things like visiting the theatre and go for a drink afterwards! Had the Metro closure already taken place, we’d have probably drove to Sandwell & Dudley station and got the train, which of course, would have meant no drinkies! Yes, we could also have caught the bus, but the journey time for the approximatley eight mile trip (with a change required at West Bromwich) really wouldn’t have been attractive.
I started thinking that this sort of thing was what many Londoners take for granted, leading to the vibrant night life in the West End. Yes, Birmingham too has vibrant night life but hasn’t quite got the quality of public transport needed, nor, more to the point, have West Midlanders quite got the same attitude towards public transport use that most Londoners have.
Is this what Politicians mean when they talk about levelling up? If so, then I’m all for it! As I’ve said before, the West Midlands Metro hasn’t quite got into the local psyche in the way that the other new tramway systems have (Manchester, Sheffield, Croydon, Nottingham, Blackpool & Edinburgh) and I suspect that’s largely because of the time it’s taken for the system to get deeply into the City Centre, as well as get above it’s one route status, something that the Dudley route should change by the end of the year. As a passenger on that one route, I can vouch for how useful my local tramway is, therefore, I support any plan which encourages any expansion of the network to bring that usefulness to more people!
Soon, we were back at Black Lake, where I watched my local tram disappear into the Hill Top tunnel and serve only the Wednesbury-Wolverhampton section for a few weeks!
So ended an interesting day, using public transport to gain access to four, rather diffferent tasks, illustrating it’s value, as well a little bit of freewheeling just for the sheer pleasure of riding on buses and trams!
No, not a blog about the development of Birmingham’s shops (I’m sure that would have some interest but it’s not really something that I’m an expert on) nor Birmimgham’s fish & chip shops (as many of you know, something which I do have experiance of!) but rather, the story of the development of feeder bus routes to various new estates in the city, these routes began using one man single deckers and provided connections into busier tram and bus services for the onward journey into the City Centre. What I find interesting about this, is that there were two distinct periods when such services were introduced, and most wouldn’t remain as feeders for very long, with all the areas concerned eventualy receiving through services to the City Centre, which all bar one of these estates enjoy today.
Birmingham Corporation’s First Bus Services
Not quite fitting the remit of the services that I’m going to talk about but Birmingham Corporation’s first bus services were essentially feeders into a tram route. For back in July 1913 (on the 19th, to be specific) Birmingham Corporation started running ten Daimler double deckers, with London General built bodies, on a new service starting from Selly Oak tram terminus, and carrying on further along the Bristol Road, into what must have been then very rural territory that had recently, in 1911, become part of the enlarged city. This first service ran through Northfield & Longbridge (where Herbert Austin had just opened his car factory, something that would go onto grow considerably before declining to extinction in this century) before leaving the Bristol Road and heading down to the city boundary at Rednal, on the edge of the Lickey Hills, that had been donated to the city by the Cadbury family in 1905.
November 1913 saw a second service begin, this carrying on along the Bristol Road at Longbridge (where, a little confusingly, the Bristol Road actually turns right, the road to Rednal, Lickey Road, heading straight on) to the city boundary, which then, as it still does, occurs close to the junction with Leach Green Lane, beyond which was the village of Rubery which, despite not actually entering it (and the route would not actually do so for many years, what was by then the 63 bus not being extended into Rubery Village then heading up to Rubery Lane until 7th February 1972, the village solely being served before that, from October 1914, by what would become Midland Red’s 144 in 1928) carried Rubery as it’s ultimate destination.
Birmingham Corporation would give it’s bus and tram services route numbers in two separate series in 1916, with the Rednal service becoming the 5, Rubery the 6, whilst short workings to Northfield & Longbridge would use numbers 7 & 8 respectively, all feeding into what had become the 35 tram at Selly Oak. The twenties would see these services give way to an extended Bristol Road tramway, famously built on tree lined reserved track in the middle of a brand new dual carriageway, with some of the existing City-Selly Oak track rebuilt similarly, the extended trams seeing the bus routes gradually being cutback to terminate at Northfield (tram 69) then Longbridge (tram 72) before the 5 to Rednal would finally bow out in April 1924, when the 70 tram reached Rednal and soon became popular with Brummies heading to enjoy a day on the Lickey Hills, a large turning circle and shelter being built at the terminus to cope with the crowds on busy days. The 6 from Longbridge-Rubery would survive until February 1926, when the 71 tram replaced it.
Homes Fit For Heroes!
October 1914 would see Birmingham Corporation gain more bus services, following agreement with the Birmingham Midland Motor Omnibus company (BMMO, to become more commonly known as Midland Red) who agreed to hand over it’s services wholly within the city to the Corporation, with the company agreeing to concentrate on running services outside of the city, offering protection to the Corporation on the sections of route within the city. This resulted in both operators growing to become the largest operators in their fields, with the Corporation expanding to become the biggest municipal bus operator in the UK (Glasgow held the record for the largest Municipal tram system, on account of it running many services beyond it’s boundaries that would eventually be replaced by Scottish Bus Group bus services upon abandonment) whilst Midland Red would expand throughout the Midlands, becoming the largest of the territorial bus operators that spread throughout Great Britain in the twenties.
Initial development was held back by World War One but, following victory in 1918, Prime Minister David Lloyd George’s promise to build “homes fit for heroes” would be fulfilled by the building of our first council estates in the twenties (Wolverhampton’s Bushbury Hill getting the honour of being first) with Birmingham using it’s enlarged city boundaries to build many of them, turning this formerly rural territory into a large area of tree lined suburbia, consisiting of both council and private housing.
Whilst some of this new housing would be served by tram extensions, often, like the Bristol Road routes, on reserved track, it was the motor bus that would come to dominate the new suburbs, often with double decker buses linking said estates with the City Centre, these being backed up by a growing number of inter suburban services linking both these new bus routes, and the existing tram routes, these services starting out with small 24 seat, one man operated Daimler CK2 single deckers, what today we’d call a minibus! Probably the most famous of these services would be the 11, which gradually spread it’s way across the city until, on 7th April 1926, it would be joined up with service 10 (Bearwood-Kings Heath) to form the famous Outer Circle, with the small single deckers soon becoming over crowded and having to be replaced by crew operated double deckers, the route then becomng an icon of Birmingham!
The 12
A similar one man single deck service started on 29th January 1923, this being the 12, which started by the Duke Of York pub in Harborne (now flats at the roundabout where Lordswood Road ends) providing connections with the 3 from City-Queens Park and it’s regular short working, the 4, which terminated at the Duke Of York. Both of these routes were former Midland Red services taken over under the October 1914 agreement, and were actually the only two such routes that actually kept their Midland Red allocated numbers (which were apparently rarely shown on the bus anyway) upon the Corporation’s 1916 renumbering.
The 12 ran from the Duke Of York down War Lane and out along some very rural roads to the Bartley Green area, another initially sparsely populated area that had become part of the city, which suburbia would soon overtake. The 12’s single deck phase would be quite short lived, as new housing along the route began to build up, the service converting to double deck operation on 14th April 1926, the route being extended to City at the same time, absorbing most of the journeys on the 4, that number ceasing to be used in August 1954.
Despite the double deck converison, some of the roads along the 12 would remain quite narrow for a number of years! Bartley Green would continue to grow in the fifties, the service extending to Romsley Road in 1954, then onto Field Lane in 1965 to match further housing developments. The 12 would last until the deregulation of the bus industry in October 1986, when it was replaced by the rerouting of the 22 & 23 that had been introduced to serve the newer estates of Kitwell & Woodgate Valley South respectively. Today, the 23 survives, combining with the 24, which is the descendent of the 3, to provide the high frequency City-Harborne service.
The 13
The 13 began on 5th November 1923, starting from new development at the junction of Yardley Wood Road and Bromwell Road, then heading to connect with the Stratford Road trams at Sparkbrook, following the Stoney Lane tram 4 to reach the main road, allowing access to the more frequent 17 & 18 services along that main road.
The growing development allowed the 13 to become a double decker service heading into Town on 30th September 1925, being rerouted via Showell Green Lane to avoid abstracting traffic from the 4 tram, with further extensions occuring as the council housing in Yardley Wood developed.
The January 1937 replacement of the Stratford Road trams by buses would see the 13 rerouted back via Stoney Lane to replace the 4, Showell Green Lane then also being covered by the 1930 introduced 24 to Warstock, both routes later passing the 1938 built Yardley Wood garage, which has operated the routes in the area to this day.
Supplemented by the 38 to Slade Lane from 6th November 1966, the 13 would survive until January 1990, when the 12 (as the 38 was renumbered in 1987, with the 24 then being renumbered 2) was rerouted past the 13’s then Ravenshill Road terminus, then heading down that road to re-join it’s Priory Road routing to Slade Lane, the 2 & 12 being converted to single deck Leyland Lynx operation at the same time, with single deck operation having spells on the routes ever since.
The 15
The 15 commenced on 15th December 1924, starting at the Coventry Road/Grange Road junction in Small Heath, where it connected with the Yardley trams (15 & 16) for journeys onwards to Town. The 15 headed along Green Lane & Yardley Green Road, crossing the Cole Valley to serve new housing in the Stechford area.
This new housing would soon become served by the last major tram extension in Birmingham, opening in August 1928 when the 11/12 Bordesley Green trams were extended along a reserved track along Bordesley Green East to Stechford, trams here being numbered 84 & 90, extensions of the 12 & 11 respectively. This saw the 15 rerouted down the then developing Hob Moor Road to Yardley, Yew Tree. The 5th June 1929 would see the one man single deckers replaced by double deckers when the route was extended to City and linked with the 16 to Handsworth Wood to form a Cross City service, buses showing 15 to Yardley & 16 to Handsworth Wood (see blog “Birmingham’s Cross City Bus Services.) Many extensions & changes would occur over the following years, with the Cross City service eventually being split in 1989. Today, Hob Moor Road is served by the 17, a low bridge on the route’s 1990 extension to Tile Cross meaning that one man single deckers have returned to Hob Moor Road, though far larger than those little 24 seat Daimlers that pioneered buses in the area.
The Stechford trams, meanwhile, would be replaced by the 53 & 54 bus routes on 3rd October 1948, these two routes (with the 53 extended to Shirestone Road in 1967) lasting until December 1976, when they would be integrated with ex Midland Red services to the Chelmsley Wood estate to produce new services 97, 98 & 99, of which the 97 still survives as the main route from City-Chelmsley Wood.
Allens Cross
If anything, council house building would accelerate rapidly in the thirties, the Allens Cross estate, built to the South West of Northfield, being a typical example. By this time, the one man single deckers introduced in the twenties were made unviable by the 1930 Road Traffic Act restricting such buses to a mere twenty passengers, resulting in the rebuilding of the 30 1929/1930 built Guy Conquests, which had replaced the earlier Daimlers, as well as replacing double decker trams on the lightly used 22 tram to Bolton Road, Small Heath on 5th February 1930 (later becoming a short of the long 28-see blog “Great Barr The Great Way Round”) to be rebuilt in 1931 & 1932, increasing their capacity from 25 to 32, thus providing extra capacity to cover the additional costs of carrying a conductor.
Allens Cross would be served by the extension of two, single deck inter suburban services, the 18, introduced on 20th March 1929 running from Kings Norton Green-Northfield (Bell Inn) and the 23, an extension of the 18 onto West Heath (Man In The Moon) that began on 30th July 1930 to serve new private housing on the Pershore Road. Both routes would be extended from Northfield onto the new Allens Cross estate on 5th February 1930, with further extensions taking place up until 25th April 1932 as the estate developed. Despite these extensions, both routes would continue to use Northfield as their ultimate destination.
Double deckers would come to the 18, as well as a long extension from Kings Norton to what was then the 13 terminus at Yardley Wood (Haunch Lane) as the 18A on 19th November 1930. The 23 would remain single decker, as it would be extended on 21st February 1934 to become a circular service, returning to Northfield from West Heath via Redhill Road & Northfield Railway Station, where a low bridge then restricted the route to single deckers. 23A would be used for anti clockwise journeys around the loop.
The feeder services to Allens Cross would have a surprisingly long innings, doubtless due to the dominance of the Bristol Road trams restricting the viability of a potential through service from there to City. The demise of those trams on the 5th July 1952 would see their 62 & 63 replacing bus services joined by the 61, which would follow these two routes to Northfield, then head up to Allens Cross. The 23/23A would be withdrawn at the same time, the Cotteridge-West Heath (Redhill Road) section would be replaced by the new 45 bus that had replaced the 36 Cotteridge tram from City, whilst the West Heath-Northfield side would be replaced by the extension of the 27 Kings Heath-Hay Green service onto Northfield, then over the former 23/23A to West Heath, the 27 then, aside from the Airport bus, becoming Birmingham City Transport’s (BCT, as the Corporation Tramway & Omnibus Department became known as in 1937) only single decker service for the next eleven years, with that Northfield bridge (the road later being lowered) and in particular, the very low bridge at Bourneville station restricting the route to saloons. The Cadbury factory at Bournville (by coincidence, I’m actually writing this on the morning of the two hundredth anniversary of Cadburys founding!) would provide the need for many peak extras on the 27, the only other route through the idyllic, Cadbury built garden village being the 11 Outer Circle, meaning that Bournville would be one of the few parts of the city not to gain a through service to City during the BCT era, only gaining one after deregulation when the Midland Red West 83/84/85 City-Hawkesley services would pass through, these lasting until the early years of this century.
The 18’s stretch to Allens Cross would continue to run alongside the 61 until 19th February 1956, when the route was diverted to terminate at Ley Hill Farm, serving some newly built flats there. This would be another area that wouldn’t get a through bus to city, though there was a proposal in West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive’s (WMPTE, who absorbed BCT on 1st October 1969) August 1980 West Birmingham revisions for the 21 Bangham Pit service to be extended down to Ley Hill Farm but, for some reason, this never happened, the route not reaching there until a 1995 extension to Merritts Brook (where the 18 & 61 split up from each other) which would soon become a 921 limited stop service (the 21 being rerouted to Bartley Green, replacing a relatively recent 21A) but this didn’t last. Years later, in July 2010, another Limited Stop service, the X64 from City-Rubery Great Park, would provide a City-Ley Hill Farm link, but again, this would be rerouted in the other direction, to Bartley Green around 2012. Today, the 18 runs from Bartley Green-Yardley Wood Garage.
The 61 would receive more extensions, to the Egghill Lane estate, on 15th December 1963, whilst 1979 would see the route extended onto the Frankley estate, served from 1978 by the peak & Saturday Limited Stop 949 to City and 149 to Northfield at other times, with both of these being withdrawn with the 61’s extension, this receiving a further extension, onto the Gannow side of the estate at deregulation.
2009 would see the 61 rerouted away from Allens Cross to provide a more direct route to Frankley along Frankley Beeches Road, being replaced on the estate by the aforementioned X64, as well as the 49 (Northfield-Solihull) that had previously served Frankley Beeches Road. As I’ve said, the X64 would be rerouted to Bartley Green, leaving City bound passengers from Allens Cross having to change at Northfield once again. The 49 would be joined by the 29, which took a more roundabout route to the city until that route’s 2018 demise, the 49 being increased to compensate, though 2021 would see this side of the 49 replaced by a rerouted 27 (which had several major reroutings post deregulstion-see the “Buses For Fun” blog “On The Way Out-Part One-The 27”) whilst the 61, which would be replaced by a Limited Stop X61 from December 2016-July 2018, would continiue to serve Frankley Beeches Road until 2022, when the route would return to Allens Cross, the 27 then being rerouted via Frankley Beeches Road.
Weoley Castle
Slightly closer to Town than Allens Cross, the large Weoley Castle estate would be built to the west of the Bristol Road between Selly Oak & Northfield, the estate’s first bus service being the 20, which began on 17th October 1932, running from the Bristol Road trams and Outer Circle at Selly Oak, initially to Weoley Castle Road, near to it’s junction with Princethorpe Road. Further extensions would come as the estate began to grow.
2nd January 1935 would see the service completely revised, converted to double deck operation and extended to City via Harborne. A new 20B would start on 6th February 1935, starting from Selly Oak and heading through the estate and onto City, again via Harborne. The 20 group of services over the following years would become , uniquely for BCT, rather complex, with the spread out estate gaining 20D, 20E & 20X additional services to Selly Oak. This would all be simplified on 21st July 1957 when the 20 group was replaced by new routes 21 & 22. The 22 was basically a renumbered 20B from City-Selly Oak via Weoley Castle, whilst the 21 was a new route running via the Bristol Road to Selly Oak, then around Weoley Castle before heading to the then new estate at Bangham Pit. 3rd September 1967 would see both routes rerouted via the developing Queen Elizabeth (QE) Hospital, though complaints from the 22’s Harborne passengers saw that route being rerouted back through that suburb on 11th February 1968, but keeping the Quinton Road routing that it had gained in 1967.
The 22 would last until the August 1980 revisions, when the Selly Oak-Weoley Castle section would be replaced by the extended 2 (previously Kings Heath-Selly Oak, latterly replaced by the 69 and now largely covered by the 76) from Selly Oak-Weoley Castle, whilst the bulk of the route would be replaced by the new 29 from City-Northfield, which I’ll talk more about anon!
The 21 would be withdrawn in 2009, being replaced by the aforementioned X64 which would in turn be replaced by the X21 in July 2018, when the 29 would also be withdrawn, the Northfield-Harborne section, being replaced by a rerouted 27, which in turn, would be replaced by a rerouted 76 in 2021, the 76 & X21 being National Express West Midlands (NXWM) current services that serve Weoley Castle.
The 14
The final feeder service to be introduced before World War Two was the 14, a number that was allocated in the twenties for short workings on the 9 (City-Quinton) from Quinton-Bearwood (Kings Head), presumbaly intended for garage journeys to/from the 1926 opened Harborne garage, which would run the 9 until Quinton garage opened in 1949 but, in the event, the number 14 was never used for this.
Instead, 14 would first be used on 13th January 1933, with a solitary Guy Conquest saloon from the Corporation’s original Tennent Street garage (near Five Ways) running from 5 AM till midnight from the Alum Rock (Pelham Arms) terminus of tram route 8, running via Cotterills Lane & Flaxley Road to the developing Glebe Farm estate, terminating at the Flaxley Road/Stud Lane junction, with a further extension, to Swancote Road, beginning on 11th April 1934, with a rerouting via Audley Road occurring in January 1937.
13th October 1937 would see the 14 extended into City via Saltley & Great Lister Street, being converted to double decker operation, neccesatating a rerouting via Burney Lane to avoid the low railway bridge that takes the Aston-Stechford freight line over Cotterills Lane. So, from very small acorns, the 14 would go onto becoming one of the busiest routes in the city, with the Swancote Road section replaced on 21st September 1938 when the route was extended to Kitts Green (Lea Village) before reaching Tile Cross, the route’s terminus for very many years, on 29th May 1949. The late fifties would see the route used for various demonstrators from manufacturers anxious to gain BCT’s next big order, the ultimate winner being Daimler, with it’s rear engine Fleetline. This century would see the route extended to Chelmsley Wood, with a 14A variant via Marston Green for a while.
Through Ticketing
In the days before Travelcards, most commuters took advantage of Workmans Returns, cheap tickets designed to reduce the cost burden for workers now living in the growing suburban estates but still having to commute into the City Centre and it’s environs. Of course, the fact that passengers from the estates served by the feeder services would be at a cost disadvantage, so for these, BCT introduced a 5d transfer tickets in November 1934. A three piece, Bell Punch ticket would be issued on the first bus, the first section being handed over to the tram conductor on the way to town, the second section to the tram conductor on the way home, with the final section going to the feeder bus’s conductor.
As it was only two months before the 20 from Weoley Castle was extended into Town, the tickets would only appear on the remaining two feeder services, to Glebe Farm & Allens Cross, ceasing when these two received through services to City, Glebe Farm in 1937 and Allens Cross in 1952.
The Post War Years
The bus & tram services of BCT would enter World War Two in a position of strength, the remaining tram & trolleybus routes continuing to give good service in fraught conditions, backed up by the previously growing network of bus services, run by buses built to BCT’s exacting standards of quality, most notably a large number of Daimler COG5s, including 42 single deckers, all serving the city well during the most challenging time. The end of the War would see BCT doing it’s best to rebuild at a time when, with rationing still in full force but with the economy at full pelt trying to rebuild the country’s finances, and people wishing to let their hair down during their leisure time, the UK bus industry entered it’s finest hour, with the UK’s highest level of bus usage occurring in 1950.
BCT ordered new buses from many manufacturers to ensure a sufficiant number of buses could be supplied, but specifying a standard bodywork style that had developed from the pre war COG5s, these evolving into the Birmingham Standard style when the New Look concealed radiator style was introduced in 1949, leading to what would become the iconic image to many of a Birmingham bus being introduced. The buses from this era would enjoy extremely long lives, the last Standard not being withdrawn until October 1977, and would replace the last of the city’s trolleybuses & trams, as well as the worn out, pre war bus fleet, plus continued service expansion.
The city would continue to expand, though rather more slowly than had been the case before the war, with a lot of the inner suburbs being redeveloped with maisonettes and high rise blocks of flats (namely in Nechells Green, Highgate, Lee Bank, Ladywood & Newtown) which would spread to the outer suburbs. Bus services would continue to keep pace with the new developments in the outer suburbs, many of which being served by extensions to the various city routes. Only a few of the new areas would require a change of bus to reach the City Centre, like the aforementioned Ley Hill Farm on the 18, and another such example was the privately built semi detached houses around the Dyas Road area of Great Barr, served by an extension of the 28 from Hawthorn Road to Dyas Road/Glenmead Road on 3rd May 1948, giving residents a very roundabout trip to city via the eastern suburbs (see blog “Great Barr, The Great Way Round”) but they were more likely to change onto the more direct 29, 29A or 33 at Hawthorn Road.
All was not great, however, as the increasing standards of living would see car ownership rise, with a consequent decline in bus usage, putting BCT’s finances under strain, which wasn’t helped by the low density of some of the new developments taking place in the outer suburbs, which initially didn’t justify a full, crew operated double decker service to the city, hence a new era began of one man operated single decker services linking new estates to main road city services, plus the Outer Circle.
The 4
The small council estate of Pool Farm was built at the bottom of a steep hill, not too far from the larger, muti storey blocks of flat filled Primrose Hill estate, which was considered close enough to the Pershore Road for it’s residents to be a short walk from the 45, but Pool Farm would need it’s own bus service. At the time, it was felt that a full service to City couldn’t be justified, so BCT decided to revive the idea of the feeders of the twenties and thirties.
One man buses were now able to carry more than the twenty passenger limit introduced by the 1930 Road Traffic Act, though were still restricted to single deckers, and BCT had five buses that could be suitably converted. These were five, 1950 vintage Leyland Olympics (2261-2265), originally intended to be part of an order for 35 Leyland PS2 saloons, but altered at the last minute to the underfloor engine specification that was then taking the UK bus industry by storm (and were by then very familiar in Birmingham thanks to Midland Red being an early adopter of the concept.) Replacing the single decker COG5s, the 30 PS2s and five Olympics would basically meet all of BCT’s single deck needs for the next fifteen years, from 1952 operating the solitary single deck route 27, plus one of the Olympics (2261) being decked out for the 1949 introduced service to Birmingham Airport from Snow Hill and New Street railway stations, a service which BCT would withdraw on 1963, this passing to the coach company Flights, with WMPTE in turn taking it over as the 993 in 1975, then being absorbed into the short loved 1976 introduced 900 from Sandon Road-National Exhibition Centre, the extended 58 and rerouted 159 covering the Airport afterwards.
Other work for the saloons was special needs transport and the occasional Private Hire, though these weren’t allowed to cross the city boundary without Midland Red’s permission!
So, not exactly a strenuous workload, therefore it wasn’t too much of a stretch to convert three of the Olympics for one man operation, for use on new route 4, linking Pool Farm (Sisepool Road/Hillmeads Road) with the Outer Circle and the 41 & 45 buses to City at Cotteridge. Operated by Yardley Wood garage, three of the Olympics (2261-2263) were made suitable for one man operation. Soon though, peak extra crew operated Standards were needed to meet demand.
The success of the 4 would soon spawn other feeder routes, contributing to BCT deciding to fit 24 of it’s 1965 Daimler Fleetlines with Marshall 37 seat single decker bodies (3451-3474). These would takeover from the Olympics on the 4, as well as enabling the one manning of the 27 and replacement of the Leyland PS2s & Olympics on the special needs work;
Preserved 3472
It was envisioned that the single deck Fleetlines would replace all of the PS2s, but the popularity of the 4 would lead to BCT adopting the feeder service concept for other newly developing areas, leading to several of the PS2s being rather awkwardly converted for one man operation, with the backs taken out of the cabs, and a swival seat to enable the driver to turn around and collect the fares!
The 20
The number that had been used for the Weoley Castle route back in 1932 was reused from 9th May 1965 for a new single decker Fleetline operated route serving new housing slightly further to the south of Weoley Castle on Shenley Lane, a road then in the process of being converted to dual carriageway as part of a link from Northfield to California, no, not the American version but part of the route of the 12!
Operated by the Selly Oak garage home of the 27, the 20 started from the new council housing at the junction of Shenley Lane with Gregory Road, the 20 ran straight along Shenley Lane to a new turning circle at Northfield, just around the corner from the Bristol Road for onward connections on the 61, 62 & 63 to City. 3rd April 1966 would see the 20 extended from Shenley Lane to Weoley Castle Road.
The 1966 leglisation of one man double decker buses would see the 20 become the first of the new generation of feeder routes to gain double deckers, from 3rd September 1967, with the route being extended to California (Barnes Hill) via the Weoley Castle where the 20 number had previously been established.
BCT would be the largest operator to be absorbed into the West Mildands Passenger Transport Executive (WMPTE) on 1st October 1969, with the garage soon after receiving a large number of the “Jumbo” thirty three foot long dual door Fleetlines that would be it’s sole double decker allocation until they began to be prematurely withdrawn from 1979 onwards. 1976 saw the 20 extended to yet another new council estate, at Woodgate Valley South, supplementing the 1975 introduced 23 to City.
The 35
31st October 1965 would see the 35 commence, running from a new turning circle constructed amongst the private semi detached houses on Brandwood Park Road, then running through an area of new council housing before passing through the earlier council housing of the Pineapple Road area before reaching the Outer Circle, then following this to Kings Heath, serving the All Saints Road terminus also used by inter suburban services 2 & 27, close to connections onto the 48, peak 49 & 50 to town.
Initially operated by single deck Fleetlines from Moseley Road garage, the aforementioned growth in use of these would lead to the 35 being operated by one man converted PS2s 2252 & 2256 from January 1967 until mid 1968. The 35 would become one of two services (the other being the double deck 95 from City-Ladywood) to begin a Birmingham instituttion that continues to this day, that of the passengers having to tender correct fare into a farebox, the route being converted to flat fare, with no tickets issued, to simplify the process. This paved the way for the PTE to introduce the Autofare ticketing system, with fares tendered into the fareboxes still in use by National Express West Midlands, in the early seventies.
Transfering to Yardley Wood upon the first closure of Moseley Road on 5th March 1972 (it would reopen in December 1973 to cover ex Midland Red services that previously operated from Midland Red’s Digbeth garage, closing again in November 1975, after which it became the PTE’s Apprentice Training Centre) the route becoming double decker from this time, initially mainly with Yardley Wood’s allocation of Jumbos, which would also takeover the operation of the 4.
18th May 1975 would see the 35 extended in both directions, running into City from King’s Heath via the 49 route (which by then only ran City-Trafalgar Road, by the former Moseley Road garage, in the off peak, reaching Kings Heath in the peak only) via Leopold Street, and in the other direction was extended to the 4 terminus at Pool Farm. Not sure if this occurred at the same time or not, but the 4 was extended around this time onto a new estate jointly constructed by Birmingham City Council and Bromsgrove District Council at Hawkesley (two further jointly constructed estates would be built at Frankley and Kitwell.)
May 1978 would see the introduction of the Birmingham Cross City railway line from Four Oaks-Longbridge, bringing much more trains to the south side of this line, along with a new entrance to Kings Norton station conveniently opposite the 4 terminus, this building up as a bus/rail interchange, with the 49 to West Heath via Vardon Way (extended to Longbridge at this time) and the 165 Chelmsley Wood-Solihull-Maypole service extending to terminate here at the same time. Also calling here was the long established 18 from Bartley Green-Yardley Wood.
The 4 was transferred to Cotteridge garage, becoming mainly operated by that small garage’s large fleet of 1968/9 vintage dual door Fleetlines that were the last batch of buses to enter service with BCT, and extended at the same time to Northfield via West Heath and most of the 27 route (the road under the bridge at Northfield Station having been lowered since the days of the 23/23A) whilst a route 5 was also introduced, running via the 4 route form Cotteridge-West Heath, then heading to Longbridge, then home of the Austin car factory, the service running mostly in the peak but also taking the evening & Sunday journeys, though November 1980 would see these become 4Es between Cotteridge & West Heath. The 5 would be withdrawn completely in April 1984.
Deregulation from 26th October 1986 would see the 4 replaced by an extension of an increased 27 to Cotteridge.
The 57
The large, multi storey block of flat filled Castle Vale estate was built on the site of the former Castle Bromwich airfield to the east of the city, that airfield being famous for the testing of Spitfires built in what’s now the Jaguar factory nearby.
The first part of the estate to be built would be served by new feeder service 57 from Bond Drive to Ward End (Fox & Goose) via Chester Road & Coleshill Road, for connections with the 56 to City and the Outer Circle, the route beginning on 27th February 1966, operated by single decker Fleetlines based at Washwood Heath garage. 3rd October 1966 would see the route extend further into the new estate, terminating at what would become Castle Vale’s main bus terminus at Reed Square.
However, unlike most of the postwar estates featured here, the sheer size of the Castle Vale development meant that it’s main bus service being a feeder service would be very short lived, with a through service to City being introduced on 5th March 1967, this being the 67, which headed out of the estate in the opposite direction to the 57, reaching City via Tyburn Road & Aston. The 67 is today still the main bus route to Castle Vale.
The 57, meanwhile, would be reduced to run at school times only, the single decker Fleetlines being replaced by crew operated Birmingham Standards, transferring to Lea Hall at some point. WMPTE influence would see the route renumbered 857 in the PTE’s South Division on 1st June 1975 and many years later, in 1998, with the route now running through to King Edwards Boys School, Aston, I would get to drive the route, with a Leyland Lynx, as the service was then interworked with the North Circle 68A/68C services that run around a large swathe of North Birmingham & Sutton Coldfield, including Castle Vale! The route would transfer back to Hockley with the 68A/C in 1999, and disappear when Green Bus took over the King Edwards school services.
The 26
Bromford Bridge was another of the outer suburban multi storey block of flat containing estates, although nowhere near as big as Castle Vale. Built on the site of the former Bromford Racecourse, which BCT for years ran special buses to, the estate mainly ran along the new Hyperion Road which, a few years later, would be hemmed in on the other side by the viaduct of the M6 motorway.
Bormford Bridge would be served by what would turn out to be the last of the sixties feeder services, the 26, which started at a new turning circle at the end of Hyperion Road, then ran it’s full length, linking the estate to the Outer Circle on Bromford Lane, then headed down Drews Lane to Colsehill Road, connecting with the 56, then following that route up past both route’s home garage of Washwood Heath before turning left onto Highfield Road, which took it up to Alum Rock Road, where the route terminated, for connections into the 14 & 55, providing more buses than just the 56 for onward connections to City.
Beginning on 11th September 1967, intially just “busy periods” on Monday-Friday and until evening on Saturdays, the route became a full service from 18th February 1968.
The single decker Fleetlines were rather pushed at that time, including commencing the first one man route into the City Centre on 15th January 1967 when the 46 to Queslett began (see blog “Requiem For The 46) so Leyland Olympics 2263-2265 were intially used on the route, until April 1968, when some single decker Fleetlines were temporarally allocated, before some double deck Fleetlines were converted to one man for the route, these becoming spare to BCT’s final two buses, dual door Fleetlines 3879 & 3880, when they became the regular buses on the 26 for a few years until their transfer to Harborne (mainly for the 2 from Kings Heath-Selly Oak.)
The 26 was extended to City via Saltley & Nechells Middleway on 5th August 1974, the route then having a long innings, though for a period, the off peak service became the 27 (during a spell when the original, single deck 27 had been merged into an extended, fugure six shaped 35) to the Bull Rig Markets, this being the route chosen for the final day of West Midlands Travel Fleetline operation on 1st November 1997.
The route’s final demise came in late 2010, when the estate was served by the 72 (City-Solihull) until April 2017, when Bromford Bridge really gained it’s best bus service ever, with the X12 (Solihull via Chelmsley Wood) & X70 (Chelmsley Wood via Coleshill, later renumbered X13) running non stop from City-Bromford Lane, then running along Hyperion Road until just before the end, leaving the estate via Chipperfield Road (more details in the blog “Another Little Ticking Off Exercise.”)
WMPTE & Beyond!
The Leyland PS2s and Olympics would largely end their lives in 1969, when the 1967 vintage AEC Swift standee single deckers that BCT had bought and allocated to Acocks Green for the 36 (Sparkbrook-Stechford) and their large standing areas hadn’t proved popular with passengers, so were replaced by one man double decker Fleetlines and transferred to Selly Oak for the 27, releasing enough single deck Fleetlines for their intended duties, particularly as routes like the 20 & 26 had been converted to double deckers anyhow. A few PS2s managed to survive to enter the WMPTE era on 1st October 1969. Shortly after this, even more single deck Fleetlines would become avaliable thanks to the double deck conversion of the 46.
Some of the single decker Fleetlines would go on to become more prominant in the city when they replaced the Commer minibuses used on the 1972 introduced Birmingham Centrebus service around the City Centre on 18th November 1974, the service gaining the number 101 at the same time. Another service which would gain them was the 54, a short service linking the various parts of the then growing Queen Elizabeth Hospital with the 21 at it’s centre and the Outer Circle at the Golden Cross, so in many ways, a similar feeder service to what they started on! Intially though, from it’s 18th November 1978 introduction, it used two of the Commers that came from the Centrebus but that December saw these swapped with two single deck Fleetlines used on Special Needs contracts. The 54 would continue until the August 1980 West Birmingham revisions when it was replaced by a rerouted 21 serving more of the hospital complex. The single decker Fleetlines would be gradually withdrawn between 1979 & 1981, with Leyland National 2s taking over the 101.
As can be seen from what I’ve written, the PTE would go on to gradually provide all the estates that had feeder services with through routes to the City, with the 26’s 1974 extension to City and the 1975 extension of the 35 giving both Brandwood & Pool Farm that through City Centre bus service. The last estate to get it’s City link was Shenley Lane, when new service 29 was introduced from the 20’s Northfield turning circle, following that route to Weoley Castle, then replacing the 22 onto City. The 20 would be reduced to peak only operation, with it’s off peak Northfield-Woodgate Valley South link then provided by the new, hourly service 73, which ran between Weoley Castle & Northfield via the previously unserved Swarthmore Road.
Development of new outer suburban estates in Birmingham would slow down considerably in the seventies, with most that were built being provided with through services to City. Exceptions were the aforementioned jointly Birmingham & Bromsgrove built estate at Hawkesley, served by the 1975 extension of the 4. Deregulation would ultimately see Hawkesley get a through bus to City, when Midland Red West made the centrepoint of it’s new West Midlands network new services 83, 84 & 85, providing a combined ten minute service from City-Hawkesley via Bourneville (the Cadbury family built Garden Suburb being another part of the city that hadn’t previously had a direct bus to City, just the Outer Circle and the 27.) These somewhat tightly timed services would have a good innings, but the 1992 extension of the 35 to Hawkesley (something that had apparently been proposed in PTE days but I suspect worries about it affecting the viability of the 4 may have put the kabosh on the idea.) would see the 83/84/85 go into decline, coupled with Midland Red West pulling back on it’s West Midlands comitiments, leading to the routes takeover by Petes Travel and ultimately Travel West Midlands, who would cutback the surviving 84 to terminate at Cotteridge, this ultimately being extended to Queen Elizabeth Hospital and becoming part of the 48 from July 2018. The service through Hawkesley is covered by Stagecoach’s 46 today, supplementing the 35. Arguably, all this still gives Hawkesley a far better bus service than it enjoyed before deregulation!
The similarly jointly built Frankley, although initially receiving a peak & Saturday Limited Stop service 949 to City in 1978, was served the rest of the time by the 149 to Northfield, as well as Midland Red’s 334 from Bromsgrove-Halesowen. This would change in 1979, when the 61 was extended from it’s previous Egghill Lane terminus onto Frankley (Holly Hill) although this served only a small part of the estate, with new service 64 from Northfield and the extended 49 from Cotteridge serving the other parts of the estate. The August 1980 West Birmingham revisions would see the 49 extended to a new part of the estate at Gannow, whilst the 64 was extended to Longbridge via Leach Green Lane and, during the peaks, on via the 49 route to Cotteridge. April 1984 would see the 64 replaced by an extended 49 to Northfield, with a new peak 48 from Frankley-Cotteridge retaining a PTE service along Leach Green Lane (Midland Red’s 334 serving the road at other times.)
Deregulation would see the 61 extended to Gannow, which would have a good innings but now, Gannow is covered by an extension of the 63 on it’s way to Holly Hill terminus, where the 61 also terminates again but following a longer path through the estate, serving all the parts previously served by the 49, although part’s of this are still covered by the 27 (Yardley Wood Garage-Frankley.)
Revisions that eventually took place in July 2018 would see proposals made to cut through services to the city in several areas, this being largely due to increasing traffic congestion leading to greater resources needing to be provided to maintain such services which, in certain cases, it was felt that passenger loadings couldn’t then be justified. Such was the consternation caused by these proposals, such areas retained their through city services. Bangham Pit was one such proposed area, with the demise of the X64 (which replaced the estate’s long established 21 to City in 2010) originally planned to be replaced by a rerouting of the 48 from West Bromwich, whilst the 29 was proposed to be rerouted via Queen Elizabeth Hospital in replacement. These proposals met with passsenger objections, I believe down to the 48 providing a very indirect service to Harborne, which was more important as a shopping centre to the locals than the City Centre was. So the changes to the 29 became the X21 to Woodcock Lane, Bangham Pit instead, retaining the City link to Bangham Pit but the consequences of this were that Shenley Lane would lose it’s service to City, being replaced by a revised 27 (a route that it was originally proposed to be withdrawn in the July 2018 revisions) which was rerouted from Northfield-Harborne via the 29 route. 2020 would see the 27 rerouted yet again, heading to Longbridge (and subsequently extended to Cofton Hackett) and replaced on the former 29 stretch by the extension of the long 76 from Solihull-QE Hospital onto Northfield via Harborne and the former 27 route, this being done to provide double decker capacity during the post lockdown social distancing that needed to be obeyed.
So, Shenley Lane aside, all the estates that I’ve talked about, from both the twenties/thirties feeder services and those which commenced in the sixties, all enjoy through services to Birmingham City Centre, illustrating what a comprehensive bus network that Birmingham still enjoys, and largely showing what, from small acorns, can grow, providing vital bus services to council estates with relatively low car ownership, proving the adage that I’ve often stated in these blogs, that council estates and the bus industry are mutually dependent upon each other!
I’ve not been to the Aston Manor Transport Museum, at Aldridge, for quite a while. In fact, the last blog that I wrote about the place was published in 2019, about their day celebrating West Bromwich Corporation (see blog “West Bromwich Day-Aston Manor Transport Museum”.) Obviously, the pandemic then had an affect but I then visited their Spring Running Day on 2022. Unfortunately, there was very little of real note running upon that day, so I never blogged about it.
All of which is rather a shame, really, as the museum is custodian to an interesting collection of buses, and furthermore, has always tended to struggle somewhat financially, it’s Aston Manor name stemming from it’s original base at the former Witton tram depot, opposite the Aston Villa ground in Birmingham, where a vast increase in the rent by the council (due to economies being made in subsidised museum rents) saw them move to Aldridge, and then having to move the following year to another site in the same industrial estate, off Northgate. Now, the latest edition of “Buses” magazine has reported that the museum’s Landlord wishes to sell the property, with the museum having to look for alternative accomodation from the 30th June, although the falling through of that initial sale may result in a stay of execution but things are far from certain. The museum’s Spring Running Day is scheduled for Sunday 21st April, whilst it’s annual open day will take place on Sunday 23rd June, with events beyond dependent on what happens with the building.
However, one of the things that the museum has been particularly good at is it’s winter Twilight Evenings, where services begin in late afternoon, and continue until after dusk, allowing the opportunity for some after dark photography and wonderfully evocative rides on buses with their lighting aglow in the evening darkness. I’ve visited three of these in the past, and this year, with the relevant Saturday a day off work, my wife Lynn & I decided to pay the museum a long overdue visit.
So we left our West Bromwich house at around 13.00 and caught the next bus to West Bromwich bus station, which was National Express West Midlands (NXWM) Enviro 200 823 on the 44 from Harvills Hawthorn, then instantly catching NXWM Scania Omnilink 1803 on the 4 to Walsall, which took us smoothly to that town’s Bradford Place terminus, from where we walked across to the main bus station, over the road from which is the Hatherton Road unloading stop for the X51 through journeys from Cannock-Birmingham, which acts as the loading place for the museum’s bus service 57 which, on event days, provides a half hourly service linking Town Centre & Museum. The bus on today’s first journey, at 14.20, was Birmingham City Transport’s (BCT) 2222.
BCT 2222
2222 is a 1949 vintage Park Royal bodied Leyland PD2, one of 50 that BCT received alongside 50 all Leyland PD2s, that batch spending their entire lives at Hockley garage, where some of the Park Royal batch were also allocated, but these would become far more associated with the small Rosebery Street garage, just off Spring Hill, which operated Ladywood route 95 and the BCT share of the joint with Midland Red Dudley Road services, numbered with a B prefix, a Midland Red influence designating a Birmingham City Service, even though the reason that they were joint with Midland Red in the first place was because all bar one of the routes (the short B80 to Grove Lane) ran across the city boundary into Smethwick, the corridor having previously being the Birmingham District Tramway’s main line, which Birmingham Corporation took over the operation of in October 1928, the B prefixed bus services replacing these in October 1939.
Rosebery Street and it’s PD2s (other buses there were a batch of around 20 New Look Daimler CVD6s, whose seperate front number blinds would be blank when used on the Dudley Road services, the B8x number being shown on the destination blind instead) would mainly operate the B82 to Bearwood (with Midland Red operating a few journeys on this) and the wholly BCT B83 to Soho, as well as the short working B80 to Grove Lane & B81 to Windmill Lane (Fridays seeing Bearwood-Windmill Lane B81s run to provide duplication for the Windmill Lane market, two buses being required for this duplicate to the B82.) Slightly more rare were appearances on the normally Midland Red B85 out to Spon Lane.
Rosebery Street would close on 30th June 1968, with Midland Red agreeing to the removal of the B prefix from the services at that time. The PD2s would transfer to Hockley (for the 83) and Quinton (for the B82 and the shorts) but their remaining time would be short, only a small number surviving to briefly pass to the West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive (WMPTE) when that organisation tookover BCT, West Bromwich, Walsall & Wolverhampton Corporations on 1st October 1969.
As 2222 had run in service from the museum, it already had quite a few on doing the first round trip of the afternoon, so it was quite full, but Lynn & I found a seat upstairs. Unusually, we took the direct road to Aldridge rather than what the museum numbers the 57, running via Barns Lane. This got us to the museum very quickly;
The 57 normally covers the Park & Ride site by Aldridge community centre, but today, an additional, on demand shuttle was running between car park & museum, operated by former West Midlands Travel Metrorider 685;
Minibuses were a large part of the scene in the mid eighties, with the deregulation of the bus industry bought in by the 1985 Transport Act, from 26th October 1986, seeing this type of operation grow, after the National Bus Company (NBC) had adopted the mode after a 1984 experimental conversion by Devon General in Exeter. Driven by drivers on new contracts with more cost effective (i.e lower) pay and conditions, they were a key in making operation of more marginal bus services more affordable, the lower operating costs enabling a vast increase in frequency in certain cases.
A WMPTE with an eye on adapting to the forthcoming new era would dip it’s toe into minibus operation in 1985, buying a small fleet of Carlyle converted 16 seat Ford Transit minibuses, the same type that NBC used on it’s initial operations. These were used on two new, numberless services branded as Shuttle Bus, running from Old Oscott-Pheasey (Deer’s Leap) and Europa Village-Stone Cross via West Bromwich & Wigmore Farm, these being operated from the PTE’s acquitred coach company Central Coachways garage at Walsall, with both routes serving areas that were unserved by what were quickly becoming termed “big bus” services. Neither of the two Shuttlebus services were registered commercially by West Midlands Travel (WMT), the arms length owned company created by the PTE to takeover it’s bus operations, one of the edicts created by the 1985 Transport Act, but the company would win both on a PTE tender, becoming the 600 and part of the 641/642 circular respectively. The 600 would be replaced in September 1989 by commercial big bus routes 34, 46 & 998, whilst the former Shuttlebus sections of the West Bromwich route remain covered by tendered minibus routes today.
From deregulation, WMT would commercially register four networks of largely high frequency minibus routes, plus route 378/378A to Chuckery & Gillity Village in Walsall, these two being operated by the Central Coachways base with the Ford Transits, with the other networks being based in Sutton Coldfield, using Carlyle boided Sherpas from a reopened Miller Street garage, Solihull with Iveco City Nippers, operated from Acocks Green and Stourbridge & Cradley Heath, operated with Northern Counties bodied Dodges from Hartshill.
Sensing the way that the wind was blowing, Metro Cammell Weyman, who were then WMPTE’s main supplier of buses, with it’s MCW Metrobus, created it’s own minibus design, the Metrorider, with WMT being one of it’s early customers, the first batch coming in early 1987, replacing Miller Street’s unreliable Sherpas, which were quickly sold onwards, as well as being allocated to Acocks Green and the Central Coachways garage (this would close in May 1988, the buses and services transferring to big bus garages at Hocley, West Bromwich & Walsall) for expanded services. Although today not loved by many, the Metrorider would introduce more bus like construction which was more substantial than the earlier van derived designs, with WMT ordering more batches up until 1989, when MCW would go under. Optare would buy the design off MCW’s recievers, but the only batch of these which would then enter WMT’s hands would be some examples purchased by Merry Hill Minis before WMT bought this company out in 1995.
WMT’s minibus network was subject to the typically topsy turvy ups and downs of the early deregulation years, with rises in wage costs contributing to the end of the very frequent services and return of several routes to big bus operation, with the Metroriders largely sweeping away the deregulation bought fleet of minibuses. They would last until the late nineties, when what was by then Travel West Midlands (TWM) would replace them with Plaxton Beaver and Alexander bodied Mercedes Benz, the company having already bought a Carlyle bodied batch of that chassis in 1990.
The museum’s 685 is painted in the green & cream of Metrorider, a Dudley area based independent mainly known for it’s fleet of secondhand Leyland Nationals, that WMT bought in 1993, the operation being used to replace several of the more minor services run from Dudley & Hartshill garages, when they closed in August & October 1993 respectively. This included Hartshill’s remaining minibus services, hence several Metroriders, including 685, gaining Metrowest’s green & cream livery. Other examples appeared in the orange & white of another acquired independent, Your Bus.
Not really my bag, to be honest, but the Metrorider played an important part in the early years of deregulation in the West Midlands, so it’s good that an example has been preserved.
Unfortunatley, 685 had a diesel leak later in the afternoon, so had to be taken out of service.
Lynn & I then went into the museum, paying £6 each, for which we got a programme for the day, which included a timetable of the bus services and a seperate sheet showing what was expected to be on each departure, enabling me to plan my moves for the rest of the day. It also included a brief article about the museum’s current situation, explaining about an appeal and various bids for charity grants to enable the museum to buy it’s building, and how important fund raising is to the museum is at the moment.
We then had a look around the museum;
BMMO S21 5870
We also visited the shop where I helped to raise funds a little bit by buying two second hand books, the story of London Country, originally published in 1984, costing me a fiver, and a book that I first encountered in the Windmill Library in Smethwick, R.J Buckley’s “History Of Tramways From Horse To Rapid Transit” which I found a great read beck then, with much detail about the differeances between the UK style of tram operation (double deckers, basically) continental Eurpoe (short, four wheel cars featuring trailers, then evolving into the articulated trams that are the norm today, including on our new generation of tramways which were just a pipe dream when this book was first published) and the American’s love of large, single deck bogie cars! I was absolutely delighted to get this for just £!, and look forward to rereading it after all these years!
BMMO D9 5370
Now though, time to ride some buses! What I was particualrly glad about today was that operation included an example of each of what I consider to be my two, all time favourite bus types, with me not really relishing the task of having to choose between these two absolute classics, both of which have a story to tell in my bus enthusiast journey!
First up, we have 5370, the museum’s example of the 345 built BMMO D9, the final class of double decker to be built in quantity at Midland Red’s Carlyle Works in Edgbaston, Birmingham, a lightweight, integral bus that was the pinnacle of the development of the half cab, front enigne/rear entrance double decker, the only real rival to this title being that London thing! The Routemaster, is it called?
The two part blog “The BMMO D9 & Me!” tells the story of my relationship with the bus, with my love for the type being cemented in early childhood, running services around my original home town of Smethwick, both with Midland Red themselves, and after 3rd December 1973, when 90 examples transferred to WMPTE with the Midland Red Birmingham & Black Country area services that passed to that organisation on that date.
5370, though, would be a bus that remained with Midland Red. Built in 1964 and allocated to Leicester Sandacre garage, right opposite that city’s St Margarets bus station, from January 1964, and it would remain at this garage for the vast majority of it’s life, running on the busy crew services that were an important contribution to Midland Red’s Leicester city network, until February 1979, just five months before the garage closed on 31st May (though it would return as a Fox Cub minibus garage in 1985, surviving as such until final closure on 24th September 1995) when it was transferred to the other Midland Red Leicester City Centre garage at Southgates, becoming one of the final six D9s in operation, their last day, on cross city services 92 (New Parks-Thurnby Lodge) 93 (New Parks-Scraptoft) and the short 94 from New Parks-City Centre, being New Years Eve 1979.
5370 would pass into preservation in 1980, it’s owner becoming a member of the West Midlands Bus Preservation Society, which would rent Witton Tram Depot in the eighties (with the then Prince Charles celebrating his 40th birthday there in 1988) the museum opening there in 1990. I’ve been on 5370 only once before, at a Witton running day some twenty years ago, where I had a chat with the owner about the white interior that featured, and indeed, still features on the bus, a contrast to the pink interior that everyone remembers the D9s for;
The Black Country museum’s 5342 also features this colour scheme, which apparently, they all featured when new, but the pink interior of the subsequent DD12 class Alexander bodied Daimler Fleetlines that the company bought after the D9 had ceased production caused the company to repaint the D9 interior in the pink colour, presumably to hide the nicotine stains upstairs. Mind you, there are those that claim that the later, 1965 & 1966 built D9s featured the pink from new but, as someone who wasn’t born until not long after the last few D9s had entered service, these having been finished by Willowbrook, such was the labour shortage then being experianced at Carlyle Works, thanks largely to the then bouyant car industry in the Birmingham area, which ultimately, was one of the reasons why bus building at Carlyle Works would cease entirely in 1970.
On this trip, 5370 was doing a 53E Barr Beacon Circular, just running out to the hill that overlooks the north of Birmingham, then returning to the museum, a nice little trip to enjoy the wonderful noise of a BMMO engine, though some of those who were more engineeringly minded than I reckoned that it was a little too noisy (last year, the bus brokedown on it’s first passenger run in many years!) but, ohhhh, what an absolute beauty!
WMT 7000
So, from a bus that made a great impression in my early years, to one which was very much part of my growing up and became my chief object of desire during my misspent adolescence!
Of the constituents of WMPTE (which would include Coventry from 1st April 1974, after the Midland Red services had been taken over) only one, Wolverhampton, didn’t feature any of the Coventry built rival to Leyland’s rear engine Atlantean, the Daimler Fleetline and even Wolverhampton would have 25 on order at the time of the PTE takeover, the PTE soon making arrangements for these to feature the same specification as the 99 “Jumbo” Fleetlines that BCT also had on order (should have been 100 but one went to Johannesburg instead!)
Therefore, it was no surprise that the PTE would standardise on the marque for the majority of it’s future double decker requirements (exceptions only coming because of now Leyland owned Daimler being unable to meet all the PTE’s needs in the problem strewn seventies) with a standard body design of it’s own being introduced in 1971, built by BCT’s regular bodybuilders Metro Cammell and Park Royal.
Heavily based on the styling of those Birmingham and Wolverhampton Jumbos but reverting to a single entrance and thirty foot length, the PTE standard Fleetline would soon begin it’s domination of the fleet, gradually replacing the varied fleet that the PTE had acquired and spreading one man operation throughout the system.
The final Fleetlines would be delivered to the PTE in 1979, after which, the PTE would switch to Metro Cammell’s locally built Metrobus (Fleetline production coming to an end in 1980 anyhow), with the late delivery of Park Royal’s final batch meaning that Acocks Green allocated 6690 would be the last example to enter service.
The last example numerically, however, was now preserved in it’s final TWM livery 7000;
Today was a homecoming for 7000 for two reasons. Not only was it Aston Manor who initially preserved the bus, being handed ceremonially to the museum by then TWM Managing Director David Leeder on the official last day of Fleetline operation, Saturday 1st November 1997, at Washwood Heath garage, immediately after 7000 had performed the final trip on a Fleetline themed running day on route 27 (then City Markets-Bromford Bridge) , the bus then eventually passing to it’s current Wythall Transport Museum owners who had the resources to restore it to it’s current, superb condition but 7000 originally entered service at Walsall garage, in early 1979.
The bus would only stay at Walsall for around a year, though, as Fleetlines began to leave that garage to a diet of Metrobuses and Bristol VRs (the PTE purchasing 200 Metro Cammell bodied examples of these at the height of the Fleetline famine, being allocated to Walsall and the Wolverhampton garages) which, joined by 35 ex Oldbury Volvo Ailsas (other buses bought to substitute for inadequate supplies of Fleetlines) would make up the Walsall double decker fleet until deregulation.
7000 would go to Oldbury, where I’d get to know her fairly well on visits to my Smethwick living Grandparents, when I lived in Telford, moving in with them in 1985, though by this time, from January of that year, 7000 had moved to Dudley, with Oldbury’s last Fleetlines being replaced by Leyland National 2s from the closed Stourbridge garage. I would spend a lot of time in this area riding Fleetlines (including by then, rare elsewhere Sunday workings) so would continue to encounter 7000 regularly, including on former Oldbury route 87 (Birmingham-Dudley) on the morning after the latter garage’s closure in January 1986.
1989 would see Dudley lose all but a small number of Fleetlines to the final batch of new Metrobuses, plus new Leyland Lynx single deckers, with 7000 then moving to Perry Barr, where it spent it’s remaining service years operating mostly Monday-Friday (a heavy peak requirement meant that Saturday workings could be all Metrobus at that garage by then) though it would have an occasional loan to nearby Hockley, where, one Friday in June 1995, I would ride it on the 87 for the final time (Dudley having closed by then.)
January 1997 would see Perry Barr’s Fleetlines stand down in favour of new low floor Volvo B10Ls for Showcase service 33, with 7000 being then placed in the reserve fleet until that final day at Washwood Heath on 1st November 1997.
Returning to the road, at Wythall in 2021, fully restored into it’s final, blue roof livery that I’ve always thought looked smart and suited the Fleetlines particularly well, I always look forward to a ride on this, or indeed, any of the other preserved PTE standard Fleetlines about to take me back to those youthful days of spending so much time in interiors like this;
So we headed into Walsall via the official 57 route along Barns Lane, where 7000 may well have run in it’s early days at Walsall, on what then would have the 357 & 358, renumbered in 1980 the 157 & 158 from Birmingham-Walsall & Bloxwich respectively. Deregulation would see the 158 become peak only (and transferring to Perry Barr in 1993), with 1990 seeing the 157 renumbered 997 and transferred to Perry Barr, although mostly operated by Metrobuses by then, the odd Fleetline did appear, so it’s possible that 7000 may have put in an appearance then. Subsequently returned to Walsall in 2000, the 997 would be rerouted away from Barns Lane, via Daws End Road in 2009.
At Rushall, we followed the Lichfield Road into Walsall, where I got off for a quick photo, seeing that 997 had been put on the blinds!
We then headed back to the museum, making a quick loo stop before getting the 18.00 back to Walsall, operated by 5370!
This time, we sat at the front downstairs, listening to the full sound effects of that BMMO engine, chatting to my friend Ross, who’s involved with the restoration of the D9 prototype 4773, along with two guys called Robin and David, enjoying the atmospheric, lit up interior;
So, it was back along Barns Lane and Lichfield Road to Walsall:
We then headed to McDonald’s for tea before making our way to Bradford Place for a five minute wait for NXWM Scania Omnilink 1849 on a 4M to Merry Hill, catching this back to West Bromwich, then catching Wright Gemini bodied Volvo B7 4485 on the 47 home.
We’d had a nice, if cold afternoon riding on three distinct vintage buses, all of which had connections with my past! 2222 represented the Smethwick area around the time I came into the World, operating from a Rosebery Street garage that I would love to have known, whilst 5370 represents what would become my favourite type of bus from my early childhood. 7000, meanwhile, is an example of a type of bus that would enter service within that childhood, becoming the elder statesmen of the fleet during my teenage years, featuring heavily in my discovery and bashing of the West Midlands bus network.
All this personal nostalgia from a museum that is sadly struggling, so hopefully, our visit this afternoon had helped raise just a little of the money needed for the museum to survive!
Tram, Train & Buscapades! 