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The first of Stagecoach's new Volvo 9700 DD's has entered service tonight, with 50502 operating an overnight M11 from Glasgow to London. It'll be the 10:20 departure from Birmingham tomorrow morning back up to Glasgow, if anyone's interested.

Prospect have taken delivery of two brand-new Scania K410C coaches with Higer Touring bodywork, with a third on the way, branded for their Megabus operations. The two that have entered service are PR73 EMA, carrying the name Philebus Fogg, and PR73 KNG, carrying the name King Toot-ankhamun.

In addition, they took delivery of three similar second-hand examples earlier in the year.

https://twitter.com/ScaniaUK/status/1684126472553005056

<cite><a href="https://wmbusphotos.com/forum/index.php?msg=313556">Quote from: 4369Beast</a> on 01/06/2023, 20:56:02</cite><br>YW 1912 was involved in a minor RTC with a Megabus coach yesterday. <br><br>

YW 1912 was involved in a minor RTC with a Megabus coach yesterday.

North Bristol based 54283, ended up getting towed all the way home down the M5!

It looks like Parks are operating the M17 Glasgow - Southampton, I believe one of their new Volvo 9700s is operating it today, although the return trip bypasses Birmingham.

Rotala have on order 3 x Custom Denning 10.2m single decker electric buses from Australia, they have been ordered for the Bedfont Lakes contract & will be allocated to Stanwell Depot. They should be 24 seaters & will be numbered 39001-3 (due Feb 2024 onwards)

Interesting development, ableit one I predicted a few years ago when the model was unveiled, and did a quick mock up of!

There's further timetable changes coming soon, including the return of overnight services between Birmingham and Glasgow, with the introduction of new Glasgow to Cardiff and Glasgow to Southampton services.

One service leaves Glasgow at 23:00, arriving into Birmingham for 05:35, before continuing to Southampton. The return northbound trip bypasses Birmingham.

Another service leaves Glasgow at 10:00, bypassing Birmingham, arriving into Cardiff at 19:10. It then returns north, departing Cardiff at 20:45, Birmingham at 23:50, and then arriving into Glasgow at 06:50.

I'd imagine they'll come in pretty handy for folks wanting to visit Scotland, if you can manage to sleep on overnight coaches then a (very long) day out to Glasgow is now doable!

(Also, if there's any forum staff available, could this thread be moved to the Other Operators section please?)

As mentioned before, I used to catch that route a few years ago & had many issues with it.

I feel your pain.

It seemed to have improved a lot over recent years, until recently with what I presume is a shortage of drivers at WA causing trips to be missed.

I don't think the extension to Merry Hill that replaced part of the WN81 is doing it any favours, either, especially when there's heavy traffic at Merry Hill.

I've taken to walking a few minutes further and getting the WN82 up to Loxdale to connect with the Metro, as it seems a lot more reliable as of late.

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/black-country/bus-driver-shortage-leaving-fed-25236060

Not good is it?

For what it's worth, two buses (one 11 and one 11A) didn't turn up on my way home on Friday night. It's not great waiting for over an hour in the cold!

Yes it is having problems, only tracking around 50% of the time with poor GPS location, so I have reported it, but when I just checked it was on the 2030 journey, just on the railway line, not Wednesbury Road!

Yeah, it did eventually appear on the 2030 off Walsall, but with both the location and the timings being wrong.

2140 is having issues with it's tracking this evening on WA11A. It wasn't tracking at all until a minute ago, and is now showing as around an hour late, leaving Walsall at 21:32, on the 20:30 off Bradford Place... yet it's not even 21:00 yet.

809 not tracking on WA11A this evening.

As of today, the retail, marketing and customer service side of Megabus is under Scottish CityLink Coaches Ltd/Comfort DelGro, after the previously announced sale. The drivers, vehicles etc are still under Stagecoach however, and there's no real changes as far as the general public are concerned.

All of them will be getting drive cams fitted before entering service I believe.

Drive cam is a separate thing, it's an event recorder that saves video evidence in certain circumstances.

No, someone has to put a USB stick in. But further to my comments I hadn't realized the last 37 on the evening tender terminated at Darlaston, so both Willenhall and 37E Darlaston were already on all blinds

I'm not sure if Hanover offer something similar, but Mobitec do offer new controllers that can be updated wirelessly when they're at depots. I know Diamond have started upgrading to them on some of the newer vehicles. It may be worth looking into for NX, as the initial investment would likely be offset by the time saved overall.

Dominic Booth and other management have brought Abellio out and established the Transport UK Group. Deal should be completed by the end of the year.

Don't know if Andy Street will try his luck to gain WMR from the new group.

If my memory serves me right, WMR should be split off from the West Midlands Trains 'franchise' once it expires, with the WMCA having the power over the 'franchise', rather than the DfT.