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True. Cant see what they could do with the 70 or 71 though without making em over long.

The thing is, the 70 & 71 are already off-putting for passengers wanting to do the end-to-end route by taking in various estates. Whenever the direct Wolves-Walsall train starts I fully imagine that'll take even more custom away from those routes

Interesting to see that Diamond have made some improvements to their 250 in Oxfordshire (my neck of the woods), with extra peak and new Sunday short journeys between Heyford and Bicester. It's a route that never really saw much investment under COMS/Thames Travel and honestly wasn't expecting Diamond do do anything other than just run it as is, so kudos to them (presume it's funded by the developments in Heyford)

Side note - worth renaming this thread to "Diamond - South East"?

A day on Chaserider buses:

• all buses ran, on time, and all buses passed going the other way at the expected times
• all seats looked as reasonable as every other bus company I've used, and none of them smelled particularly worse than the bus itself (yes I smelled them) (maybe the populous of Cannock need a wash?)
• none of the buses seemed clapped out, maybe some during the day were being driven a bit hard but different drivers etc. *maybe* one of the Solos I had sounded a bit nackered but tbf it had just blasted along the A5 to Telford by that point so I dunno
• agreed the use of solos on interurban work is hilarious, but tbh if no one uses the services then it makes sense, I was the only person on the bus quite a lot today. Not overly convinced that full length single decks are needed on a 15 min frequency on the Pye Greens but meh whatever
• spoke to some people during the day and some seemed happier now it isn't Arriva, although for the most they couldn't care its just a bus

So yeah. Perspective.

May be of interest to some on here.

On Sunday the 16th of January Banbury will be running a farewell tour with Dart 34472 (hopefully!) to mark their retirement. We will be leaving from Banbury Bus Station at 10am and will be running 59A to Oxford, X4 to Abingdon, 32 to Wantage, X30 back to Oxford then 59B to Banbury. All proceeds will be going to Katharine House Hospice.

Where can we see the spare scanias go that would have been on the 96?

[wishful thinking]
They *could* use the spare drivers and Omnilinks to give a much needed increased frequency on the 28....
[/wishful thinking]

Assuming they're not sending them out on the weekend?

WA 77 is confirmed to run Streetly (Hardwick Arms) - Sutton coldfield every 30 minutes with 77A journeys continuing to Walsall mornings and early evenings and all day Sundays.

Walsall - Sutton end to end travel must have dropped drastically over the years then, old 366 and 377 used to be quite busy now just the 6 half hourly

Very interesting.

I wonder whether bus companies own staff buses come into this? I know NXWM have some arrangements based on a more door-to-door service for times when service buses aren't running, but down here in Oxfordshire there is the 11X between a few city centre stops in Oxford and the Cowley BMW factory (the stop name, but a convenient stop for Oxford Bus Company depot) as a frequent public registered service.

1349 is with a private owner who owns about 4 other ex WMT vehicles.  It is up to him if he makes his ownership public

Thanks Tony, was just curious because I feared they'd all been scrapped

Anyone know anything about Volvo B10B 1349? Marked on the main site as having been sold for preservation earlier this year just wondering who/where etc?

There's a couple of bus companies not tracking at the moment:

7/11/21 11:25. It seems our ticket machine supplier is doing some kind of change to their system and so our buses aren't tracking on the app or bustimes.org (along with other operators who use the same system). Our buses are out there!

Do Johnson's sell like an all day ticket for their own network including X20?

In fact, yes they do!  It is £11 adult, and is valid on all Johnsons bus services.  I last bought one in August - I find it's best to ask the driver for an "£11 day ticket"....

Can confirm, yes they do, bought one yesterday. Driver took a minute to find it on the ticket machine but he was vaguely aware something like it existed. Still £11

Shame that the deckers don't seem to be used on the X20 or Banbury services that much. Seems they are dominant on the P&R and 2 service. I know a decker comes off p&R at end of day and runs an x20 service. Also seems they are good at allocating the exact same vehicle to the exact same board every day

Deckers regularly down here in Banbury. One does the school 76X (former X7) service most days, which are the only really busy journeys

Do we know why there's been no tracking information for Green Bus on bustimes.org? It's been like this for at least the last week or so.

There's been sporadic times during the last week where Stagecoach Oxfordshire's fleet has disappeared from tracking as well, so Green Bus might be having similar problems?

Do Johnson's sell like an all day ticket for their own network including X20?

They used to, bought one about 3 years ago when I came down to Banbury the slow way on the bus to view places to move to. Messaged Johnsons on Facebook at the time to ask about it because I saw mention of it on the website, and they confirmed it existed. The driver on the day selling it took ages to find it and none of the other drivers I showed it to had heard of it.

Can't find mention of it anymore so I guess they quietly discontinued, but they do a "Warwickshire" day ticket still. Worth asking them direct.