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They currently don't run any stage carriage work

Was this company Johnson's as I heard a rumour about them taking over Alcester schools services. May not be accurate of course though!

Had some rides on the exmoor open top coaster service from Minehead to Lynmouth on A39. First Bus 36082 SN57 DCE in use and it really has to work hard. Excellent professional staff. How long these buses will last before they wear out?

The route involves a 1 in 4 incline and descent on hairpin bends - bus leans over at a scary angle, narrow roads and then across the top of gale force exmoor. In places you are on the edge of a cliff with no barrier and a massive drop down to the sea. Runs till end of October and has to be the best open top ride in the SW if not all the country?

Question - is there anything similar in the West Mids that compares?

Got to experience the Exmoor Coaster service this week but going from Ilfracombe to Lynmouth. 

What a fantastic open top journey it is but you are right about the punishment the buses must take. The hill out of Lynmouth is 1:4 and going uphill I have no idea how the bus made it in first gear most of the way. The buses I caught were a 59 plate Gemini and ex London 09 plate E400. There seemed quite a mix though as there was also a Scania decker parked up at Lynmouth.

The bus was full on both trips both upstairs and down so I'm guessing the route must be a decent earner for First but it must see off a fair few vehicles over the years.

Haven't had time to post completely forgot but the driver got off his bus fitted the mirror back on the bus and carried on with its 69E to wood end astonished me that he carried on I mean the mirror completely fell off I would've thought this shouldn't have happened and driver should of not moved

A number of vehicle types have mirrors that just slot on so as long as the mirror wasn't broken there is no issue. Likewise, as long as the mirror didn't hit a pedestrian or cause damage to another vehicle or property, there is no need to stop as that would have inconvenienced passengers for no reason. 

Everyone makes mistakes and I'm sure this driver will take extra care in future but they acted in the right way after this.

OK, but can anyone come up with a better measurement of "bus routes in decline" than comparing mileage?

Perhaps something like a ratio of passenger numbers to service miles covered in each area - this would give a much better indication of the health of bus travel in different areas (within smaller areas in conurbations as well as a general overview - like comparing Dudley with Coventry for example)and would also be fairly simple to compare between different years (obviously 2023 would have to be the starting point though unless this information is available for other years).

Only the small matter of the fact that the NX Bristol Road services are less frequent now too!

I think the difference may be every 6 mins rather than previously every 5 mins circa 2010 - also the buses have more running time now than they did then so the actual service difference is minimal.

I believe around that time the 61 was every 10 mins and the 62 and 63 were every 10-15 minutes with additional journeys in the peaks - obviously pre-2005 when the Rover was still there this would have been much higher in peak work times. However, overall there really hasn't been much change to the frequencies, the 63 if anything is better now than it was in the past.

The mileage reduction is also likely negatively influenced by the higher number of rural routes cut as they often involved routes running over longer distances.

Take the former 144 to Birmingham - curtailing the route to Catshill (alongside the reduction in evening services) lost a considerable amount of milage in just this one instance / your talking 20 miles lost per former journey. 

The 146 Brum to Redditch was lost, the 150 Brum to Redditch was cut, the X20 was changed to not go to Brum - these all involved significant milage losses yet don't really give an accurate picture. Take the 144 for example - in 2010 it ran on a 20 min day time frequency between Worcester and Brum. 

Now that link is lost yet if you take the 63 route that operates along the same route from Rubery to Brum - very little has changed on that route in terms of frequency since 2010. Just looking at the 144 cut would make people think there's a significant issue yet put it in context in the bigger picture, actually very little has changed on that route corridor. 

I couldn't find a relevant thread for this topic so if there is one just merge this into the respective topic. Saw on the news yesterday that bus routes in the UK have halved since 2011, from 17,384 to 8,781 while the Conservatives have been in power, with the West Midlands being the worst hit with over 2/3 of routes being cut. Almost 2,000 routes were cut in 2021/22 alone, which emphasises how much COVID has hit the bus industry along with multiple other factors. It's going to be very hard to turn this around and shows just how low of a priority the bus industry and public transportation in general is to this government.

Whilst it is shocking on the face of it, there are certainly a number of factors at play here. Pre-COVID the decline was significantly lower (albeit still declining) and without COVID the number of route cuts would be far lower. Taking away 15-20% of passengers has caused this sudden massive decline.

However, we are where we are. Ultimately, bus travel has never been better in many ways in terms of accessibility for all, comfort, use of onboard technologies like WiFi, up to date service trackers to check real time info. Compare that to what was offered 20 years ago when clapped out Leyland Nationals, amongst others, were still in service providing a very substandard service in terms of passenger comfort.

It is sadly ironic that the offering that bus companies have for passengers today is generally very good but there are just less passengers willing to use services to make use of them. We need a real pro-bus push from central government (whichever party is in as Labour didn't exactly do much in the early 2000s either apart from in London) to promote what a cost effective transport method bus travel is. Maybe then there will be hope for the future.

Disappointing that the 12:08 76 instead of doing full route only went to yardley wood - then went down to depot rather than continuing to Solihull. Don't tell me there's still a shortage of drivers with the wacky wages offered

Could have been for any reason, not just driver shortage. Were you on the bus? If so why didn't you ask the driver? If not, why are you even asking this question?

Passenger could have thrown up on the bus making it a health hazard to continue. Could have been a semi- urgent vehicle fault that didn't warrant a full breakdown but needed returning to the garage.  Lots of reasons for going out of service crop up occasionally but yes let's jump straight to the criticism first.

Can't see this bringing a six figure turnover increase to the 20 that it would need to sustain extra PVR!

Perhaps but with adjustments to the 23/24 routes running along the same stretch of road possibly a bus could be saved off those routes and put on the 20 instead.

The fact is there are a good number of potential Bromsgrove to Birmingham passengers - I drove the 144 many times and pre-covid the route was very popular. A little bit of imagination could tap into this again, the train station in Bromsgrove is very badly situated for half the town so the bus is a viable alternative.

The seats on the First spec Streetlites of that era (https://flic.kr/p/RYGvHq) are the same as Diamonds standard specification on new vehicles, so they shouldn't be any different to Streetlites that Diamond's passengers are already accustomed to, other than having a pink grab handles inside.

I can't see there being any modifications though. At most, maybe First have remapped the Gearbox to behave in a more smooth manner (as certain Arriva ops have done).

Knowing First they probably retuned the engines to make them more sluggish to increase fuel economy. However, I'm guessing if they were rental vehicles there may have been restrictions on what the company could do with the vehicles in terms of making significant changes.

Not sure how this would replace any of the 'much missed' 21 or provide any further useful links!

From QE run via Harborne Lane up to Fiveways then into town. There is no direct bus now along Harborne Lane to the QE/Selly Oak/Longbridge - plenty of useful links there.

I disagree with E200s being far better from a drivers point of view.

Bar the gearbox, I find early Streetlites better than E200s to drive. The cab is slightly bigger on Streetlites legroom wise and at higher speed, when you eventually get there, are far more stable compared to every single E200 I've driven. E200s have always had rubbish steering.

ERZ2028 / GN14LPL when performing as they should were better to drive than the ex Central Buses E200s when they first arrived at Diamond IMO.

The MMCs though are in a different league when coupled with the Allison gearbox.

Passenger point of view wise; yes I agree that E200s rattle less. It was usually the Emergency Exit rattling on Streetlites that was an issue.

I'm not sure which generation of Streetlite Midi you drove, but the Micro Hybrid versions from around 2015 did have a slightly better turning circle.

We had a 64 plate batch of Midi Streetlites then 65 plate full size, along with a few StreetDecks. It's good to hear later vehicles were better but I'm guessing these 13 plate ones still have some of the flaws mentioned. Hopefully they have had adaptations made to them though so they are better than they were.

Would they extend it back to Birmingham via the other Harborne routes?

Perhaps it could extend to Birmingham from the QE via the old 21 route through Harborne. Would provide further useful links as the 21 is certainly a much missed service.

What were the issues with these vehicles when new; from both a passenger and drivers point of view?

After about 6 months of usage the rattles started, they were sluggish pulling off from junctions (like Streetdecks), poor turning circles for the size of the bus, even the MIDI version, and passengers often complained about the seats being cramped and very uncomfortable (obviously other operators may have chosen better seating on their vehicles but the First ones weren't great), the vibrations when stopped with the handbrake on and poor heating.

I know the engineers like them as they were fairly easy to maintain and had decent fuel economy but I can't see these vehicles really improving the passenger experience over what Diamond already operate.

E200s are far better.

Rotala have acquired a further 10 ex First Streetlites via Ensign that are being returned off lease, they will be for Diamond WM (Depot TBC):

32284	SM13NDJ
32285	SM13NEO
32286	SM13NEU
32287	SK63KGO
32288	SK63KGP
32289	SK63KGU
32290	SK63KGY
32291	SK63KGZ
32292	SK63KHA
32293	SK63KHB

A number are still currently in service at First South Yorkshire

I hope these buses have had some improvements made to them since they were new - they were awful to drive and I feel very sorry for passengers having to use them if they haven't had adaptations made. 

Centros, B7s and Darts are far superior but obviously not Eiro 6 sadly.