Messages

@arrifirststage No one has stopped you posting about any wider UK subject, it is the repetitive public 'complaining and moaning' posts about the forum content, what younger members post and being told to clear off. You singling out what the younger members post is likely to result in response and a another potential argument. Those types of comments are unhelpful, not required & of no interest to the rest of us! If you don't like the forum content, don't read it! Simple!!

If you post informative stuff, you will not hear from me, if you continue to post your opinions on forum content, they will now just be deleted,  Winston

Unfortunately,Winston, we seem unable to agree on this,I still regard your views as rather dictatorial,whilst you doubtless regard me as a pain in the wotsit.
Hopefully we are mature enough not to descend to a personal level and I appreciate your honest reply,
I will of course respect your request not to post comments on forum content,though I do think some of it is rather juvenile,
Thank you again for being frank and honest,
Best wishes,Roy

Definitely not!  Any informative posts on anything welcome. The history of the site is I originally set up a fotopic site for photographs to match stuff being posted on the West Midlands Buses yahoo group, the name being just West Midlands Buses Photographs. Fotopic originally had a facility for comments under each photograph as well. When fotopic closed I transferred as many onto a website I had set up as possible. This is when the 'in' sneaked into the name. I soon got asked for the comment facility, had no idea how to set one up, so started the forum instead. As you can tell by the photos on the Website I have an interest in all buses & trains so have no problem with informative posts about anywhere in the country. The name of the website/forum just stems from the history of starting it

Thank you Tony for allowing a much wider interest to be discussed instead of the very restricted and parochial views so far shown.
Like I say,I have no objection to the younger enthusiasts discussing what they deem interesting,but now,thank God,us who have wider interests can now talk about them without being told to clear off if we do not agree with a format dictated by youngsters whose views,understandably perhaps,are narrower than ours.
Again,thanks Tony.

I got shot down the last time I mentioned this operator in any detail.

Certainly don't want to shoot anybody down......thank God there are members out there who take an interest in other operators and post something other than the absolute minutiae of NX.
I realise that the forum is West Midlands based,but I sometimes wonder if the whole forum could not be split into two,with one half (probably the largest) being for the purely NX enthusiasts,seemingly aged between 10-17 who really have no interest in buses other than number and trivia spotting,and members who are interested in transport operators ,history and organisation of routes and services.
No doubt my reward for this post will be "if you don't like it,then clear off and don't read it" but of course this only suffocates discussion and possible progress.

@arrifirststage  We're already aware how you feel about the forum content, I don't understand why you feel the need to keep posting the same thing time and time again. As you say, it is a WM Bus based forum, NX are the main operator in the area, so...... Winston

I honestly feel it's the beginning of the end of Diamond in Birmingham. With Long Acre closing and the loss of the 56, it does seem they are running out of options. They will probably expand in the North West though.

Diamond are presently giving the usual impression of a small operator eventually over-reaching themselves.........been coming for some time.
Whilst I would not even  presume to criticise or offer advice to the Company,I. can say that personally I would pull out of the Birmingham market altogether,including the multitude of tenders,and concentrate on Dudley,Stourbridge,Kidderminster and Redditch (the latter particularly needs a hell of a lot of work) and possibly do a lot less dabbling in the tendered market in Wolverhampton as well.
But hey...what do I know,but I certainly wish the Company well........pity no operator can presently get near to NX.......How about another try Uncle Brian?

Only First could make a mess up like that with a single depot city  ::)

I would prefer to describe it as being flexible and reacting quickly to circumstances.............if I find I have made an error then I change my mind,what would you do?

See

http://brownhillsbob.com/2015/10/06/56-bus-service-travel-west-midlands-to-fill-the-gap/

Certainly not meant as a criticism,but what is the difference between a 9xx route and an Xxx route?
Given the proposed future changes to the 9xx Streetly group,would it not be more logical and consistent to renumber the routes as X34/X35/X36/X37 etc as with the X51 especially given the mythical public aversion to the use of three digit numbers.
The 900/957 would become the X1/X2 and the X96 would also fit in easily.
Can someone otherwise explain the (if any) subtle difference between the X and the 9 series.

I echo this statement.

I know people who have told me to ditch my habitual habit of catching buses and instead focus on car driving. I admit whole heartily their are some circumstances  which a car is better (i.e shopping, going with family) but for going to work or just commuting, I have to choose the bus as the ideal transport, their are many dedicated lanes which helps speed the journey. The cost only includes purchasing a pass which usually allows unlimited journeys within the timelimit. I can't even begin to go into the cost of a car and all those "extra costs" !

I agree with your comments but.........of you do have a car,then the fixed costs are there whether you use it or not.
Your true bus travel cost is not just the fare but also the fixed car costs for the time you are travelling,even though the car may only be decorating your driveway at home.
I have been a bus enthusiast for over 70 years,but now regard buses as very much a second choice,Mostly for anti-social behaviour by many passengers and not any fault of the operators at all.

Yes here we go again Andy there was no need to relocate the two sapphire buses from Cannock to Tamworth, the 1 is probably more busier than the 110 will ever be, but for some reason somebody in arriva things that Tamworth is the cat's b.....k,s when in reality its no better than anywhere else & sure doesn't warrant the amount of money they spend on new buses.  arriva are starting to get some competition in the Stafford, Cannock area which I thing is good .

Please,please tell us your qualification for making absurd remarks about route loadings...........s
Tell us the days,times and duration of your studies,and what other routes and times were involved.
Have you had any actual experience of transport operation?
Have you had secret access to the finances at Tamworth or Cannock............thought not.
Until you do,then your opinion is based on biased guesswork.
PLEASE REMEMBER most posters to this forum are interested enthusiasts,they should act as such,not presume to know better than the professionals.

Oh sorry. I have autism so alot of the time I take things literal. To be fair I didn't know the full time. I used to get there on 68 in just under an hour but didn't realise how much h of a slow ball ache it was going round them estates in wolves and the the Wyrley cheslyn hay bit. It would now put people off who used to go end to end

I am sorry Bob,I didn't realise.....please accept my apology,I certainly would never try to be deliberately hurtful.

Giving everyone a choice? What f#####g planet are you on? Until the 154 you didn't have one unless you wanted to get a three times daily 67! Also pre privatisation we had a choice of wmpte midland red public sector and wars tones private sector. Under privatisation the eventual result ( as the rotting in hell Mrs Thatcher intended ) is one company having a virtual monopoly.  Choice.....hilarious

Sorry Bob,did you not realise the latter part of my post was tongue in cheek.....intended to provoke the very sort of rant it achieved.Try to calm down and not take things so seriously.
However,you have still not answered the original question which I and another poster asked.

Slightly slower??? It took an hour and ten minutes to get to Longford estate!  There was a couple sat next to me said they'd never use it again. The bus had about 10 passengers for the whole journey in total. People did use the 68 end to end as I said. Looks like arriva have handed cheslyn hay to wolves passengers to NX on a plate. Besides it's not just the 71 they've ruined the Walsall routes as well. And like four buses an hour to Lichfield is gonna be commercially viable in the long run.  Have you not seen the Facebook page loads of people are p####d off to the max about how they've screwed up the network. Oh well. I can see interesting things occurring in the next few months

Bob,what I don't really understand is why you are complaining.If you knew,as you surely did before you used it,how long the journey time was,how can you criticise when the bus takes that long?
Could you just not have chosen another route to Cannock,there are surely enough of them?
If I want to go from Birmingham to Walsall and choose a 935 how can I complain at how long it takes,it is my own fault for not going on the 51/X51.
Or could it be the wicked Conservative Government's fault for introducing privatisation in the first place,thus giving everyone a choice............

the best modification for streetlites is scrap them

Yet another enthusiast expert......how is it that you are more capable than the chief engineers of Arriva and Firstgroup...what exactly are your qualifications for making such an absurd assertion?

2109, 2114, 2125 now transferred to Milton Keynes.

Is this an early sign of merger of Midlands and The Shires,or just another routine transfer......and will vehicles be numbered into a common series?

I did wonder if the recent introduction of NXWM's Platinum 936 may have caused a drop in passenger numbers, but it seems a little premature to give in for such an established Diamond service

I agree the 56 is not a bad route,but given the 936 going Platinum would you run such a route from Tividale unless it was exceptional.
Wouldn't surprise me if the 16 wasn't next and even the 50 cannot be sacrosanct,though at least it is accessible from Redditch.

No, although I was planning to catch the class 150 from bhm to Hereford, then 420, then bus or train back

@Reece will the 420 still run?

YES,but run by DRM COACHES, not First as I already told you in the last post.