Any new investment for Diamond

[Isle of Stroma]

Blue Diamond just ignore you

I wouldn't be so sure of that if i were you....

I would.

I tried to get their 37 at least 5 times in the bus stop and they ignored me. They assume that OAP's only want to use their service along the way. That's a fact.

I took Liberator9's comment as inferring that Blue Diamonds customer services weren't interested in genuine complaints, which is why i corrected him.

I tried to get their 37 at least 5 times in the bus stop and they ignored me.

Hmmm, they're more intelligent than i thought  ;)

[Isle of Stroma]

Rob. nice one to hang out there.. :-\...but if in the great scheme of things would you open a new operating centre in miller st etc?

I would imagine the Miller St oc is considerably cheaper than the Garrison Street premises. Added to this, the Miller St yard is better suited size wise.

[TinnedPeaches]

You mention the big boys taking over Blue Diamond services, Arriva, Stagecoach etc. What about de courcey?

I'm PRETTY sure Rob meant something along the lines of "why is no one mentioning deCourcey?" in the Blue Diamond takeover chat, not that they may be taken over.

[winston]

You mention the big boys taking over Blue Diamond services, Arriva, Stagecoach etc. What about de courcey?

I'm PRETTY sure Rob meant something along the lines of "why is no one mentioning deCourcey?" in the Blue Diamond takeover chat, not that they may be taken over.

It may be that the Travel De Courcey business appears to be going form strength to strength and growing. Where as the Diamond business is shrinking year on year and has been further weakened by Arriva winning a whole tranche of Centro tenders that Diamond operated

[Ash]

I think it would be all the diamond operations as a whole if someone was to take over and pull out the area completely

[PM]

DeCourcey is one to watch definitely. I think theyd be interested in Diamonds commerical routes and the Solihull stuff. Tho Travel de Courcey are an innovative, high quality company with great buses and great staff who are polite, helpful and I think it helps that TDC seems as if the management are very hands on-Mike De Courcey driving the hybrids etc and I hope that they start in Birmingham. Also, Green Bus are one to watch as theyve shedloads of money and a guaranteed source of income. I wouldnt be surprised if there was some takeover/rationalisation in the WM region. Just think-a group of Central Buses, Blue Diamond, Black Diamond, Red Diamond, VIP, Claribels, Central Buses, Midland, Hansons, Arriva's bus operations, Green Bus, De Courcey who combined would really be able to rip into National Express. Tho a thought-would de Courcey really want to compete with NXWM through Diamond when they operate NX contracts and recently withdrew a competing cross city service in Coventry.....

[Liberator9]

Sorry, I forgot about the Go Ahead previously owning Diamond! Anyway NXWM didn't dump the route, Network WEst midlands changed the services completely in January 2009 and changed it to the S3 and S2 which failed! NXWM then under the S2 and S3 then couldn't afford to run it due to the stupid plans of NWM! Research the history and NXWM were tons better in most cases than BD, other than the state of some of the buses. But by now we could've had the 12 reg urbans.

[winston]

DeCourcey is one to watch definitely. I think theyd be interested in Diamonds commerical routes and the Solihull stuff. Tho Travel de Courcey are an innovative, high quality company with great buses and great staff who are polite, helpful and I think it helps that TDC seems as if the management are very hands on-Mike De Courcey driving the hybrids etc and I hope that they start in Birmingham. Also, Green Bus are one to watch as theyve shedloads of money and a guaranteed source of income. I wouldnt be surprised if there was some takeover/rationalisation in the WM region. Just think-a group of Central Buses, Blue Diamond, Black Diamond, Red Diamond, VIP, Claribels, Central Buses, Midland, Hansons, Arriva's bus operations, Green Bus, De Courcey who combined would really be able to rip into National Express. Tho a thought-would de Courcey really want to compete with NXWM through Diamond when they operate NX contracts and recently withdrew a competing cross city service in Coventry.....

It's unlikely that DeCourcey could consider buying a business the size of Diamond, as the target would be much larger than the acquirer (i.e. a reverse takeover) and it would no doubt be difficult to finance even if a deal of that size was possible. I like your thinking of forming a group of all WM independents to go head to head with NXWM, however I couldn't see the MMC/Centro being very happy about the prospect, you would have just two groups controlling the entire WM bus market, competition for Centro contracts would be reduced to just two bidders, therefore prices would be much higher due to lack of competition.

I believe DeCourcey & NX have quite a good working relationship these days, therefore I would have thought it would be unlikely for DeCourcey to set up commercial operations against NXWM in Birmingham as you wouldn't want to bite the hand that feeds you. That said, there is nothing stopping them bidding for tendered / contract work