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What routes did WM Buses run after the deregulation back in 1986 that were "oddities", i.e. were only a trip a day, or were only a couple of tendered trips that they had won on a route ran by a different operator such as Midland Red?

I know from the Mark Fitchew series of blogs that Perry Barr would win a tender, in the form of an early morning short journey from Ashfulong Corner-City on the otherwise Midland Red North operated 110 and the new minibus unit at Miller Street would also win a tendered journey on the 110, this being the last bus from Birmingham-Tamworth, with an early evening journey on the Limited Stop X74 Birmingham-Tamworth service also being won by Miller Street.

Also, did WMT ever publish printed timetables for these routes out of interest?

So, Uber announced that they are now selling NX West Midlands tickets. The thing is, the day ones are labelled Daysaver £4.50, however the Daysaver was withdrawn last year.

I asked NX Twitter which ticket it was, i.e the Daysaver Extra or the nBus, as that replaced the operator only day tickets and got this response...

https://twitter.com/nxwestmidlands/status/1760367425088868744

So the biggest question is... is the ticket a Daysaver Extra, or the nBus, or a completely different ticket type?

Bit of a long shot, but does anyone have the following old timetables

102 Birmingham - Woodgate Valley
37A Birmingham - Acocks Green - beyond
38Y
A6 (replacement for the A6Y/C6Y)
84/85 (Travel Your Bus)
81Y
92Y

If so, would they be willing to post a copy on here of them please?

As mentioned by Simon Dunn in the Rotala Management thread, service 226 is set to be withdrawn alongside services 45 (I assume it is the Walsall 45) and 002.

https://www.diamondbuses.com/news/45_002_226-services/

Since COVID we have been working in partnership with Transport for West Midlands (TfWM) in the hope that these services would recover. Since the end of August 2022 we have continued to sustain losses. The decline in viability of these routes is linked to the escalation in labour and operating costs and the lack of income growth. In January 2023, service revisions were put in place to try and align the income and expenditure of these routes and improve their viability.      
This alignment has subsequently failed, and Diamond Bus has now reluctantly taken the decision to cancel our 45, 002 and 226 services from 15^th April 2023.  

Whilst out in Brum, saw the 2 following NX Transport Solutions vehicles on Moor St Q'way:

4911049 YT65BYG - https://www.trainbasher.com/yt65byg/
507 BU18YTT -  https://www.trainbasher.com/bu18ytt/

Yellow Buses have gone into administration

The bus company, which is in its 120th year, has been handed over to Milsted Langdon LLP, a statement by the accountants said.

A loss of revenue, rising fuel prices and the general rise in inflation have all been blamed as factors for the decision.

In a joint statement, Simon Rowe and Rachel Hotham of Milsted and Langdon LLP said: "We recognise that many people rely on the Yellow Bus network for all sorts of aspects of their daily lives and that for them and the 300 staff employed by the business this is an unsettling time.

"We can recognise this and want to reassure everyone that we and our team are doing all we can to ensure that the business continues to operate as normal as possible under the circumstances and continues to do so into the future."

Yellow Buses, which trades as Bournemouth Transport Limited, has been struggling like all bus companies thanks to the "challenges" of COVID and the lifestyle habit changes which have followed – such as people working from home

The directors of the business have "for some time" been looking for outside investment or buyers for Yellow Buses.

The statement added: "Negotiations with a large national operator have entered the final stages and we hope to be able to conclude within a matter of days."

[Bus fares to cost no more than £2 in new cap on all local and regional journeys]

Bus fares to cost no more than £2 in new cap on all local and regional journeys
The government has come under growing pressure to fall into line with other countries, who have slashed the price of public transport following energy and fuel price hikes
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/bus-fares-cost-no-more-27442809

There were rumours of it last week on the busandtrainuser blog

Speculation is growing of an imminent announcement of a £2 cap on all bus fares throughout England to apply for six months from October as part of Government plans to help with the cost of living.
Such a plan has already been announced by West Yorkshire Combined Authority Mayor Tracey Brabin from September as part of an agreed plan with bus operators under their Enhanced Partnership arrangements and last week Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, not wanting to be left behind, also jumped on the £2 bandwagon by announcing he was bringing forward a similar plan he'd had for next year under the franchising proposals to also commence in September, assuming a reimbursement deal can be agreed with operators.
 

The downside of it is that routes like the X5 and Coastliner would be having to turn away passengers on the intermediate stops, and who is to say all operators will take part (or will PTEs/Councils force them to take part?)

What are people's thoughts?

Am I right in remembering that the c2000 closure of Corporation Street (to remove the Bull St Ramp?) was the catalyst for its move to Colmore Row as I have faintish memories of seeing a Hagley Road B10L around the Corpy St area back in the late 90s.

Am I right or was I imagining things as I know there was a lot of things going on then (St Martins, High Street pedestrianisation, Ryder Street, then the Masshouse works in 2002)?

Going through one of my external hard drives, I found a large number of photos I thought I had lost when Fotopic met its end. Some of them had really poor quality as they were taken during the first year or so of me taking bus photos (plus having had a camera which had issues.) A few of these were of Midland's fleet

N451DWJ is seen on a 007 service in Bromsgrove - https://www.ukbuspics.co.uk/N451DWJ/
X332ABU is seen on an X56 service in Birmingham - https://www.ukbuspics.co.uk/X332ABU/
S582PGB is seen on a 282 service in Derby End - https://www.ukbuspics.co.uk/S582PGB/
JJZ5368 is seen on a 255 service in Merry Hill - https://www.ukbuspics.co.uk/JJZ5368/

More shots of the former Midland fleet can be found here - https://www.ukbuspics.co.uk/tags/midland/

Going through one of my external hard drives, I found a large number of photos I thought I had lost when Fotopic met its end. Some of them had really poor quality as they were taken during the first year or so of me taking bus photos (plus having had a camera which had issues. A few of these were of Midland Rider's fleet

JDZ2349 is seen parked up in the depot - https://www.ukbuspics.co.uk/jdz2349/
J636KCU is seen parked up in the depot - https://www.ukbuspics.co.uk/j636kcu/
KDZ5805 is seen in Stourbridge on a 194 service - https://www.ukbuspics.co.uk/kdz5805/
N450DWJ is seen at AMRTM - https://www.ukbuspics.co.uk/N450DWJ/

With the announcement that the Eastside line is to get the green light, and further extensions are planned in Birmingham (unfortunately!), would it be worth having a second city crossing linking the West and East side extensions without needing to navigate the Corporation Street section.

If it was done, it could be run as going from the Victoria Square tram stop, taking over the existing line through new street, then a new junction onto New Street turning into the High Street (maybe a stop placing there for Primark/Bull Ring), connecting at Lower Bull Street/Dale End to the Eastside extension

This will also have the added advantage of a alternate route should Corporation Street be unavailable

Saw this vehicle on ITV2 this morning on Emmerdale Omnibus.

Does anyone know who owns it nowadays?

thanks in advance

In the Express and Star today, George Galloway is backing a campaign for free under 18 bus  travel

https://www.expressandstar.com/news/transport/2019/09/17/free-bus-travel-campaign-backed/

Normally I would agree with the chap, but today I don't at all agree with him

With the advent of contactless on buses, do you think Swift PAYG is getting obsolete? Or do you think the scheme could be improved?

Compared to its contemporaries, such as the Oyster card in London, Swift PAYG is less useful than contactless. Example of it is on NXWM buses, Swift does not cap, instead a passenger is required to use their PAYG credit in order to travel, whereas NXWM contactless works as a cap, so for 2 journeys at £2.40, a saving is being automatically made.

A flaw that swift has which London's Oyster card is that PAYG is not enabled for rail journeys within the WM region, yet in London, Oyster can work out and deduct fares for rail journeys by tapping on and off. In my opinion, TfWM need to make the ntrain zones work for PAYG, and get all 4 WM rail (and WMM for the Hawthorns to City section) to have a zonal fare policy with common fares on sections they share, and capping to replace paper daytrippers and returns for journeys wholly in the 7 district's.

Plus now, for Metro, you have Swift on Mobile which links in with Google Pay. With contactless on the rise, and most of the population using smartphones, could introducing a flat fare (example £1.30 children, £2.60 adults) on buses across the region and forcing all operators in the WMCA sphere (including those who operate in the "associate members") to adopt a common ticketing solution work to make Swift better integrated across the bus network, or even render it obsolete in favour of mobile ticketing for period passes and contactless payments. This could include daily caps which would replace operator only daysavers/nbus.

Another thing could be added to a daily cap scheme is parking with the 7 district's using car parks as a park and ride site where people tap in at a car park barrier, park up, board a nearby existing bus route which runs anyway to the nearest of the 3 city centres (with the bus+parking fee being capped, and councils free to put more restrictive pro bus TROs in the town/city centres - if PAYG was being used, tapping out to exit the car park?)

What do you think? Could Swift be improved, or could it be rendered obsolete by Contactless and mobile.

This has been posted on their Facebook Page as part of their long running drama with Former STC Beverley Bell and the revocation of their O Licence

Statement from Catch22Bus
Following a meeting with newly appointed legal counsel, Catch22Bus has decided to proceed with an application for permission to appeal to the Supreme Court against a decision made in 2017 to revoke its Operator Licence. The decision against us focused on our exposing the Senior Traffic Commissioner's personal conduct.
In a separate, but related action, we will be progressing action to force the Department for Transport to disclose the Judge's report into allegations of serious misconduct by the former Senior Traffic Commissioner Beverley Bell.
Mrs Bell resigned from her post in December 2018 "before the conclusion of an internal process".

https://www.facebook.com/134405156940435/posts/839702993077311/

Catch22 Bus Ltd is owned by Phillip Higgs, former director of Classic Bus North West and director of Birmingham/Manchester Sightseeing

Does anyone know which vehicles have moved From First to GNW.

Have asked GNW directly but their response was "Unfortunately this isn't something we will be releasing in to the public domain."

Just noticed via bustimes.org that some routes, including the PN7 are having some changes made to times.

Sources close to the #AllAboard YouTube and Facebook page have confirmed today (Monday 1st April 2019) that a project cataloguing parts of UK rail network in terms of uselessness is starting in the next few days.

The project, called Pathetic Railways, will look at different lines that could be classed as pathetic, either because they have been lost, took over by other lines in importance or even don't have a reason to exist without subsidy in the extreme. This will be run in a similar manner to the road based project, who's ownership is not connected to the railway project, called Pathetic Motorways.

Avril Sciocco, #AllAboard Executive Producer and the person who is rumoured behind the project, declined to comment.

Hi,

Trying to sort out my PC and came across some photos of the hybrid versas Diamond WM and Preston had.

Does anyone know what their ultimate fates were (I.e. where they are now?)

MTIA.

Experimenting on one of my apps on my phone, I noticed that the cashback app Receipt Hog will accept Diamond single and day (Diamond only products) tickets as a valid receipt for cashback.

It may only be 0.5p for receipt under a tenner, but for regular users, it does add up (and eventually can give you a couple of singles in cashback - or a fiver off a shopping bill!)

Has anyone else used a cashback app with their diamond bus tickets?