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Reminds me of when NX introduced the S2/S3 and Monastery Drive was used briefly at the start in the Olton area - after a few incidences of people refusing to remove their cars the S2/S3 were routed away!

http://www.solihullnews.net/news/local-news/pensioner-protest-after-new-bus-6052656

Haven't used the Landflight route yet but miss the simplicity of the old 40A/40C circular NX used to run until 2009 which was every 30 minutes. Seems a while now since NX days with the old Volvos on the route.

Agree; tri-axle double deckers would be far better than any articulated buses.

Done the company a favour in that case if YW needed to lose a bus  ;)  Being serious, rather a bizarre incident considering the height of that bridge; MW's reasoning seems to best fit why it would have happened as well as possible fatigue. Main thing is though that no-one was injured.

Can't say I've seen any signs of salmon pink showing through on WA's Scanias, or any of the Scanias. Miles better in the Crimson and done to a good standard. Only improvement I would say that needs implementing is the internal poles being resprayed; for some reason some of WA seem to have been done at some stage, but the likes of YW's haven't.

Just had a look through the proposals and on the whole not too bad - as already mentioned the Bournville area and parts of the Yardley Wood area would need another operator (aka Diamond or Igo) to step in to provide a local link to Northfield and Kings Heath respectively.

76 being rerouted away from Robin Hood to Baldwin I don't see as an issue - gives the Baldwin a faster service to Solihull than the 5 and the 76 at times does get stuck in some heavy traffic in the Robin Hood Island vicinity at peak times - particularly Solihull bound. The 76 rerouting to serve Pineapple Road etc. is fine. However, if the 27 is withdrawn the frequency on the 76 needs to step up to every 15 minutes at least to cover the loss. The 84 extension to Northfield makes sense and again, increase the frequency, and could adequately replace the 27 round there.

Wouldn't surprise me either if the 5 switched to YW operation considering the reroute would pass right through the 6 driver changeover point and the 1 maybe being extended requiring additional resources. Scanias made redundant off the 27 could probably be put on the 84/76 and the 5 if it transferred over from AG?

Franchise winner should be announced in the next fortnight,  be interesting to see if the winner has promised anything on revenue protection

Thanks for the information Tony - all gone quiet with the announcement timing with the election occuring. Will be interesting; hope whoever wins do as it is a fair amount they must lose to uncollected fares.

Caught the train from Spring Road, Acocks Green to Birmingham Moor Street today, the ticket office was closed at Spring Road and i've never caught the train from Spring Road before, no guard was checkeing and selling tickets onboard, the gates and barriers at Moor Street were just open letting people walk through, so anyone travelling from Spring Road to Moor Street would have just walked away with a free journey. When it was at  the platform on Spring Road, I went and asked the guard for a ticket as I was thinking  I probably wouldn't be able to get through the barriers at the other end at Moor Street, but nobody else boarding at Spring Road did and they all got a free journey.

Doesn't surprise me - ticket office staffing along the Snow Hill line is inconsistent as anything, and the guards seem particularly missing when it comes to revenue checking duties. Next franchise needs to get a grip on it. I use Cross Country, Transpennine and Northern regularly; can pretty much guarantee a ticket check on them and staff are usually very well mannered and friendly - throw in ATW as well when I use them and it seems London Midland has some what of an issue in motivating staff to actually do the ticket checks....

Hopefully they will leave it unbranded, and I expect the 6 and 27 will just be mixes of Scanias and E200MMCs which works out fine. They look smart enough with none of the stickers plastered on and means the 27 doesn't inevitably end up with 6 branded vehicles going on it. Quite pleased to see some E200MMCs move over to YW, whilst retaining a fair number of Scanias.

Not on live TV, and no doubt already reported in this thread. Watching series 1 of Line of Duty on Netflix. Noticed 1537 as well as other NXWM vehicles (and former vehicles).

Looks like the exterior shots are all filmed in Birmingham.

Yeah Series 1 primarily all filmed in Birmingham; 2, 3 and 4 all in Belfast. Excellent series I find; enjoy!

Just seen this - good work @Adam 404 ! Don't know that much about the Coventry Ops so quite an informative read to flick through. Thanks for doing it!

Please can we not start this whole East Birmingham needs investment thing, again, on yet another thread where the page number has been kept minimal for numerous years....it's received a good amount of investment over the past few years - end of.

Just seen this; https://www.flickr.com/photos/surreybusphotographer/31757760733/

Is it actually for NX and part of a new batch for delivery?

Why do you say that? Is there something specific about 2026 or are you not a fan of the Eclipse 2's in general? Best full size single decker to drive in the fleet in my opinion. (I've driven the Eclipse 2's, Omnilinks, E200MMC and also B10B/L/Ultra and O405N.)

For some reason the Eclipse 2s are 'underrated' by people on here - possible because some view them as dull with their ZF Ecolife... Personally I think they're excellent - good passenger environment and the Volvo chassis is typical Volvo quality. As you've mentioned before they're good to drive as well.

First post of 2017 and a Happy New Year to everyone  ;)

I think the general expectation this year is just to continue the good work of 2016. The fleet is looking its smartest in a long time with the Crimson refurbishments, new MMCs/Streetdecks and an effective rebrand. The pricing has become more flexible and certainly the fleet improvements in 2017 will help further improve the service delivery and passenger numbers.

I hope that TfWM successfully manage the bus side of things in the West Midlands; continue the Alliance and work with operators to deliver improvements. Franchising is something I'd avoid due to the costs potentially involved, and I certainly do not want any move to remove the individual identities of operators. Further ticketing integration and improvements to the SWIFT card system would be good, and improvements to the infrastructure on main route corridors to improve reliability.

Certainly things are continuing to improve, and I feel 2017 will continue with that upward trend.

Strictly speaking you'd want quality in quantity.

When your spending multiples of millions, you'd want to ensure you got your moneys worth.

Exactly - buses are not cheap and managers most certainly will be looking at the quality. Good quality equals good reliability, which equals better service, higher passenger numbers and hence revenue. Buses on the production line all undergo quality checks once built, and operators thoroughly inspect any vehicle they are taking delivery of before accepting it. Granted there are occasional issues, but they are usually rectified. You don't just buy as many as possible of the cheapest brand available and hope they're alright as you're throwing money down the drain!