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I'm probably more grizzled than most on this board .....

Early memories include Harborne garage in the late 1950's, mainly Crossley H30/24R working routes 11, 12 (Bartley Green), 21 (Weoley Castle).  The Crossley vehicles lasted until around 1969.

And once I'd started secondary school, trying to catch one of Rosebery Street's distinctive Leyland PD2's, which had a morning rush-hour working from the Ivy Bush to Selly Oak (route 2, if I recall correctly) via the QE.  It arrived at the Ivy Bush around 08:15 from the Inner Circle, and returned from Selly Oak as an 11E back to the depot (Winson Green). The drivers on this working took no prisoners, the object appeared to be to get round the "circuit" and back to the home depot at the speed of light.

If you held out your hand, and got really lucky, it stopped for you.  Usually, it just reduced speed to walking pace, allowing you to catch the rear entrance pole and swing yourself on board, before accelerating away.  Quite often, you just got ignored .....  ;D

Invariably, I was the only passenger - just me and the conductor!  8)

And later on, I remember when the first OMO Fleetlines got allocated to Quinton and Harborne - so different from the standard rear-entrance double deckers. I recall adopting 3438 (QN) as "my" bus ....... :-[

Slightly off topic, but this thread reminded me of the old days back under BCT when Selly Oak depot ran single-decker Leyland Tigers on route 27 through the back of Bournville .... ah, the nostalgia ....  :) :) :)

http://www.skylineaviation.co.uk/buses/bham.html

Good grief, first double deckers, now Scanias! ......  8)

Wolverhampton - Perton route?  I doubt I'll see them on the Mere Green Sainsbury's free bus service ...  ;D

Was going to say the 108, but thinking about it, that was an old North Birmingham Bus route ...

I did wonder if the newly acquired route 604 (Sutton Coldfield local) would be operated by CK or WB as it's a bit out on a limb; in the event, it's WB as 1008 and 2141 were operating it this afternoon.  They were noted on opposite sides of Sutton Coldfield's Lower Parade, 2141 heading for Mere Green, 1008 for Kingstanding.

Slightly off topic, timetables seem to be no longer available on the networkwestmidlands website, you're redirected to Traveline?

The problem is that the Sutton services went from being locally focussed to entirely City service focussed..at the time virtually everyone in Sutton commuted to Birmingham so this made sense, but things are a bit different these days

Absolutely, since (around) 1992, we've had the Cross City line .....  ;D

And thanks for that photo of 512 - so it was Hail and Ride - when the light is on!!  Innovative to say the least!

This week, one of the morning schools services local to me, which runs to Bishops Walsh School in Walmley (I think it's numbered 874, but don't quote me!) seems to have changed to single deck operation. PB has rostered a B10L twice this week .... today it was 1451. 

I don't know if this is a temporary move or what, but I've only ever known it as a d/d operation before now.

After discharging at Bishops Walsh, I believe the vehicle runs light to Sutton Town Centre and then takes up duty possibly on the 904 - (correct me if I'm wrong, Tony!)  :D

Tony / Andy, thanks for your comments; the minibus network is an interesting bit of history I wasn't aware of (as I was living in the West Country back then and my "local" network there was operated by Safeway Services of South Petherton, who even ran one particular route, hilariously, with a one out and one back trip timetabled for "every alternate Tuesday",  but that's another story!)  ;D

I'm intrigued by the mention of a FR Sherpa network; can I pick your brains on this?.  Was it like a hail-and-ride, or were there set routes? What routes were operated, where were the boundaries of the operation - is today's 604 a legacy of that network?  Was it a high-density operation like the Exeter City minibus network, sort of thing? 

From what I can recall, the West Country minibus networks (Exeter, Taunton (?), Weymouth) boosted passenger numbers to the extent that single-deckers (Leyland Nationals) eventually had to replace the minibuses, so it's interesting it failed in Sutton Coldfield - although I entirely take your point about "well heeled areas" .......

[but no, let's throw some more buses onto the Sutton - Birmingham road to run behind each other virtually empty]

Running the 71A, combined with the changes that had to be made to the 66 and 966, and the resulting overcrowding of the 451 between Oscott and Sutton have probably created cost not too far short of running the 68, which I feel could have been rescued with some frequency and route alterations...but no, let's throw some more buses onto the Sutton - Birmingham road to run behind each other virtually empty.....

Andy posted this on another thread and it rather chimed in with something I was going to post anyway - is the 915 (Birmingham - expressway - Sutton - Falcon Lodge) really necessary?

The route is duplicated by others with high frequency virtually throughout, except for a small stretch in Falcon Lodge estate.

Falcon Lodge already has two links to central Birmingham which arguably are more direct - the 914 (via Expressway) and 115 (through Aston) which give a combined 15m frequency, and it also linked to Sutton via Good Hope by Blue Diamond's 119 (amongst others) again on a 15m frequency.

So is there really any need for the 915?

And are there any other routes you can think of that are effectively "overkill"?

Bring it on, D10!

And that's coming from someone who couldn't exit Five Ways station last year because his Centro concessionary smartcard doesn't operate automatic gates, and there wasn't anyone on hand to open them manually ......  ;D ;D ;D

Cue loud shouting until I managed to attract someone's attention in the ticket office!  ;D

The leased buses were sent back to the dealers.

........ and several of them subsequently found their way to Thandi.  Also, at least one AMPM d/d finished up with The Green Bus, I remember seeing it parked up in their yard in Hockley.

Ah, cheers, guys!  And thanks for the link, Roy.

I've done a number of trips between Birmingham and Stourbridge recently, and you can't miss the yellow readers at Stourbridge Town as they're "pole mounted" but I see they are (presumably) incorporated in the automatic ticket gates at Snow Hill, so that's why I haven't noticed them there!

Thinking about it, yes, I recall seeing them on the platforms when changing trains at Droitwich, which makes sense now.

There's a couple of smart card readers installed at Stourbridge Town station - they seem to be operational but are they used at all, and if so, what for?  There's invariably a ticket check by the second man on the Parry People Mover .......

I'm not aware of any other similar readers installed at stations elsewhere - unless you know differently, of course!  ;D

I was at MIller ST a couple of weeks ago and there was a De courcey van there.

While they were doing the groundworks there earlier this year, alongside the NEx livery coaches in the yard, I noted MJI2367 (28/01/12) and 571 (21/02/12) , and on two occassions there were d/deckers present, including 806 (14/02/12).

The garage is in West Brom but none of the routes they operate are.

I believe Arriva won the hourly route 604 (Kingstanding - Sutton - Mere Green).  I'll be very interested to see what's running on that!