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Bloody hell, I hope nobody was hurt.

4160 - X64

Just seen the 48 and 11A coming up War Lane towards Harborne.

Is there an accident somewhere?

Pershore branded enviro 400 on the 29

Yesterday morning I meant, sorry.

Whichever it is was on the 22/23 this evening. Very eye-catching.

I'll say! It almost blinded me at 7 in the morning!

805 (99) - Seen at Livery Street ready to start on the 24 I assume.

No-one mentioned brand new buses. I don't think you realise how much it costs to run a bus. adding one extra bus to a route can cost over £100,000 per year, that's any bus, not a new one. Starting a new route needing about 5 buses like your suggestion is half a million pounds per year. A new route like that would need an awful lot of extra passengers (not just transferring from a different service)

Ah fair enough, I didn't know that. So essentially it would have to run at the same frequency as the current route you'd be taking out unless there's an increase in passengers? The 21 used to get more passengers than the X64 does but by how much I don't know obviously.

We'd all like loads of buses running everywhere we might want to go, unfortunately someone has to pay. I have no problem with fantasy routes that are never going to happen being posted on here, but don't think an operator would take any suggestions seriously if they are going to cost a lot of money

Yeah I know, to be honest it was just a hypothetical suggestion wondering whether that route would work in an ideal world. It wouldn't need to run on brand new buses though if that's the isssue.

To be fair the 21 was useful and well used but as Tony has posted before, reliability was becoming an issue. As someone who lives on the 22/23 routes, where rush hour journey times have quite frankly become laughable, it's not difficult to see why.

I just don't think NX have still hit on the winning formula with how the 21 was replaced. The X64 had been tinkered with a lot since introduction, and likewise the 29 and 48 have both had the route changes that were introduced after the 21 was withdrawn amended since. I don't have a magical solution and I'm not going to suggest any but the number of changes to bus routes along Swarthmore Rd in Northfield over the last few years (the 44, 20, 29 now 48) shows the challenges in getting it right around Weoley and Northfield.

Exactly. It shows how key the 21 was when they've spent so much time tinkering trying to get things right and honestly I still believe they haven't. The X64 may be slightly quicker to town but that's about it. Aside from that it's reliability is laughable, even when there's no traffic around, and it barely picks up any passengers anyway on the Bristol Road whereas you'd get more customers on the 21 route. Plus there's a lot more call for Broad St and Colemore Row than Queensway.
As for the 48 I'm not sure what can be done about that. So many routes have tried down the years. I remember the old 69 to Heartlands Hospital and more recently when the 49 was extended to Weoley Castle Square.
Even the 29 has been messed about with too much. Why it was taken off of Somerford Road I'll never know as it just adds more journey time going through Gregory Avenue.
Unfortunately though I don't see things over here ever improving.

How many buses would that cost?

I don't know.

What about this:

X21 - New Limited Stop service, Birmingham - Woodgate, via Five Ways, University, QE Hospital, Selly Oak, Weoley Castle and Bartley Green.

64 - replacing the existing X64 service, Birmingham - Rednal, via Bristol Road, Selly Oak, Northfield and Longbridge. Operating with the 63 from Carrs Lane.

The X21 would serve 0 stops between Five Ways and Green Man, Harborne then full stop onwards other than going around the QE loop, stopping nearby only before carrying on up New Fosse Way towards Weoley Castle.

35 branded e400 on the 84

4896 (45/47) - 24

Thanks for the detailed replies guys. Makes more sense now :).

This may be a silly question but has the 5 always been an AG route? I always thought that the 5/6 would operate from the same garage.