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I booked train tickets for AM peak, for in a couple weeks time (albeit from Smethwick Galton Bridge):
Smethwick Galton Bridge to Crewe - £5 (London Northwestern Railway)
Crewe to Manchester Piccadilly - £2 (Northern)

I checked CrossCountry prices for the same time - £36

For another example, I checked Birmingham - Manchester on a random day in a couple of weeks time. Leaving New Street at 08:21 on London Northwestern, changing at Stoke at 09:13 for the 09:56 Northern service to Manchester, and arriving at 10:52, would set you back £9.70. Granted, it takes just under an hour longer than the ones National Rail Enquiries suggests, but then you'd be paying £47.80 for an anytime single.

There are some decently priced fares travelling direct though, if you value the time saving. The 06:53 departure from New Street on XC on the 7th March has advance fares for £20.70, and is a direct service taking only 90 minutes.

As an alternative, Megabus takes 2hr 15mins, and costs £7.62, and you can get a Flixbus that takes around the same time for a little less, but with departures at either 03:05, or 13:40 from Birmingham.

I'm pretty sure the 87 was originally a tram route too, certainly I recall seeing a photo of a trolleybus showing 87 as the route number, don't know if it went all the way to Dudley though as a tram route.

Mark Fitchew has a series of blogs detailing the history of the Dudley Road, part one covering the early years can be found here.

It was originally a tram line, and the 87 number for through journeys to Dudley started in 1928, when Birmingham Corporation took over the operation from BET.

6984 (82/87 branded) - WB13

39 and 40 were out too. Possibly 42 too.
I've noticed the new ones all have much nicer interiors with new moquette. However each time I see one, there seems to be issues with destination equipment. Either not working or showing something different on front/rear/sides.
45 today had nothing on the front, Birmingham on the sides and Library on the rear. 40 was showing Wolverhampton on both ends but Not In Service on the sides.

I've noticed that too, along with the screens inside not showing anything on some of them. However, the audio announcements still worked, and are a loud louder than the old ones. I also noticed you can press the buttons on the door to have them open at the next stop, rather than having to wait, although it seems like most drivers open all the doors anyway.

The interiors are a lot nicer, hopefully we'll see a refurbishment of the older trams at some point to bring them up to the same standard.

When are both extensions due to open does anyone know, also, how is the Dudley extension coming along, havnt been past it in ages last I saw the road outside zoo was being dug up??

There's an update on it in the local rag today, the first tracks have now been laid along Castle Hill, with the mayor there for the usual publicity photos.

But Warrington is a long way around so certainly wouldn't want to go that way

The link you provided from the Chiltern website would be the same journey, just without a split ticket, involving two changes at Crewe and Warrington Bank Quay. It's certainly not the long way round, in fact it's the quickest route by rail between Rugeley TV and Halifax. You could go via Stafford and Manchester, but that takes around 30-40 minutes longer, and involves a walk/bus/tram across Manchester from Piccadilly to Victoria.

It came up on Chiltern Railways site.

Here is a link if it works
https://buy.chilternrailways.co.uk/search?origin=GBXRG&destination=GBHFX&adults=1&children=0&outboundTime=2022-02-15T11:30:00&outboundTimeType=DEPARTURE&railcards=%5B%5D&ls=LS_1_1&p=PRICE_P_1_5

I believe that ticket would only be valid on the specified Northern service, but you could in theory use any valid route to get to Warrington Bank Quay. I'd imagine it could cause some confusion at first though when using the specified Avanti service, but since it's from an actual TOC, a copy of the itinerary would serve as proof that it's valid.

If you want to use split tickets, you can get an off-peak single from Rugeley to Warrington for £18.10, then an advance single on that same Northern service for £8.50, saving you a few quid.

It was doing route learning for the rail replacements.

Looks like NX have stopped tracking again this morning.

I have just been trying to work out the cheapest way to get from Rugeley to Halifax and get offered a single ticket for £42.30 Valid on Northern Trains only. That is a bit difficult as Northern Trains have never served Rugeley Trent Valley (They have wizzed through in the past)

Does the website/app you're using show a travel itinerary along with the ticket? If it does, then it's valid, no matter what the restrictions on the ticket itself say.

Andy Street has put it on his Facebook page

It's also on the Metro website and Twitter, and on the Express and Star.

34 & 68a/c withdrawn 24 April wonder who will take over services info on n,+ p

From what I heard, the 34 isn't being retendered/replaced.

They had pretty appalling reliability

I recall a quote from an engineer describing their wiring as a bowl of spaghetti, or something to that effect.

Trams will return to running the full line to Library from tomorrow (12th Feb).

Optare Versa YJ64DZL now on fleet here and numbered 35

Any idea when/if that Citaro will enter service mate?