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Was talking to another about it recently, it'd work so well imo. But it'd seem nx have became "scared" of timetabled short journeys - it's worked well in the past.

I am certain that if it was from city the departures were:
xx:00 94 | xx:05 95E Fox & Goose | xx:10 95 |  xx:15 94 | xx:20 95E Fox & Goose | xx:25 95 |
xx:30 94 | xx:35 95E Fox & Goose | xx:40 95 |  xx:45 94 | xx:50 95E Fox & Goose | xx:55 95 |

something like that could be done to the 97 as well, as thats a route that defo needs more buses, even if it was to heartlands hospital or even Stechford

Yeah, I 100% agree with the idea of some extra short journeys at peak times. Although it wouldn't benefit me directly as I typically go from the city towards Chelsmley Wood way, I think just taking extra load off the high demand areas of a route would benefit everyone. The 97 especially from my experience would definitely benefit from some short journeys between the city centre and Bordesley Green/Heartlands, as it can get very packed on that section of the route at peak hours. Off peak it's not too bad, but it would be interesting to see if would help alleviate some of the pressure. 

I often wondered what a Gemini would look like in the new grey livery...

http://wmbusphotos.com/NXWM/4475-4699/4526.html

It actually suits it! Doesn't look like a 21 year old bus!

I've personally never been a fan of the Geminis (I think my experience on the 72 route for a number of years has tainted it a bit  ) but I will say it does look very tidy in the grey and red stripe livery. Does still stand up to some of the other bus designs currently in use.

Another livery I have to say looks really nice is the new Emirates livery on the E400MMCs. I don't know what it is but it just looks really good. I think the red fits our buses quite well and generally stands out a lot.

5517 on the 97

It was really bad today, I was driving 6948. I don't know why they put the lights up theres no point.

Ruins the whole point of having a roundabout really 

Must be something to do with the gasworks that have been going on along the bus lane towards the city. They probably go through the roundabout in someway or another and they probably need to rip parts of it up. Still though, not the greatest time or place to have temporary lights but needs must I guess...

Just arrived home from a journey on the 97 that took longer than expected...

There was some temporary lights on the Heartlands Hospital roundabout on Bordesley Green Road, but there didn't appear to be any actual changes to the roundabout itself (I may be wrong as it was getting dark). It ended up with six 97/A buses effectively one after another along Bordesley Green Road which is by far the most I've seen together at one time.

One chap that got on before Heartlands said that he was on the rearmost bus and bolted to get on our bus, which was the 2nd one in the queue. Think that says it all really 😅

Overall lateness wasn't too bad for the rearmost buses but for the ones at the front, 4919 on the 97 was around 50 minutes late whilst 7527 on the 97A was approaching an hour late (times are via Bustimes so it may be inaccurate). I know the 97 route does get pretty jammed some evenings but this is the worst I've seen it for a while.

7526 - 97 to Chelmsley Wood - No audio - 12/12/24
6842 - 97 both ways - No audio - 13/12/24
6827 - 97 to Birmingham - No NSA at all - 14/12/24
7540 - 72 to Solihull Station - Audio stopped working at Denton Grove, visual NSA was fine - 17/12/24

"So-lee-hull"is in fact the correct pronunciation - not "Solly-hull".

In all fairness, it's more of a personal thing. I've never personally heard the original pronunciation used by anyone that I've known, be it at school, university or at work. It's likely one of those things that one family says one way and another family says differently.

Again, it was a very small thing that I picked up. Regardless, it's nice to see NSAs on routes that didn't have them before (such as the 72).

The only thing that annoyed me with the new announcement voice is that when I was on the 6 to Solihull recently, I've never known anyone to pronounce Solihull as "Soh-lee-hull", rather than "Sol-y-hull". It's a minor bug bear but if the computer-generated voice means that all routes can get announcements sooner then I can get behind that.

5505 on the X2

Of all the platinums I've been on in the last 2 weeks only one that I've seen working audio announcements was 6834 last Sunday, where they worked as far as Wright Road. Then after that there was no audio for the rest of the journey to the City Centre for some reason.
The others only had visual announcements and 6824 had national express West Midlands on the nsa displays.

Yeah, I've personally noticed this too, especially on the E400MMCs. I'm unsure if it's the stop-start that's breaking the NSAs, if there's a driver toggle to disable the audio part of the announcements (I doubt it) or if there's just purely a glitch software-wise. It does vary bus to bus. The most common issues I've seen is the announcements stopping mid-journey and just sticking to the same bus stop, alongside the issue where there's visual announcements but no audio ones. However, I have seen others too.

For example, I was on a 97A service to Birmingham on 7529 on Wednesday 4th. The announcements were broken the whole journey, having the generic "National Express West Midlands" text with the version number of the announcements. Then once it switched over to the 97 back to Chelmsley Wood, they worked as usual. It is a bit bizarre, given that the 97A has had announcements for a while. 

I do understand it is probably extremely difficult to maintain the same announcements across an entire garage worth of buses. As I've mentioned before, I don't want to turn into someone constantly complaining about every single bus missing NSAs, but I do get that some heavily rely on these announcements working as intended. 

5515 on the 14

One of the BC electrics is on the 97 this morning. Judging from Bustimes, it was E277.

4913 - 97E to Chelmsley Wood Interchange (unsure as to why, as the bus appears to be mostly on-time for a 19:02 97A service)

Note: When I got off at my stop, the display was changed to just a 97, which contrasted the driver's display of a 97A.

Of a night, I can't really see the difference between the Crimson and the Platinum/Red Striped buses. I can really only tell from a much closer distance as to what colour it is. Typically, the first thing I see is the front Hanover display as they're usually pretty bright. Then you've also got the interior lights through the windows. That's just my view on the matter.

4920 - 97E Chelmsley Wood Interchange