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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cedgl45wqy4o

The bus involved (which ended up in the River Itchen) was Blue Star 1267 - formerly NXWM BX09 PGF (4818).

It's three services that operate hourly during the daytime only.

I am going to assume that the decision to terminate the 20 and 21 services at Rutland Road is based on passenger boarding data, which probably suggests that not many people actually use those services from Bearwood bus station.

For those who wish to interchange with Hagley Road services, there is always the option to hop on board the frequent 11A and 82 services.

If I'm not mistaken, that leaves the 82 as the only bus service that actually uses the bus station. I'm now starting to wonder at what point Sandwell council decide to close it and sell off the land?

I wouldn't be inclined to make that assumption - perhaps operating convenience, cost reduction or maybe service reliability? With low frequency any traffic delays en route are likely to have knock on effects on reliability.

Going back many years (pre deregulation) quite a lot of services as well as the 82 used Bearwood bus station - routes through Warley to Oldbury, beyond the A4123 and to Handsworth. Bearwood High St was always a large attractor of passengers (as well as being a traffic hot spot - no doubt still the same owing to parking). I guess there are routes which used to terminate there which travel through the High St and beyond (eg Hawkesley!!!!! 😲) these days. 

I'd just wish they'd finish painting vehicles in one livery, before starting another!

Have a breather!

Nx have still got the odd red & white knocking about, besides the mainly crimson & rapidly catching up grey!

There aren't that many red and whites knocking around - maybe 50 or so E40Ds - and a handful of others which should be withdrawn pretty soon (I thought they would have gone with the last lot of electrics to be honest - a few Tridents, 3 Geminis, handful of v early E400s and 3 Scaniasi).

However I'm very surprised at the slow speed of repainting the E40Ds from 4880-4995, Especially the red and white ones, although most of the ex Coventry's have been done. The WB ones seem to have come to a complete halt, along with the repainting of crimson WN and PN B7RLEs.

FLEX TAPE!

You've got to love the way they pan the camera away immediately, but not quite quickly enough to avoid seeing the huge egg developing in the tape, that no doubt bursts explosively in a minute or so! Little to no advertising or consumer protection standards in the US - it's all about making money!!! 😀

Also wonder if the stops on Weoley Park Road have been sorted yet. Hard to get people to use it if they don't know where to board the service lol.

Just as a matter of interest, roughly how many bus stops do these extensive changes, which seem to be every three or four months, affect.

This is one aspect which would, most certainly be far better under a franchised system (I base this thought on the system in London where most of the routes I use are not subject to change and even still have the same service numbers - I know changes do happen however). The changes in South Birmingham are quite extensive and must affect a lot of journeys.

It must be an absolute nightmare keeping track of and implementing the bus stop changes resulting from this 'tinkering'. Also, from the Bearwood changes mentioned earlier, how much traffic is removed from Bearwood bus station, and this makes the new terminus of those routes far less accessible for interchange to Hagley Road services requiring quite a walk compared to Bearwood bus station?

There are around 100 Omnilinks left, around 150 B7RE's and around 40 E200MMC's left. That's around 290 single deckers that seat 43-45 passengers. If most of the Ominlinks go then that's a big reduction.

Plus 89 E200s (including the short ones) - so about 290 single deckers would remain once all the Omnilinks have gone (there's just short of 120 currently, including the remaining ex Scottish vehicles 70xx series), plus any electric single deckers which may appear (CV). 

Well if YW is going to be getting Enviro200s, they have to come from somewhere! 

I'm counting 15 left at YW, I don't know what they're like mechanically, but interior-wise, most of them are still in excellent condition.

By my estimates, I think that YW would only need 10 E200s anyway for the extended 27, including a couple of spares.

I'm going to hazard a wild guess where they'd come from - CV when they get their electric single deckers by the end of the year? There'd also be some B7RLEs for Walsall to replace Scanias. 

Should be, yes

Thanks 👍 

Is 861 going to be repainted in grey? 

Probabky pie in the sky, but it'd be really great if AG could have 40 new electrics in due course, replace the remaining Geminis and send the E200MMC to say, Walsall or West Bromwich (or any garages with Scanias). Wrong thread, I know, but presumably when CV gets electric single deckers sometime this year another (nearly) 30 diesel singles will be available for Scania garages! 

I recently visited Birmingham for the first time for a while, to attend a well known football ground. Coming out of Moor Street Station in glorious sunshine, I was struck by the volume of grey liveried buses and how smart they look.

In contrast a crimson liveried Scania pulled away from the stops opposite and I was struck how this didn't look as smart (although to be fair, its paintwork was probably quite a lot older) but the darker red, in particular, was almost matt and looked a bit tatty.

My bus trips that day were both on electric buses and to be honest, I preferred the single grey colour - of course, the grey colour is really set off by the red trim.

It's funny the way minor embellishment can lift the appearance of a vehicle - I remember how the front wheel trims on Fleetlines looked (both BCTs and Midland Red's had them from 1962/3 so it was about 13 yrs before new vehicles started appearing without them), and how their deletion in the late 70s altered the appearance negatively (as well as increasing the amount of road dirt thrown over the side of the bus)! The VRs never had them, and looked a little less complete as a result - they should have realised the issue with road dirt from the wheel nuts - Walsall's, especially in the mid 70s could get dirty to incredible levels - although that might have been contributed to by their cleaning equipment and processes. The bus washer machine only cleaned the sides, and not very thoroughly at that - whereas in Birmingham cleaners cleaned the fronts and backs manually as part of the process!

Couldn't remember if one was done. Thanks.

Scania 3225 was in a BCT heritage livery at Birmingham Central late 90s/early 2000s - all the rest were Metrobuses - it was a nice match with the earlier 1954 3225 (MOF 225),  NXWM's preserved ex BCT Daimler CVG6. 

Thanks - thought so 👍

PVRs next week are also lower due to half term

Are these actually an early end of term change for the summer holidays (though unis and schools have less travel owing to exams etc?) or they likely to extend after September? 

Hasn't the 6 always been at Yardley Wood?
And there was the 4 at AG as well which the 5 replaced?

It goes way back further than that - in BCT and early WMPTE days AG ran the 31/32 (Gospel Lane) and 44 (Olton routes) ie Warwick Road and YW the 37 (to Shirley) and 92 (Cranmore) ie Stratford Road - the 4 and the 6 have replaced those corridor routes. 

In BCT days garages were closely associated with the corridors they served (many had previously been tram depots). The first closure I really noticed was Roseberry St (served Dudley Road routes) - the 80/82 moved to Quinton, resulting in transfer of unfamiliar vehicles there (Park Royal bodied Leylands), and one of the first examples of a garage operating a route on a corridor nowhere near it. The other routes moved to Hockley (83/95). 

As more and more garages closed routes became operated sometimes by garages remote from them and even more so sometimes when ex Midland Red routes were integrated or area schemes were introduced. 

Some of the changes following deregulation seem to have been based on other factors although a reasonable locality to the routes served seems to have applied (presumably to reduce dead mileage). However factors like available spare capacity might have been a dominant factor. When Moseley Road closed ffor the second time (ex Midland Red routes originally run from Digbeth), routes, vehicles and staff were transferred to a series of ex BCT garages including Coventry Road, Yardley Wood, Lea Hall and Washwood Heath, often based either on route corridors or areas in which the services ran. 

The Black Country had all its ex Midland Red garages closed over a time leaving little choice but to run routes from remote garages like Hockley and Wolverhampton. Pensnett now fulfils much of those roles.