Routes 4, 4H and 4M

[Stuharris 6360]

Caught sight of a Diamond running card for the 404 yesterday, informing drivers on the early journey's from Walsall, if possible, to wait for the next Diamond bus to arrive before departing!

Is this another case of Diamond trying to use there own rules, delay the customers on one bus to ensure there is always a Diamond bus on Bradford Place!!!

[Ash]

This seems to happen on the diamond 301 too when at Walsall bus station, but with the 404 in bradford place its similar to NXWM there can be 2/3 parked up behind each other and when another one enters the bus station one leaves. Often i have noticed now that rarely diamond vehicles on the 404E wait for another to appear at Walsall or West Bromwich as with 8 vehicles on a 6 minute frequency they only have 24 minutes each way which doesnt appear to be alot especially with the traffic leaving West Bromwich and how busy the service can get.

[hartshill busman 724210]

Quite simply YES Stu,and as its printed on a running card its hardly down to drivers just taking the mick is it? Shady tactics!.Timetable? who cares?

[Isle of Stroma]

Quite simply YES Stu,and as its printed on a running card its hardly down to drivers just taking the mick is it? Shady tactics!.Timetable? who cares?

Pot, kettle, black. Isn't blinkered arrogance wonderful?

Prior to 9am, there are only 2 instances where there is a gap of more than 5 minutes beween one departure & the next arrival (& one of those is after the first service of the day) & there are quite a few occasions where arrival & departure times coincide. What happens in practice is that a departing service may hold back for a minute or two until the following service  approaches over the horizon. What the sheet does not advocate or condone is 'shady' running outside the +5/-1 window, which you will notice if you read the rest of it.

All that is occurring is customer service, trying to ensure there's a bus there or thereabouts for intending passengers - something appreciated by your passengers when the weathers a bit **** like yesterday.

[hartshill busman 724210]

Quite simply YES Stu,and as its printed on a running card its hardly down to drivers just taking the mick is it? Shady tactics!.Timetable? who cares?

Pot, kettle, black. Isn't blinkered arrogance wonderful?

Prior to 9am, there are only 2 instances where there is a gap of more than 5 minutes beween one departure & the next arrival (& one of those is after the first service of the day) & there are quite a few occasions where arrival & departure times coincide. What happens in practice is that a departing service may hold back for a minute or two until the following service  approaches over the horizon. What the sheet does not advocate or condone is 'shady' running outside the +5/-1 window, which you will notice if you read the rest of it.

All that is occurring is customer service, trying to ensure there's a bus there or thereabouts for intending passengers - something appreciated by your passengers when the weathers a bit **** like yesterday.

Whats with the first line of that Nel111p NO need for it,seems your making some big assumptions here.And a timetable with no recovery time for a journey or indeed for you to use your 5 minutes on the stand IS a surefire recipe for not running to time.

[Ash]

The worse service i have ever known for hogging and over staying at bus station stops is the 34/334 in Walsall theres four operators i believe and theres always horns going mad trying to move the other operators out the way to load from the stop, and Walsall Bradford Place is not the best acommodated bus station for room.

[JackC]

Many a times I've been held up in Bradford Place, waiting to get off a 311/313 which is stuck behind two or three buses trying to get to their stands who are themselves blocked by a bus trying to get to a stand another bus is already on...

[Ash]

Yeah and most of the time its because of the amount of buses that are on the 34 or 334 service or any others heading towards Darlaston and its normally thandi or sandwell travel that causing the issues with either midland now arriva or NXWM trying to pick up passengers on their scheduled slots.

[Westy]

So much for that revamp at Bradford Place they had.

[JackC]

Bradford Place needs a substantial expansion if they expect to accommodate all the buses it currently does without any problems. But I don't see anywhere they can really expand into...

[Ash]

Does anyone know if there will be any more buses need to cover the new 4 services of diamond as at the moment the 404E is a PVR of 8 and the 417 PVR of 5. But guessing more than 13 buses will be needed to cover the services and i guess it will be operated with a mix bag of buses solo's, versa's,centro's,darts and cadets.

[PM]

I imagine theyll use the cadets until they are sold-if they are-does anyone know where theyre for sale? But yes, itll be a hotch potch of lots of different buses-hopefully versas, cadets, centros and darts NOT solos.....

[Ash]

looking at the Sunday timetables for Diamond's 4M service it looks to interwork with the new 226W service otherwise the driver would have a 29 minute break at Merry Hill.

[bwsau cymru]

I just hope they put some effort back into the route. They keep putting old buses or solos on the route which is very annoying. How can a route go from having all those big centros on it to tiny old solos? Its shocking all the effort that went into branding the mcv's and getting them and since they have gone it just seems to of gone down the pan and the service does seem quieter :-(

[Ash]

Saw a few diamond buses on these services and they seem to be quite popular especially between West Bromwich and Blackheath and nice to see normal full size single deckers buses even if there just using the older darts. Anyone know what service the centros and hybrids are on now as i saw a centro on the 40 today but still displaying 410.