All Over the Place: Birmingham Buses after a Night of Mischief
19 February 2022
ABOVE: Branded MMC 6900 (SK68 MDY) is heading towards Druids Heath on route 50, with another service close behind! My bus is in pole position at this point of the journey. All pictures in this article were taken on Saturday 18th September 2021.
It’s 8.15am on a Saturday morning, and there’s already quite a crowd waiting at Coventry’s Pool Meadow Bus Station. I’m heading into Birmingham, to try out various services of National Express West Midlands (NXWM). Naturally, I’m not taking the X1 service direct to Birmingham, but it turns out that everyone else at the stop is. The X1 clears the lot!
I’ve been in Coventry for a Friday night performance of Mischief Theatre’s The Play That Goes Wrong – quite simply the best night out I’ve had in years. And I’ve made it a full weekend trip of course!
It’s just me, then, for the 87a Johnson’s service to Solihull, although we pick up a few more people on the way through the city towards the station (the bus doesn’t go into the station forecourt itself and any would-be rail users would need to get off at the railway bridge).
It’s a short E200 and twists and turns through various towns and villages, on a generally-unremarkable trip to Solihull’s Town Centre. I had been intending to go to the station, but the bus I want also serves the town, so I alight here. Just as well as it turns out – the now empty 87a effectively terminates here. An examination of the timetable suggests that the arrival into Solihull Town Centre has been about seven minutes early.
So to my first NXWM ride of the day, on route 72 to Chelmsley Wood. A nice top-deck front seat ride to get the day going properly, and the sum is shining brightly. NXWM has a ‘touch-in’ payment system for contactless cards, similar to London, so boarding is very quick and easy, and in no time at all I am being whisked around the eastern side of Birmingham’s very attractive suburbs.
From Chelmsley, I am heading north-by-northwest to Sutton Coldfield, on the 71. This runs every 20 minutes and turns up on schedule at 1030. It’s a Scania single-decker, smooth-running but with appallingly poor legroom. My need to spread across two seats is under threat on this ride as it gets busier and busier, gradually running out of seats and with a number of people standing. A couple of queries of the driver by different customers imply that the previous service may not have run, which may explain the heavy load here.
ABOVE: Scania single-decker on route 71
One young woman on her phone reports that someone she is close to, is “in prison”. It sounds like he had a fight in a restaurant “last night”, so I’m guessing he’s cooling off in a police station cell somewhere rather than actually sewing mailbags in prison per se. She does plea with her friend not to tell anybody, so hopefully her secret is safe – between her, her friend, and the 40 or so other passengers on the bus. This was last September, so I expect he’s home by now.
There seem to be quite a few routes between Sutton Coldfield and Birmingham City Centre. It’s a trip I have done a couple of times in the past, first on a 907, and recently on an X3, all the way from Lichfield. Today I am trying out the X14. Apart from a gripe about a sticker on the front window, which I have previously mentioned, this is a straight-forward run, finishing up on the Aston Expressway into the City Centre.
ABOVE: E400MMC SN66 WCZ on route X14 from Birmingham to Sutton Coldfield
Next, I’m on the 63 towards Frankley, on the south-west side of the city – I am literally all over the place today! The 63, and related route 61, provide a six-minute interval service along the Bristol Road corridor. But before we have even got that far, the driver speeds straight past a designated stop on Smallsbrook Queensway, where a woman frantically waves the bus down unsuccessfully.
I decide to get off at Northfield, and I move on to a 27 to Maypole Shopping Centre. This is a similar vehicle to that of the 71 earlier in the day, but the legroom is far superior for some reason. This is a very interesting route that I will talk about another time.
And Maypole is where it all goes slightly wrong. I decide to catch the number 50 back into the City Centre. The buses on this route proclaim that they run “every four minutes”, so I’m not unduly upset to see one go before I can get across the road to it. But I then wait for over half an hour before the next one appears. Well when I say “the next one”, I actually mean the next three, which run in a leap-frogging convoy all the way to Birmingham.
ABOVE: 7538 (SN69 ZMU) is overtaken by branded 6966 (SK68 MFF) whilst both are on route 50 towards Birmingham. Taken from the top deck of another MMC on the same route! This is King’s Heath.
ABOVE: The same two buses again, but 7538 is now in front of 6966. Meanwhile another service heads the opposite way.
The fact that there are several buses together means that mine is neither overcrowded nor particularly slow. It’s quite a nice ride, in fact, on a modern E400 MMC. This route does put me in mind of the 192 in Manchester (referenced briefly in a previous article), and also of my local London route 207 in the bad old days (London buses seem to be better controlled nowadays and convoys of more than two together on the same route are quite rare).
There’s not much stand space in Birmingham City Centre, so most routes do a loop in the centre and head back out again almost at once. So an announcement that I am suddenly on a “50 to Druids Heath” means journey’s end, on Moor Street.
This is very convenient, as I now want to return to Coventry, and, not only is the X1 stop right opposite, but there’s one trying to get onto the stand – even if it is in an X2-branded livery! As it pulls in, there’s a near-altercation involving a coach that is parked outside Moor Street station, when the NXWM vehicle comes within a whisker of knocking out the wing mirror of the coach. A careful reverse manoeuvre is necessary to avoid disaster – not easy on a crowded City Centre street at 4.15 on a Saturday afternoon!
There are a significant number of people at the stop for the X1 to Coventry and the X2 to Solihull. An X2, branded for the X1 (!), pulls in behind and the crowd (I won’t use the word queue as there isn’t one) divides itself up between the two double-deckers.
Tram construction means that the road out of the City Centre is one huge construction site. It’s clear to me that there has been a delay to the service (something that has happened every time I have used the X1). The bus is so busy that it leaves people behind further along the route.
At Sheldon, I recognise a road that I traversed from south to north on the 72 earlier; now I cross that route from west to east. Considering how twisty my route has been today, it’s slightly surprising that I haven’t crossed my path more often!
The beautiful sunshine that has dominated most of the day has gone now, and in fact there will be a cloudburst soon after I return to Coventry. Before that, though, the X1 gives a pretty comprehensive tour of Birmingham International Airport and the neighbouring National Exhibition Centre.
The bus remains busy all the way into Coventry, and it’s surprising how much intermediate churn there is on the journey. A very busy route indeed – I’m quite surprised there isn’t any competition.
It’s 1745 when I return to my starting point at Pool Meadow. It’s been a lovely day criss-crossing Birmingham and surrounds. With the exception of the 87a at the beginning of the day, everything else has been touch-in ticket-free travel, for a total cost of £4.00. Bargain!