LOOPING THE OUTER CIRCLE
OF BIRMINGHAM
26 June 2024
ABOVE: National Express West Midlands 6127 (SN15 LGW, "Faye"), an ADL Enviro400 MMC, passes under the tram and railway bridges at Winson Green in the suburbs of Birmingham on Sunday 16 June 2024. All photos in this article were taken on Saturday 15 or Sunday 16 June 2024, as stated.
I'm back in Birmingham, Britain's second-largest city. As you would expect, there's a huge network of bus services here, both into the city centre by any conceivable route, and connecting across the suburbs. One that stands out here is route 11 (or 11A / 11C as it is presented on the road).
Operated by National Express West Midlands (NXWM), the 11 does a complete circuit around (literally around - not into) the city centre of Birmingham, broadly fluctuating between three and five miles out. It's been doing the same thing since 1926, with the origins of the route dating back to 1923.
For many years the route ran as a complete circle, round-and-round, all day. At some stage the buses picked up their 11C & 11A designations, for clockwise and anti-clockwise directions respectively.
But change came in 2021 - reportedly temporary, although it's still in place in mid-2024. Buses are now split into two sections - what I shall call the "eastern" section from Perry Barr (in the north of the city) to Acocks Green (south-east) via Erdington (north-east), and the (longer) "southern / western" section from Acocks Green to Erdington via King's Heath (south), Bearwood (west) and Perry Barr. Buses reverse at these termini, where 11Cs become 11As, and vice-versa.
You may have noticed a prevalance of Perry Barrs and Erdingtons in the above descriptions, which I shall come to shortly.
I'm starting my circuit of route 11 on a clockwise 11C service, at the stop outside Perry Barr station, facing north on the Walsall Road. This is the stop at which the Perry Barr to Acocks Green via Erdington service begins. We're actually a hundred yards off the main route, which crosses the junction east-west behind us. That's the A4040 ring road, which we will broadly be following all the way around.
ABOVE: The start of the 11C section from Perry Barr to Acocks Green involves a short trip north along the Walsall Road, before turning around via the right-hand turn ahead. The main route is behind us! Just out of sight to the left is the Perry Barr One Stop Shopping Centre (taken on Saturday 15 June)
ABOVE: Just a few yards on from the previous photo, NXWM 6705 (YX15 OXZ, "Amy Sam"), an ADL Enviro400 MMC, heads away from Perry Barr on route 11C towards Acocks Green on Sunday 16 June
After working our way around a one-way loop, we join the route-proper, passing the 2022-built Perry Barr bus garage.
ABOVE: A peek over the wall into Perry Barr bus garage shows NXWM 1867 (BX58 SYR, "Sarah Louise"), a Scania K230UB OmniLink branded for route 28 (Saturday 15 June).
When the 11 was split into two sections, it was decided to provide small overlaps between them. I say small, because, while the Acocks Green overlap is two bus stops' worth, the overlap here is a full three miles between Perry Barr and Erdington. This section of route therefore gets twice the level of service compared to the rest of the route, which can mean as short an interval as three-to-four minutes between buses. It leads to frequent bunching on this section:
ABOVE: Like all buses on this route, NXWM 6134 (SN15 LHD, "Ivy") is an ADL Enviro400 MMC. It has just started out from Erdington on an anti-clockwise 11A journey towards Acocks Green, whilst behind it, fellow 7539 (SN69 ZMV, "Priya") is on the eastern section terminating at Perry Barr. The front vehicle shows off the full route 11 branding. Taken at the Nobel Way junction in Witton (Saturday 15 June).
My clockwise journey takes me into Witton, where we pass close to Villa Park, Aston Villa Football Club's stadium. We come to the River Tame, which runs alongside for half-a-mile or so, though largely out of sight.
ABOVE: The River Tame (left), seen from the Deykin Avenue stop in Witton (Saturday 15 June).
We pass Erdington, where the duplication of services ceases (there has been an 11C on the other section right behind us all the way from Perry Barr). Erdington developed as a village as a result of settlers travelling up the course of the River Tame from Tamworth in the ninth century. One of the most well-known features in the area is Spaghetti Junction, the Gravelly Hill Interchange, where junction 6 of the M6 motorway meets the A38(M) Aston Expressway; the 11 misses all this by less than a mile!
With half of the service now terminated at Erdington and heading back towards Perry Barr and beyond (as route 11A), the 11C turns south-east towards Washwood Heath.
Obviously a circular route in this territory is going to cross a huge number of radial routes from / to the city centre (to illustrate this, I have marked 12 of the main bus corridors from the centre on the map above). We might have missed Spaghetti Junction, but we're heading full-on to an M6 crossover in Bromford, an industrial and residential area - and it's the former that stands out...
ABOVE: The M6 motorway passes overhead at Bromford in this view looking south. Alongside the motorway is a railway line, a Tarmac Asphalt Plant, a Used Car centre and assorted other industrial sites (Saturday 15 June).
We're soon coming into Washwood Heath. One of the area's major employers was the railway works owned by Metropolitan-Cammell (MCW, later Alstom), until it closed in 2005. The railway connection lives on, though - the depot for Phase One of the High Speed 2 project is due to be built here. The site is expected to have 14 sidings and a maintenance building which will cover 430,000 square feet), as well as the network control centre.
Down the road is Stechford, scene of a railway collision in 1967 in which a freight train collided with an Electric Multiple-Unit.
Politician Enoch Powell was born here in 1912. As part of a long and sometimes controversial career, Powell fought in the Second World War as the youngest Brigadier in the British Army.
We come to Yardley, by which time the scenery is becoming much more countrified.
ABOVE: NXWM 6146 (SN15 LHT, "Kezia Betsy") heads along Stoney Lane in Yardley, on an anti-clockwise service towards Perry Barr (Saturday 15 June).
We reach Acocks Green, named after the Acock family, who built a large house here in 1370. More recently, the comedian Jasper Carrott was born here in 1945.
The roundabout where Warwick Road meets Shirley Road and Westley Road was a tram and bus terminus until the 1950s, and is called "The Green" by most locals. It's here that the "southern / western" service to Erdington begins, and there is only a short overlap with the "eastern" section, as far as Acocks Green bus garage, which is also the base for the entire allocation of buses for route 11 (in excess of 40 buses at busy times, I would say).
I need to change buses if I want to continue around the Circle.
ABOVE: 6117 (SN15 LGD, "Rachael Jane") circles around "The Green" at Acocks Green, switching from an anti-clockwise trip to a clockwise one the long way round to Erdington (Saturday 15 June).
It strikes me that the small overlap on the service here could be better explained in timetable materials. The example below is from the second stop on the "southern/ western" section, which is also the penultimate stop on the "eastern" section. There is nothing to record that half of the buses will terminate at the next stop, Acocks Green Bus Garage. This might be particularly disappointing to users of the 0007 service, the last bus of the day, which is one of the services terminating at the bus garage.
Stop locations are presented solely as road junctions, with no locales to make sense of them to a stranger - for example, "Addison Road / High Street" is actually at King's Heath.
Also of confusion is that timings on Fridays are slightly different to those on Mondays to Thursdays, leading to the confusing codes listed to distinguish Friday times from Mondays to Thursdays... Of the 20 departures listed between 0700 & 0759 on weekdays, only 13 run on any given day, and only seven are actually going anywhere...
ABOVE: This confused timetable at Westley Road / Overlea Avenue in Acocks Green gives the impression of a much more intensive service than the reality, given that around half of the buses will be terminating at the next stop, Acocks Green Bus Garage, and not actually continuing on to "Summer Road, Six Ways", wherever that is (it's actually Erdington).
We're now in the southern suburbs of the city. Hall Green was once home to the comedian Tony Hancock (he was born here, and there's a sculpture dedicated to him in central Birmingham). Racing commentator Murray Walker was also born here, and Formula 1 champion Nigel Mansell spent most of his childhood and early adult years in the area. Author J. R. R. Tolkien lived close to nearby Sarehole Mill, Birmingham's only working water mill; the mill has locations that are said to have been the inspiration behind scenes in Tolkein's "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings".
Further down the road we pass Swanshurst Park, which was established in 1922 by the City of Birmingham on former farm land. The park contains Moseley New Pool, created as a fish pond. A large number of wild birds inhabit the water, making it an important nature habitat (source: Birmingham Open Spaces Forum).
ABOVE: Swanshurst Park, with Moseley New Pool in the background (Sunday 16 June)
It's now raining heavily, and photography becomes very tricky, even though I persevere with the ride. I have no choice but to return the following day - doing an anti-clockwise run this time - to capture the sights of this area on 'film'.
We pass through King's Heath - a familiar area for me following my experiences with the trunk route 50, which I have written about in an earlier article. Until the development of the Alcester Road in 1767 this area was mainly agriculturally undeveloped heathland standing on part of the royal manor of King's Norton, which is how the name "King's Heath" came about.
Roads are certainly pretty narrow here, with problems for the 11A traversing the Addison Road (eastwards) in particular.
The most southerly point of the route is Cotteridge, which, confusingly, is served by King's Norton railway station, even though King's Norton is technically a few hundred yards south. The landscape is dominated by the Cotteridge Church, and by what looks like an old Bank which is now a restaurant called "Kurry Kingdom".
ABOVE: Kurry Kingdom and The Cotteridge Church (Sunday 16 June)
We're turning north-west now to the delightful village of Bournville, founded by the Quaker Cadbury family for employees at its Cadbury's factory. Designed as a self-contained community or "model village", Bournville certainly lives up to its "chocolate box" image - I've speculated before that it's possibly the origin of the phrase!
ABOVE: George Cadbury (1839-1922), founder of Bournville, welcomes us to the village (Sunday 16 June).
On to Selly Oak; the Oak element of the name comes from a prominent oak tree that formerly stood at the crossroads of the Bristol Road and Oak Tree Lane/Harborne Lane (the 11A/C cross this point). The oak was felled in 1909 amid fears about its safety.
Just beyond is the Selly Oak Shopping Park.
ABOVE: Selly Oak Shopping Park (Sunday 16 June)
Through Harborne, home of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham (which has the largest solid organ transplantation programme in Europe) and on to Bearwood, the southern part of Smethwick.
ABOVE: Just after the deluge that hit my journey from Acocks Green onwards, 6103 (SN15 LFL, "Anisha") passes along Bearwood Road on route 11A (Saturday 15 June).
We pass briefly through Summerfield. The area takes its name from Summerfield House, owned by members of the Chance family, local glass manufacturers and pioneers of British glassmaking technology. The public park in the grounds of the house was opened in 1876, although the house was subsequently demolished.
We reach Winson Green, described by Wikipedia as a "loosely-defined inner-city area", whatever that means... Amongst other features, including the main City Hospital, Winson Green houses HM Prison Birmingham.
ABOVE: Another ADL Enviro400 MMC, which I can't quite identify, passes HM Prison Birmingham on a clockwise journey (Sunday 16 June).
We've now reached Handsworth, to the north-west of the city centre. Handsworth remained a small village until the 18th century, but quickly grew once accommodation was built for factory workers, and, by 1851, more than 6,000 people were living here.
Wikipedia tells us that Handsworth has a significant musical legacy, having prodcued some notable popular musical acts, including Steel Pulse (whose first studio album Handsworth Revolution is named after the area), Joan Armatrading, Benjamin Zephaniah and Bhangra group B21. Black Sabbath's lead guitarist and songwriter Tony Iommi was born here, as was pop singer Jamelia.
Further back in time, the tenor Webster Booth (1902-1984) was born in Handsworth. Known for his duets with his wife Anne Ziegler, a BBC Showbiz Hall of Fame article described Booth as possessing "one of the finest English tenor voices of the twentieth century".
And Handsworth continues as we turn east, until we're back to Perry Barr. The whole circuit has taken a few minutes shy of three hours.
ABOVE: Back to Perry Barr where I started (the station is to the left). A Diamond Bus Streetlite DF is working route 54 to nearby Hamstead (Saturday 15 June).
So what can one make of the Outer Circle? (Incidentally, both directions are the Outer Circle - the Inner circle is a completely different route closer to the city centre.)
At 27 miles long, it has been suggested that it may be Europe's longest urban bus route. It must be a competitor for this title, certainly, but I don't have knowledge of all long urban bus routes, nor a description of what officially constitutes "urban". (Plus, it's been cut in two, so the SL7 in London (West Croydon to Heathrow), at 24 miles, is probably a longer continuous run now.)
But, with more than 130 bus stops each way around the circuit, it's certainly an essential part of the city's bus network. Buses up to every eight minutes on each section (15 minutes on Sundays) make for a decent service frequency, and lots of people use these services, either for a short hop or for a longer journey. I didn't experience a really quiet run.
The decision to split the service into two may have helped with reliability, by giving definite start and finish points, but the split certainly isn't 50:50 between the two sections (more like one-third / two-thirds).
It's interesting to note that the 11 is, on many of the roads it serves, the only bus route. Other routes join in for short sections, and dozens cross it, but the 11 is the bus service for many trips around the suburbs of Birmingham.
Because of the downpour that afflicted my clockwise trip, I decided to go back the next day and use the anti-clockwise service to get some better pictures (some of those above are the result of that second trip).
But I walked into a delay, and the Sunday 15-minute frequency became a longer wait. It wasn't long before two buses appeared together, and the bus I was on then decided to skip several stops, leaving disgruntled passengers behind and leaving all the work to the other driver. If this was intended to make up for some of the lost time, it didn't work... By the time we reached Acocks Green there were three buses together, putting mine (which was clearly the latest amongst the group), at an approximately 30-minute late arrival. There was a fourth bus with us at this point, but I think I can discount that as having been operating the other section!
I'm very pleased to have finally completed a circuit of the Outer Circle. And you know what, as I've been writing about it, I've realised that I want to do it again!
ABOVE: Having completed my circuit from Perry Barr, I stayed on the bus as far as the Tesco Superstore in Witton, which provided key facilities for me, and, as it proved, for my driver as well! 6119 (SN15 LGF, "Sarah Lou"), stands here (Saturday 15 June).
Further Reading
West Midlands Bus route 11 - Wikipedia
The Tour! | Outer Circle Bus – Take your own Guided Tour
Europe's Longest Urban Bus Route Brought Birmingham Together (secretbirmingham.com)