ABOVE: On Sunday 4 May 2025, Bee Network-Stagecoach Manchester 10045 (MX12 LWL), an ADL Enviro400, passes Christ Church, Heaton Norris, on route 25, which has come from the Trafford Centre and is now just a couple of stops away from its Stockport terminus.
The Back of '25
27 December 2025
It's as natural as the indigestion tablets that follow Christmas Dinner (or is that just me) to look back over the year that is coming to an end. So I hope you will excuse a deliberately self-indulgent review of my year of travels, peppered with some photographs that I haven't previously been able to make room for, as well as a few thoughts that don’t really fit anywhere else!
This is a personal review of my year. If you want to read a review of industry developments over the year, I would recommend Bus and Train User (which also includes trains, of course)!
ABOVE: An unusual angle on buses can be caught from the London-bound District Line platform at Putney Bridge station. A bus that I believe to be Go-Ahead London General Ee 155 (LG23 FHA), a BYD D8UR-DD ADL Enviro400EV, is between journeys on route 93, in the evening of Saturday 18 January 2025.
As you would expect from a blog about British Buses, I want to start by looking at a Canadian Golf Club... Specifically, the GreyHawk Golf Club, on the eastern edge of Ottawa.
At this 36-hole Club, one can savour two "distinctly different golf experiences in one great location": a classic Canadian course, or the "Predator" Course which is "like a visit to the heathland courses of Scotland". Even though I don't play golf, it looks amazing in these Gallery views...
The club is 3,314 miles from my home in West London. And that's the distance I estimate I have travelled by bus in 2025!
That's 125 miles less than I covered in 2024 but, for various reasons, I thought the figure would have been quite a bit lower than that! It's been an extremely busy year for me work-wise, and I spent some of my time off just resting at home, and therefore travelling less. I was therefore expecting the stats for 2025 to be well down on those from 2024. In fact, they were just a little bit lower - around 96% of the 2024 mileage in fact.
So here are 25 Stats and Facts, and 25 Thoughts and Reflections about my 2025.
As you would expect from a blog about British Buses, I want to start by looking at a Canadian Golf Club... Specifically, the GreyHawk Golf Club, on the eastern edge of Ottawa.
At this 36-hole Club, one can savour two "distinctly different golf experiences in one great location": a classic Canadian course, or the "Predator" Course which is "like a visit to the heathland courses of Scotland". Even though I don't play golf, it looks amazing in these Gallery views...
The club is 3,314 miles from my home in West London. And that's the distance I estimate I have travelled by bus in 2025!
That's 125 miles less than I covered in 2024 but, for various reasons, I thought the figure would have been quite a bit lower than that! It's been an extremely busy year for me work-wise, and I spent some of my time off just resting at home, and therefore travelling less. I was therefore expecting the stats for 2025 to be well down on those from 2024. In fact, they were just a little bit lower - around 96% of the 2024 mileage in fact.
So here are 25 Stats and Facts, and 25 Thoughts and Reflections about my 2025.
ABOVE: Nottinghamshire County Council Fleet Services 0096 (SG68 XZA) , a Fiat Ducato Mellor Orion, is departing Retford Bus Station on Friday 22 August 2025, on what I assume is a Demand Responsive service.
25 Stats and Facts
1. You've already had this one! I covered around 3,314 miles during my travels. As always, the stats exclude travels on Transport for London (TfL) services, Heritage services, and special one-offs.
2. I spent all or parts of 41 calendar days travelling by bus in 2025.
3. The shortest day was just one ride for 12 minutes (sadly it was to reach a funeral service in North Weald, but it still counts, and I’m sure that he would have approved).
4. The longest day out was 11 hours and 40 minutes.
5. I took 197 individual rides.
1. You've already had this one! I covered around 3,314 miles during my travels. As always, the stats exclude travels on Transport for London (TfL) services, Heritage services, and special one-offs.
2. I spent all or parts of 41 calendar days travelling by bus in 2025.
3. The shortest day was just one ride for 12 minutes (sadly it was to reach a funeral service in North Weald, but it still counts, and I’m sure that he would have approved).
4. The longest day out was 11 hours and 40 minutes.
5. I took 197 individual rides.
ABOVE: On Saturday 12 April 2025, Carousel Buses 80825 (SP61 CTZ), a Volvo B7RLE Wright Eclipse 2, is seen in Beaconsfield on route 31 to High Wycombe. It had a full blind display, but my camera couldn't catch it.
6. Total travel time across the year was 187 hours & 48 minutes
7. Average journey time was 57 minutes.
8. The shortest journey by time was a two minute ride on route X4 from Saltburn seafront to Saltburn station.
9.The longest journey by time was two hours & 54 minutes, on route 555 from Lancaster to Keswick.
ABOVE: On Sunday 21 September 2025, two Stagecoach Cumbria & North Lancashire buses stand in Keswick Bus Station. On the left is ADL Enviro400 MMC 11571 (YX23 OOW), is between trips on route 555 to Lancaster. On the right is similar 11118 (SK68 LUF) on route X5 (Penrith to Workington).
10. The shortest journey by mileage was that same X4 ride in Saltburn - around 0.5 miles in total, seemingly near-vertical (well, a one-in-four climb anyway)!
11. The longest journey by mileage was around 71 miles (Route X95 from Galashiels to Carlisle, article coming soon)
12. Furthest point north visited by bus in 2025: Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland
13. Furthest point south: Horsham, West Sussex
14. Furthest point east: Ramsgate, Kent
15. Furthest point west: Dumfries, Dumfries & Galloway
16. I spent £448.50 on bus fares.
17. Average fare was £2.28 per ride or 14p per mile.
18. Most expensive ride: X95 from Galashiels to Carlisle - £11.95 single. But, as has already been established, it was a two hour-plus ride of over 60 miles.
19. I travelled with 53 different operators, including:
- Eleven Stagecoach companies
- Six Go-Ahead companies
- Five First companies and
- Four Arriva companies
20. Operators I travelled with for the first time in 2025:
- Belle Vue
- Borders Buses
- Brylaine
- Central Connect
- Dew’s Coaches
- Falcon
- Grant Palmer
- Houston's Coaches
- Kirkby Lonsdale
- Metroline Manchester
- TransportConnect
- Whippet
ABOVE: One operator I have yet to sample is PC Coaches of Lincoln. Here are two of its vehicles, led by Optare Solo YJ11 OHB, at Lincoln Bus Station on Thursday 21 August 2025.
21. Number of articles published in 2025: 52. The word count for the first 13 of these was 31,270, which suggests that I might have written around 125,000 words (including titles and photo captions)!
22. Number of articles published in the 100 British Bus Routes series in 2025: Nine (routes 3, 24, 44, 67, 71, 76, 80, 82 and 87). There are still 44 to do.
23. Highest-numbered bus route I travelled on in 2025 was route 905 (Stagecoach East Bedford to Cambridge)
24. Number of journeys made on route L1 (the Lancaster Park & Ride) to get me in or out of the city while I was staying there: Six
25. Number of services cancelled that I had intended to get: Four. Number that were the last bus of the day on the route in question: Two.
ABOVE: Whippet Coaches WS 349 (DK09 ELX), a Volvo B7RLE Wright Eclipse 2, stands in Brampton Road, Huntingdon, working route X3 (Huntingdon to Addenbrooke's Hospital) on Saturday 23 August 2025.
25 Thoughts and Reflections
1. As I said at the top, work has been extremely challenging, with many long days in the office. The positive side of this is that I do get time off in lieu, which means extra days available to ride on the buses. As I sometimes say, when stuck at work yet again, I can do things in a day off that I cannot do in an extra hour at the end of each day.
2. The majority of bus drivers are excellent ambassadors for their companies. The friendliest seem to be those not working in the big towns, and those not working for the big companies.
3. Although I have had a record number of cancellations in 2025 (four), most buses do turn up!
4. The website has got into a rhythm now (in my opinion). Rather than just publishing whenever I was ready, over the weekend or at other random times, I have tied publication down, since the summer, to early on a Saturday morning. Eight times out of 10, that has worked out fine, and I won't dwell on the other occasions!
5. I've also added a "Header Montage" to recent articles, as the headers seem to keep getting cut off in the published version (especially if you read this on a mobile). When I get a moment, I am going to develop a better header, but don't hold your breath for that any time soon!
6. The slow-down in the “100 British Bus Routes” series boils down to the fact that I have now done most of the "quick wins", and most of the local ones. I need to travel further out to find many of the others. Hopefully we will see an acceleration in 2026! Route 78 is next, possibly followed by the 37. After that, who knows!
7. I was thrilled and honoured to find a link to my blog from another website – Imberbus no less. So thrilled that I immediately WhatsApped* a screen shot to six family and friends! And so thrilled that I have included it below.
(*I recognise that the verb "to WhatsApp" probably doesn't officially exist yet, but it's probably only a matter of time!)
8. As a one day only service, and for consistency with previous years, I don’t include Imberbus trips in my tallies.
9. I spent 23 nights away from home in pursuit of my hobby (staying in seven different Premier Inns).
10. In my list of “extremities” above, I could not record Edinburgh as my furthest place north. Although I visited the city (briefly), I went both in and out by train (travelling from Carlisle to Berwick-upon-Tweed).
11. It's ironic that my furthest point north was in England, but my furthest point west was in Scotland; the geography of the border is to blame for that!
12. I didn’t make it into Wales at all in 2025. My loss. I would like to investigate what is happening to the TrawsCymru brand, which seems to have been watered down in some areas in 2025.
13. I had thought that Hythe, near Folkestone in Kent, would take the prize for the furthest point south, but Horsham, West Sussex, is 0.01 degrees further south (at 51.06 degrees north) than Hythe (51.07 degrees)!
14. The £2.00 fare cap in England that applied in 2023 & 2024 was increased to £3.00 at the start of 2025. I was expecting a substantial increase in my fares to match. But my increase was just a little over 8.5 per cent which, with the base fare having gone up by 50 per cent, feels pretty good. Of course, there were all sorts of reasons for that, including fare capping through tap-on, tap-off, and day tickets.
15. There are some real fares bargains to be had. I have previously mentioned Lancashire County Council's evening and Sunday £1.00 fares cap, which got me all the way from Lancaster to Bolton (over 50 miles on two buses) for just £2.00. If that had been the price for all of my travels I could have done the whole year for about £98.50 (based on number of journeys) or £132.56 (if based on mileage)!
16. Stagecoach's "North West 3 Day Explorer" has been my best-value ticket in 2025. Covering Stagecoach services across a a very wide area of North West England, from Bolton, Blackpool and Chester to Dumfries, I only needed to make nine trips over the three days to cover the £26.00 cost of the ticket. Actually, I did 16 rides so saved £22.00 on that alone. Extraordinarily-good value. (The ticket has gone up to £28.00 now - still a very good deal!)
17. I went to the cinema, for the first time since before Covid, to see The Thursday Murder Club (based on the Richard Osman novel, of course). I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I want to see it again (but I don’t have Netflix). And, like everyone else surely, I found myself wondering about the bus that appears in the film, and my research took me to the BusesonScreen website, which I had not found before. The bus is RIG 3819, a Dennis Dart SLF East Lancs Myllennium. New to First Beeline, registered LK56JKV, it was sold on to Lloyd’s of Machynlleth, and was with Fairmann of Farnborough when used in the film.
18. The Buses on Screen website hasn’t yet caught up with the lovely Christmas 2025 episode of Beyond Paradise, where guest star Adrian Edmondson arrives into the fictional town of Shipton Abbot, Devon, on a Dennis Dart SLF Plaxton Pointer 2. Unlike the other series in the “Paradise” franchise, crime in Beyond Paradise is often of a trivial nature, and sometimes secondary to other parts of the plot! And it’s great fun too! Shipton Abbot is actually the Cornish town of Looe, with its magnificent harbour often used to good effect.
19. Number of journeys made on routes numbered 1. Well there are around 150 of them, so no surprise that I managed five different route 1s:
- Newbury / Reading
- Amersham / Hemel Hempstead
- Lincoln / Grantham
- Loftus / Saltburn
- Darlington / Crook (two trips)
20. Huntingdon Station made it into the news in 2025 for terrible reasons. In normal times, it is a great spot for railway photography, with the two fast tracks in between the two slow ones making it very easy to photograph express trains passing through. Here's an LNER "Azuma" set whisking its passengers through the station on a journey to London, on Saturday 23 August 2025:
21. Some of my journeys just don’t merit a story, however hard I try. Sometimes there isn’t much to say, and sometimes the photos just aren’t good enough. Back in January, a five-bus journey from Crewe to Halifax via Macclesfield, Stockport, Manchester and Rochdale was conducted half in the dark, and there are about two pictures that I could use from that day!
22. The biggest political stunt of the year involving a bus was probably the launch of TfL's "Bakerloop" route BL1, a service running from Waterloo to Lewisham and paralleling the route of the proposed Bakerloo Line extension; this has been proposed for many years but remains unfunded.
The Bakerloop is designed to be an "in your face" reminder of what could be possible. The now-familiar red-and-white Superloop livery has been adapted into this Bakerloo Line brown-and-white, as demonstrated, below, by Go-Ahead London Ee 47 (LF20 XNS), a BYD D8UR-DD ADL Enviro400EV. It is seen outside the old Fire Station (now a bar-restaurant) in Waterloo Road on the second day of the service, Sunday 28 September 2025. Despite it being something of a stunt, the BL1 is a useful service and has started to build up a following.
23. I only used eight electric buses outside London during my travels in 2025. They are certainly the future, though. Hydrogen buses, which I suggested were the future 12 months ago, may not be. The entire Metrobus Hydrogen fleet in Crawley has been taken off the road after one caught fire and burnt to a frazzle. Two of my local (London) bus routes are due to go electric in 2026, but, given the long lead times for electrification of bus depots, we'll see.
24. I passed through numerous Bus Stations, of course, over the year. I made sure to have a good supply of 20p pieces for all of the various Bus Stations in Greater Manchester, as the facilities there do not take contactless. I looked at Slough Bus Station each time I passed through, but it remained abandoned. Unloved, untouched, unoccupied. On a brighter note, one of the newest Bus Stations I visited was Halifax, 16 months old when I called by in January. A large site and fit-for-purpose.
ABOVE: An early Sunday morning view of Halifax Bus Station, on 26 January 2025.
25. And finally, as I noted in my Quarter Four snippets, the normally TfL-operated service 111 was handed over to Carousel Buses on Christmas Day, for one day only. This hourly service was sponsored by Heathrow Airport itself. As I was only a couple of miles away. I had to go and have a look. Here's Carousel Buses 80600 (SN66 WNE), an ADL Enviro400 MMC, at Heston, St Leonard's Church:
25. And finally, as I noted in my Quarter Four snippets, the normally TfL-operated service 111 was handed over to Carousel Buses on Christmas Day, for one day only. This hourly service was sponsored by Heathrow Airport itself. As I was only a couple of miles away. I had to go and have a look. Here's Carousel Buses 80600 (SN66 WNE), an ADL Enviro400 MMC, at Heston, St Leonard's Church:
BusTimes.org suggested that there were some green buses in Flightline livery out at different times of the day, which might have looked more unusual. My red ones weren't so different from the norm in the grand scheme, I suppose. The good news is that the bus had several passengers on board. It will be interesting to see whether the service runs in 2026.
Here Comes '26...
ABOVE: Representing the arrival of '26 is Reading Buses 751 ( YX64 VRL), an ADL Enviro400 MMC, is in Station Road, Reading, on Thursday 27 November 2025.
A New Year beckons. I wonder what it will bring?
It looks likely that the Transport UK London might see off its Caetano e.City Gold electrics which, although only five years old, are already being replaced.
ABOVE: In the afternoon gloom that is the dusk of Sunday 7 December 2025, Transport UK London 1522 (BV20 GTF), a Caetano e.City Gold, passes Waterloo Station, heading for Canada Water on route C10.
It might also be the year that sees the beginning of the end for the TfL New Routemaster - contract awards are starting to be made now for new buses on routes that are currently run with New Routemasters. There will be a brief resurgence, though, with the next Superloop service, SL11, due to use New Routemasters temporarily from its launch in late January.
There will be more changes as big groups move away from certain areas (we already know that First is quitting Cornwall) whilst others move in (Go-Ahead is expanding its Cornish operations in a direct response to First). Smaller operators will come and go. Competition will break out in the unlikeliest of places (including Slough)!
New electric buses will start to be more common everywhere. The giant TV screens that some operators are currently specifying that block the views out of the front upstairs windows will be tapered back to something more modest and acceptable, and less intrusive. And TfL will finally get a grip on its buses; things will improve and the decline will start to be reversed.
Only one of those last three statements is guaranteed - the others are just things I am hoping might come true!
For me, I still have many stories from 2025 to tell (and even one from 2024)... There will be new adventures too, and I look forward to sharing those with you.
Whatever 2026 brings, I look forward to it very much!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!