ABOVE: Still in its "Kernow" (Cornwall) livery, First Berkshire & The Thames Valley 33307 (WK18 CFZ), an ADL Enviro400 MMC, drops off in Belmont Road, Uxbridge, after a run from High Wycombe on new route M40. Photos in this article were taken on Tuesday 10 March 2026, unless otherwise stated.
A Ride on the M40
- and other stories!
21 March 2026
"Bus wars" seem to have broken out in the Home Counties; specifically in Berkshire and Buckinghamshire. And it all seems to stem from the decision of Arriva to pull out of High Wycombe in 2024. At that time, Carousel Buses, part of the Go-Ahead Group, stepped in to take over much of the Arriva network. But council-owned Reading Buses registered a competing service over part of one of the new Carousel services.
That early tussle seemed to settle down quickly, with subsequent changes by Carousel making a win-win for local passengers.
But, since then, various operators in this area have been launching predatory strikes on established services of other operators, and First Bus got in on the act on 2 March 2026 with the launch of new Express route M40 between High Wycombe and Uxbridge, as well as changes to another service which I will come on to.
There was a Press Release, explaining the idea and making one very bold claim, which I will also come to.
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It's Tuesday afternoon, and I'm at High Wycombe Bus Station to try the new route out. I'm not a huge fan of riding on buses that use motorways as part of their route. Don't get me wrong - I understand the purpose of such routes and the way they speed up a journey. I just don't like riding much on motorways as I'd rather be elsewhere, discovering the villages and towns off the beaten track. That's also why I don't like coaches much.
But this one sounds useful. The journey from High Wycombe to Uxbridge can feel like a bit of a slog sometimes. There are plenty of buses; the main rival is the Carousel Buses 102, but it's always going to be the best part of an hour regardless. Can this one make a difference?
I've boarded the 12:40 departure. There are three of us on board from the first stop. Having once been a sea of blue buses, red is now the predominant, but not the only, colour at High Wycombe Bus Station.
ABOVE: Nearest the camera in High Wycombe Bus Station is 80537 (YX69 NRL), an ADL Enviro200 MMC, with branding for route 850 but working cross-town service 33. Next to that, Thames Valley 695 (YX75 LDF) awaits departure to Maidenhead on route 20.
The Press Notice states that the M40 route will "get people from High Wycombe to Uxbridge in as little as 20 minutes". This is a seriously misleading statement if one assumes that the description means town centre to town centre. The distance seems to be 14 miles-plus over the shortest route, implying an average speed of 42 mph to complete in 20 minutes!
Based on the start to today's journey, it's going to take quite a lot longer than 20 minutes. Three minutes into the journey and we've barely left the environs of the Bus Station.
ABOVE: Buses queue to get out of Bridge Street onto Oxford Road in High Wycombe. Immediately in front of us is Carousel Buses 81978 (RF68 FLX), a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter EVM Cityline. In front of that is Carousel's 80220 (JF10 OXF, right), a Scania N230UD ADL Enviro400. To our left is Redline BF67 GJO, a Volvo B5TL Wright Eclipse Gemini 3 on route 130 from Aylesbury.
The quickest route to the motorway is south down the A404 to Junction 4. However, the bus heads along the London Road to the east of the town. This is clearly worth it as we pick up a few more people along this stretch. It's a busy bus corridor, and a major road out of the town:
ABOVE: Carousel Buses 80596 (YY25 DJK, left), an ADL Enviro200 MMC in "plain clothes" is working route 105 to Chartridge, whilst fellow Carousel MMC 80478 (YW68 OWH) heads into the town centre on cross-town route 32. This is the junction of London Road with Hatters Lane, outside the town centre.
There's a significant time penalty to this routing, though. After three minutes to clear the Bus Station area, it has taken another 18 minutes to venture down to Loudwater, a village in the parish of Chepping Wycombe. We have had to go through a set of temporary traffic lights, and we have picked another four passengers up by coming this way, including one at the very last stop before the motorway. But we have already exceeded the claimed 20 minutes and we're not even on the motorway yet.
The M40 bus joins the M40 motorway at Junction 3:
The M40 bus has been launched with a half-hourly frequency. I'm surprised that there isn't a service later into the evening (the last bus leaves Uxbridge at 19:35), but the daytime frequency is attractive enough. There's no Sunday service.
ABOVE: Stretch your imagination and strain your eyes and you may just be able to spot a bus in the far distance, heading towards us (underneath the extreme right arrow on the distant sign) as we approach the junction with the M25 Orbital motorway.
We have about nine-and-a-half miles of motorway to trundle down. As we do so, one of the other two buses on the route heads past. The Press Notice shows ADL Enviro400 MMCs in the latest First livery, but all three of today's buses on the M40 route are in the erstwhile First Kernow livery of the Cornish operations that the company gave up in mid-February 2026.
We come off the motorway at Junction 1 (New Denham). The motorway section has taken 11 minutes.
We now head down the Oxford Road for the last mile or so to Uxbridge. It's interesting to see that the Transport for London bus stops on this road have been updated to show the M40 route number, although the font style isn't quite right and the words "Mondays to Saturdays" do not appear, so I wonder if this is an unofficial adaptation:
ABOVE: Carousel Buses 80600 (SN66 WNE), an ADL Enviro400 MMC, at Knighton Way Lane on the Oxford Road in New Denham is working route 102, the main opposition to the new M40. I last saw this bus working route 111 on Christmas Day 2025 (https://busestopdeck.co.uk/248.html).
It's about a mile down Oxford Road before we enter Uxbridge:
It's a little slow around the High Street because there are so many other buses around:
ABOVE: A Carousel Buses ADL Enviro400 overtakes a Metroline West / Transport for London Volvo B9TL Wright Eclipse Gemini 2 in Uxbridge High Street. An MB Citaro can just be seen on route 458 behind - more about this route below...
We reach the Belmont Road stop in Uxbridge Town Centre (the penultimate stop) at 13:20. The journey has taken 40 minutes rather than the 35 scheduled. Even so, it's definitely faster than any other bus option, and this route should do well as a result. OK, there were only seven passengers on my journey, but this was an off-peak trip on the eighth-ever day of operation. As word spreads, more customers should turn up.
Uxbridge symbolises the latest round of bus wars. Sitting right on the edge of the Greater London boundary, anything that heads west, or more than a couple of miles north-west or south-west is not going to be a Transport for London (TfL) service.
The route to Slough is an example of this. In London Country days there were frequent services from Uxbridge to Slough (and Windsor) that were traditionally operated with RT and Routemaster vehicles, and later by driver-only RFs. Services gradually diminished until the current pattern of two buses an hour, most recently on First route 3, represented the norm.
When I say current pattern, I mean that which applied at the end of 2025. At present, there are six buses per hour between Uxbridge & Slough - the best level since - well I can't remember!
Part of this is because, in early January 2026, Carousel Buses launched a rival Uxbridge to Slough service, also half-hourly but using a different route. This took the number 458 - a traditional route number for this corridor from London Country days (nice touch).
ABOVE: Another view of the same stop in Belmont Road, Uxbridge, finds Carousel Buses 80888 (VU18 OPK), a Mercedes-Benz Citaro O295, pausing between journeys on route 458 to Slough. A Metroline West / Transport for London Volvo B5LH Wright Eclipse Gemini 3 is behind. The destination suggests that it is about to take up a run on route 222. A BYD D8UR-DD ADL Enviro400EV belonging to Transport UK brings up the rear on a service from Hayes & Harlington. Taken on Friday 23 January 2026.
I had to try this one out so, in late January, I'm in Uxbridge boarding a late Friday morning departure from Bakers Road (outside Uxbridge Underground Station). The Mercedes-Benz Citaro is smart and presentable with audio and visual customer information systems.
The audio is slightly off-key; The "ver" of "Iver", which should rhyme with "the", actually rhymes with "there", for example. I can't get many pictures during the ride, but I do get a decent one of the Red Lion Public House in Iver, which the audio describes literally as it would have been inputted into the system: "Red Lion Pea Aitch."...
It's noticeable that, in mid-January, neither the TfL-managed Bus Stops nor the Slough Borough Council-managed stops show the 458 number, almost three weeks into the operation of the new service. The TfL stop at Uxbridge Station does have a timetable though. (Meanwhile, Buckinghamshire County Council stop flags don't carry any route numbers at all!)
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ABOVE: TfL bus stop flag with no mention of the 458 (left), a similar Slough Borough Council flag in Langley is also lacking the appropriate details (centre), but the Uxbridge stop does at least have a timetable (right). All taken on Friday 23 January 2026.
There's no point looking for any up-to-date detail in Slough Town Centre, of course; the information there is dated 2023:
ABOVE: Information in need of a significant update in Slough on Friday 23 January 2026.
Meanwhile, the X74 from High Wycombe to Slough was an established route, but First took the opportunity to relaunch it from 2 March alongside the M40, by extending it to Uxbridge over a "direct route". The same Press Notice makes another impossible claim:
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There is no journey between Slough and Uxbridge on the timetable that does the trip in 20 minutes. "Around" 20 minutes is actually 24-25 on most journeys. Why not say "under 25 minutes"?
The Press Notice does say that route 3 will continue as before, but, although there's a picture to imply that route X74 is being promoted to double-decker, the Press Release stays silent on this obvious selling point.
The most remarkable point to me, as someone for whom "presentation" is an important part of the day job, is that the double-deckers that have been introduced to the service, and to the M40, retain their Kernow liveries (apart from one bus in the latest plain livery).
What a great opportunity this would have been to create some special marketing and a nice, bright and eye-catching new livery for both routes And maybe a timetable leaflet? (Don't be silly!)
To make things even worse, the old single-deckers that carry limited branding for the X74 have been transferred to other routes but retain their X74 branding. Despite all this 'noise' about new services, do they not care?
ABOVE: Which is the X74? First Berkshire & The Thames Valley 63314, a Wright Streetlite DF, carries branding for route X74 but is actually heading for Uxbridge via route 3. Meanwhile, the same company's 33311 (WK18 CGO), in Cornish colours, IS working the new stretch of the X74 to Uxbridge. This is Wellington Street in Slough, and the roof of the now-condemned Slough Bus Station can be seen behind the Streetlite.
So the new section competes with First's own route 3 as well as Carousel's 458. On this occasion, I don't try the new section of the X74, but I take an off-peak trip from Slough to High Wycombe. The bus arrives from Uxbridge at 11:35 for its 11:36 departure. There is a driver-change here and it's a slow one - but a plus point that the first driver lets everyone board before the changeover takes place (still rare outside London). By the time we're ready to go it's 11:42.
Despite its close proximity to my home, this is not a route I have travelled on very often. The extra deck is certainly welcome as I can get a front seat and some decent pictures.
ABOVE: First 33305 (WK18 CFX), another ADL Enviro400 MMC, is see on the Farnham Road, north-west of Slough Town Centre.
We pass through the Farnham suburbs of Slough - Farnham Royal and Farnham Common.
ABOVE: Farnham Royal
By the time we reach the latter the journey has become very countrified (Green Belt land) - until we come to the M40 motorway again on the edge of Beaconsfield.
And, not expected by me, we actually turn onto the motorway for a quick (three-mile) dash from Junction 2 to Junction 3. Not a fan of motorways, as I have said, but this is one of those stunning bits of the M40 that I have driven along on many occasions, so to see this bit from the top deck is well worth the ride (one can see an even-higher view at the start of each episode of "The Vicar of Dibley", which I believe was filmed in these parts).
As we return to ordinary roads, we stumble across the Carousel Buses route 103, which is the main competition, although it runs via Beaconsfield rather than via the motorway.
ABOVE: Carousel Buses 80442 (SK66 HRO), a Wright Streetlite DF, is seen at the B&Q store about halfway from Loudwater to High Wycombe.
We're soon back in the environs of High Wycombe:
ABOVE; Another view of Carousel Buses 80596 (YY25 DJK, left), about to turn onto Easton Street on the final approach to High Wycombe Town Centre. On the right, Carousel 80455 (YX75 KWO), has just started the journey on route 37 to Windsor.
Not all of the buses transferred from Cornwall are in the green Kernow livery. There were various route-specific liveries in use in Cornwall, including the Copper livery for route U2 (Falmer to Redruth), commemorating copper mines / miners in those parts. A smart livery, but...
ABOVE: First 33450 (WK66 CCA), with "Copper" branding for route U2 from Falmouth to Redruth, in High Street, High Wycombe
This trip from Uxbridge / Slough arrives at High Wycombe Bus Station at 12:36 - 11 minutes late. Apart from the slow driver-change, the aforementioned set of temporary lights has also added delay. Fortunately, it has arrived just in time to form the M40 departure at 12:40 - the journey I described at the start of the article! I hadn't clocked it was the same bus! Was it the same driver as well? No idea!
One bit of good news is that both the 458 and the X74 have now had their details added to the bus stop in Uxbridge Station (the M40 doesn't use this stop):
The two new rival routes are sharing a bus stop tile in just the same way as they share a link from Uxbridge to Slough. There are six buses an hour now linking the two towns. Is there enough business for all of them? And will the M40 bus also gain a following? Might there be even more predatory behaviour to come as the various local operators in Bucks and Berks seek to consolidate their shares of the spoils?
We'll just have to wait and see... Might take more than 20 minutes, though!
BELOW: A diagrammatic representation of routes 458, M40 & X74, as well as other routes discussed in this article
