West Midlands Worrying Matters 2

 To Bring Us Up-to-date - Perhaps

With privatisation, West Midlands Travel takes on a new and dramatically innovative name which shocked bus watchers everywhere. West Midlands Travel becomes Travel West Midlands.

Then comes another new livery.

iI is not long before a new name appears on the front of this rather garish red white and blue paint job.

The lads have sold out to National Express.

In all this budgetary largesse for new paint, Coventry retains a slightly different identity.

The red stripe becomes blue, sky blue after some local sports team, fbb understands. And the red wedge also becomes sky blue.

The operator is a separate outfit, now called ...

... National Express Coventry.

Meanwhile, in Big Brother Brum, liveries are changing again. Basically it is all-over red with added red.

The West Midlands PTE did, at one stage, decide that all tendered buses should be red -  a bit like London.

It didn't last.

Then it was, and still is, a boring grey ...

... with assorted varieties of bright route branding. Or you could have route branding withiut a route number!

But the bus is electrified so that makes it all right, then.

In Coventry, guess what, the flashes of colour are sky blue ...

... or not!

... when they are red! But you do have small ...

... very small route numbers.

So that is what the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) is buying, to, so they say, ensure continuity of service for the good folk of the West Midlands.

Which is absolute nonsense!

The new "arms length" bus company, although owned by the WMCA, is not allowed, in law, to have any preferential treatmeint in the tendering process. This means that, unless there is some dodgy and illegal dealing (which there won't be), the WMCA-owned bus company could fail to win any franchises offered by its owners!

What is dafter is that National Express Bus is happily bidding for franchises in other areas.

It would be really perverse if the West Midlands owned bus company were to end up running franchised uses in West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Cambridgeshire or Bridgwater (etc) but NOT in the West Midkands.

And There's More

The rumours are that NatEx (Bus) is losing money by the truck full, buoyed up by various deals and various monies from WMCA. These deals are designed to keep fares low and to maintain the current levels of service - all for political reasons. 

So NatEx (the Group) want out. The group has enough bother with NatEx (Coach) to keep its management awake at night.

So WMCA gets a bargain!

The reported price of £26 million, plus accepting some debt (unspecified), gets NatEx (Group) out of a hugely challengng situation and allows them to revive NatEx (Coach) with the help of their Spanish bedfellows.

Spanish Bedfellows?

NatEx (Group) renamed itself as ...

Domestically it currently operates bus and coach services under brands including National Express. The company also operates transport services including trains abroad: in Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Malta, Germany, Bahrain, Morocco, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and South Korea, and long-distance coach services across Europe. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange.

One company in the Group is ...

ALSA (Automóviles Luarca, S.A.) is a Spanish subsidiary of the UK company Mobico Group, which operates bus and coach services in Spain and other countries across Europe, including Andorra, Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Malta, Cyprus, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland and Ukraine. It also has operations in Morocco.

Those who know about these things tell fbb that Alsa is, effectively managing NatEx (Coach).

So perhaps, now, we can see why Nat Ex (Group) wanted to get rid of Nat Ex (Bus) almost at any price. And why WMCA has snapped up the company from the Group's Bargain Basement.

Whether it will make any difference to anything is debatable. Whether any good will come to WMCA or NatEx (Bus) as a result of the sale is equally debatable.

Watch this space!

And, yes, all this corporate .stuff hurts fbb's brain!

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But two sheets of BP logos from Fox Transfers will cost fbb £30 to provide just NINE logos. Why TWO sheets. The tanks have a logo and lettering on ine end ...

... and they are smaller than those on the sides.

So a sheet of small and a sheet if medium is required

£30 for nine transfers is £3.33 (recurring) per logo or £10 per tank which is too much for a cheap toy.

So fbb decided to make his own logos.

Yikes!

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 Next Variety blog : Sat 29 August 

West Midlands Worrying Matters 1

 How We Got Where We Are

In many ways, the West Midlands PTE ...

... was the most dynamic of the first batch of politically motivated mega areas of bus operation, created as a result of the invention of Metropolitan Counties, mega areas of municipal control.

Joining Birmingham (above) were Walsall Corporation ...

... with some strange looking buses made even stranger by adapting the body shell for one man operation. 

Then there was the innovative unique long decker with two doors and two staircases ...

... long before Mr Johnson re-invented the idea for his less than satisfactory and expensive BorisDisaster for London! 

Walsall had trolleybuses ...

... including a collection of cast-offs as here from Ipswich.

All the buses soon gained the PTE logo.

Also absorbed was West Bromwich Corporation transport ...

... with one of the most luxurious historic liveries of any UK municipality. A later livery was cheap and nasty by comparison!

West Brom soon succumbed to the Wumpty bus treatment!

The third 'W' to join the club was Wolverhampton, another historic trolleybus operator ...

... and a bus livery that was the most boring of the three conscripts!

The Baggies enjoyed some 'interesting' vehicles, including this forward entrance full fronted Guy.

Corporate County identity soon appeared ...

... by which time much of the fleet was 'tired'.

In 1972, almost before the PTE had established itself, the borders were extended to absorb Coventry.

... also soon given the new badge of ownership.

But worse was yet to come. Whilst Merseyside left North Western and Crosville untouched; Manchester remained all municipal in the early days; likewise West and South Yorkshire kept to their constituent parts: Tyne and Wear persuaded some "company" buses to adopt yellow paint: but, uniquely, WMPTE was quick to take over its batch of local Midland Red routes,

That was a ridiculously long sentence and unnecessarily so!

The absorptions was in 1973.

And, horror of horrors, the WMPTE soon got stuck in and stuck on.

Repainting followed very quickly, but it was always strange to see a lovely red D9 ...

... looking very much like a Birmingham Corporation bus. Sacrilege!

fbb will bring the story up-to-date tomorrow.

≈≈=================

British Petroleum All Squared

The above picture appeared in an on-line auction site. The blurb said the wagon was "very rare".

fbb is always very suspicious of such a statement, usually designed to inflate the price rather than act as a useful guide to purchasers. Maybe some keen entrepreneur had taken his logo-less wagon, applied some transfers and conned the auction site into handling a cheap toy now disguised as a rare wagon.

Yes it does happen.

Then fbb found this picture on line.

The squared logo version does hot appear on any catalogue site showing the history of this model.

But it gave fbb a jackpot idea. Why not take his un-logo wagon ...

... and apply some logos in squares! Then fbb would have a "rare" BP Freightliner tank wagon in his collection. Wowsers! 

fbb is not a cheat, and would always inforn a purchser of his duplicity, honest, yes he would. Knowing fbb's shaky hands it is highly likely that potential investors would quickly spot that the antique toy truck is a 'marriage'

And relevant decals are available from Fox Transfers.

Sounds like a plan!

≈≈=================

 Next West Midlands blog : Fri 28 Aug 

Dumfries & Galloway - Better Guidance!

 fbb Never Knew!

Powys Bus Timetables book

The OS South Wales & West Branch has published a timetable book for the County of Powys following a retendering exercise of bus routes in Powys. Revised services were introduced on 31 August 2025 but no booklet showing all of the services has been produced, so the SW&W Branch decided to produce a complete guide to the timetables of all routes operating in the county, including those which were not part of the tendering exercise. 

But He Knows Now!

But, in much the same style, this slim volume dropped through the letterbox at fbb mansions a few days ago.

As alert readers can see, it is in the same style as the Powys book and sells for a similar price, Mr Shayshutt informs fbb that it has been entirely financed by the author with no editorial input from Dumfries and Galloway council.

So what do you get for your money?

The booklet consists of 32 full colour pages (which includes the cover) which are not numbered.

To keep production costs down, the type face is small, a bit too small for fbb to read in comfort. His Age Related Macular Degeneration has not (yet!!) degenerated too far but, like long words for Winnie The Pooh, small print bothers him.

But thankfully fbb has his tablet c/w an excellent camera which is far better than a magnifying glass.

There is no index, which is a disappointment. fbb is sure that with a judicious bit if jiggling, pages could be be spared for an alphabetical list of "places served" even if, say, local roads and districts in Dumfries were just summarised with each town service timetable..

So here us Dumfries local route 8 ...

... noting that Keith makes use of 'repeat patterns' as above, "every hour', thus saving space. 

Talking if space, the white space gaps are used to include bus photographs and operator logos where appropriate. Unlike the Council's timetables, every service comes with an operator at the top of every tine column.

Sometimes you get a picture ..

... and/or a logo.

As there are no joint services, surely an operator name as part of the table heading would suffice!

fbb is pleased to see that a 115 bus on the Ae route is featured ...

... as, of course is the timetable, an exact copy if the council's table layout. Incidentally, any deficiencies in the quality of the screenshots is entirely down to fbb's haste to complete the blog in a very busy day!

The 115 is a timetable born of operating convenience rather than motivated by a genuine desire to explain. fbb reckons it could be presented more helpfully!

Another good policy adopted by Keith and not by the council is to remove short working journeys that never show their headlight clusters in the county.

So the 58, 60, 358, 360 only shows the 3xx journeys through to Stranraer ...

... making the service more sensible, more understandable and, as above less wasteful of precious space. D & G, readers will remember, just pastes the whole knitting pattern of the full Stagecoach company presentation.

Oddly, Houstons 101/101A to Edinburgh is shown in full; surely the Biggar to Edinburgh journeys are entirely in furrin parts and could be omitted?

Talking of Stagecoach, fbb failed to mention two more services which escaped the Stagecoach sulky abandonment of the county.

They are service 79 run by Stagecoach Cumbria from Carlisle ...

... to Annan and Dumfries ...

... showing as a simple table for D & G journeys

Stagecoach still operates the X74, hourly via the A74/M74. This has had posh coaches ...

... but Motorway Maintenance liveried double deckers can also appear. A top deck front seat ride from Glasgow's Buchanan bus station all the way to Dumfries Whitesands would be something very special!

Is there a PNB stop?

Although no proper network map is included there is this "broad brush" effort at the beginning.

The Dumfries local map really is too small!

Stranraer gets two maps ...

... which could probably be merged into one.

Some rural routes get a map like this ...

... which are SO much better than Traveline's part pathetic computer generated squiggles which fbb posted yesterday for the 517, the same route as above..

But there isn't room for one for every service. fbb wonders how Mr Shayshutt chose?

But it is far to easy to be nit picking.

This is a splendid effort from Keith Shayshutt which ought to be bought in bulk by Dumfries and Galloway Council and widely distributed throughout the community. fbb reckons the compiler might offer a small discount!

Well done Sir Keith.

====================

Busy day yesterday. There was the start of a tidy up near the new baseboard section.

This involved sorting the store on the floor, throwing junk out, dysoning the carpet ...

... wondering what all those cables were for ...

... and then filling up the new baseboard 'shelf' with stuff that was still wanted - probably!

There is still more, MUCH more, to do. Progress is slow because the monthly leaflet distribution to meeting attendees and supporters is also being composed.

It's all about biblical wine and associated viticulture, in both the old and new testaments.

Cheers!

====================

There's more on the BP freightliner tank wagon to come.

 Next West Midlands mini blog - Thur 27 Aug