2010 - Day Out 4: Worcestershire

Date: 18 December 2010

It was time for the now annual tradition, a Worcestershire trip for our Christmas outing, or so we thought....

Mr SBI meets up with Mr UK Buses at a snow covered Norton to catch National Express West Midlands (NXWM) Service 276 to get to Stourbridge Junction, where we arrive just after 9am, and meet up with Andy (nice to see you again) and Mr WME. We wait at Platform 3 for Mr WME, who eventually arrives and the gang are complete, where we have a discussion to see if we go ahead with the original plan or stay local due to the light downfall of the snow, which scuppered Mr SBI's and Mr WME's outing two weeks previously. The gang decide to go ahead with the plan, is it the right decision?

Our train arrives and we board the 09:19 London Midland train to Kidderminster. We pass through Hagley and Blakedown, passing snow covered fields along the way and arrive at our first destination, Kidderminster. A short walk ensues to Comberton Hill, where we have our ticket money at hand to get our FirstDay ticket, and our first bus arrives, First Midlands X3 to Redditch. We get out of the snow, which seems to be coming down quite fast, and board the X3, a bus which we have to ourselves (some people have sense and decide to stay out of the snow). We are on our way to our first destination - Redditch, or so we thought, the snow is coming down quite heavy now, and we are heading down a snow covered road to Chaddersley Corbett, but the road seems to be disappearing. The bus is clinging onto the road, just, and we head down towards the front of the bus where we have a chat with the driver who asks us what we are doing today, we reply "on a day out", whilst he is wrestling with the bus and the road. The driver must have thought that we were mad. Conditions outside are now bad, and the gang decide to get off at Bromsgrove, when we arrive, and see if we can get back to Stourbridge and spend the rest of the day locally. After the driver is shouting at the cars in front not to stop, because he would become stuck, we finally arrive at our unscheduled stop of Bromsgrove.

The gang decide that a drink is in order, so we head of to the JD Wetherspoons' nearest pub "The Golden Cross", where Mr SBI gets the first round in and the gang chat about the when the 318 is due. We are not quite sure, so Mr SBI comes to the rescue with his new BlackBerry and surfs the net and his own website, to get the number of Hansons', the operator of Service 318 to Stourbridge. Mr SBI rings Hansons' to find out the time of the next bus, but disaster strikes when we are told that Hansons' have called all their buses in as the roads around Stourbridge are gridlocked and nearly impassable, so we are stuck in Bromsgrove. Andy softens the blow when he gets the next round, and once we start supping the drinks, we chat about how to get back to the Midlands. We decide to walk out in the dreaded white stuff and head to the bus station and see what turns up.

We arrive and we just miss a 144 to Worcester and a 143 to Birmingham. There is not much left in the station, only a Black Diamond (seen left, Not In Service) which is not moving anywhere after the driver tells Mr UK Buses that nothing is moving as all the roads are gridlocked around Bromsgrove. So we wait to see what comes to our rescue, and while Mr UK Buses decides to pay a visit to the toilet, a First X3 back to Kidderminster is heading for the bus station. Mr SBI runs to the toilet to inform Mr UK Buses, and the pair sprint to the stand to catch the bus and head back to Kidderminster to get a train back to Stourbridge. We head off on our journey and everyone seems happy that we are on the bus, out of the white stuff, and heading back home, or so we thought. We are barely out of Bromsgrove, and the bus comes to a standstill, so we wait in the traffic for five minutes before the driver informs us that the X3 in front is stuck, and that the service has been cancelled, so we head towards Bromsgrove, which takes us about twenty minutes in slow moving traffic to get us back to where we started. We are back to square one when the bus eventually drops us off just past Bromsgrove High Street.

The gang decide to go into "The Queens Head", for two reasons, one to empty the bladders and two, to have a drink to console ourselves and talk about how we get back, Mr WME comes up trumps and buys the round. It now feels like that we are truly stuck in Bromsgrove and it is even talked about finding a Bed and Breakfast for the night. We finish our drinks off and walk around to the bus station to see if anything is even there, but on the way, Mr UK Buses sees the driver of the Black Diamond 007, stuck in traffic, so we all run over the road, where Des, the driver, one who Mr UK Buses knows through his work, kindly lets us on and hopefully gets us on our way. We sit down at the back of the bus where the gang seems to be happy that we are on our way back to the Midlands. The traffic is moving very slowly, we have been on the bus for about approximately 45 minutes, and we only seem to have moved about just over a quarter of a mile. As we are moving so slowly, Mr UK Buses and Andy have bladder trouble so spot a pub, The Crabmill, and ask Des not to drive off whilst they get off the bus and pay a little visit to use the facilities. We have moved about 10 feet, when Mr UK Buses and Andy get back on, they could have had a quick drink if they really wanted to, as we wouldn't have moved that far. We are slowly making our way to the motorway island, to get back to the Midlands, and we finally reach the motorway island after about two hours. We find out that the motorway has been closed so it will be longer to get back to the Midlands than we thought, especially in the conditions on the roads.

Des, gets us to the back of Rubery where he drops off two old ladies after getting them back from Bromsgrove, it is just down to him to get us back, so we have a slow drive, down the A41 and across Romsley and Huntington, where after about 3 to 3 and a half hours stuck on the bus, we finally arrive in Halesowen. We alight and give our deepest thanks to Des, who if it wasn't for this driver, we would have been in Bromsgrove still. The gang need to get their priorities right, so it is a visit to the toilet first, and then after finding out that there are no other Diamond or NXWM buses in service (with a few NXWM service 9's stuck in snow at nearby Drews Holloway) , we go to our second JD wetherspoons' of the the day, "The William Shenstone", where Mr SBI gets his second round of the day (I'm sure it should have been Mr UK Buses turn), and we sit down to get warm and have a chat about how we get back from Halesowen. After our first drinks, food is ordered to fill our hungry guts, but Mr SBI sits this one out as he has no appetite due to his "Man-Flu". Andy rings NXWM Pensnett Garage, and finds out that the buses are starting to go back out in service as the conditions are starting to improve. A couple more rounds are bought (Mr UK Buses finally gets one!!!) and Mr SBI's eyes light up as we see our first bus since we arrived back in civilisation, a NXWM 9 to Birmingham, so we all head around to the bus station and wait to see what turns up.

The natives are getting restless, so Mr WME and Andy decide to have a play in the snow, and with snowballs flying in many places and faces, a Service 222 turns up, which Mr WME and Andy decide to catch, so that they can see if they can catch a train from nearby Cradley Heath to get back to Wolverhampton (Mr WME) and West Bromwich (Andy). Mr UK Buses and Mr SBI have a further wait, and after about 20 minutes, a NXWM service 9 to Stourbridge arrives, and the pair eagerly get on board and sit down on the top deck, and are glad that they won't be spending the night in Halesowen, and are heading home. Whilst en-route, Mr WME gives Mr UK Buses a call and say that he and Andy are waiting for a train from Cradley, and are waiting in a pub of all places to have a warmth and wait for their train. The 9 finally arrives back in Stourbridge, so Mr UK Buses and Mr SBI decide to walk up to the service 276 stand to see if a bus is due, we wait, but we know that we are going to have to walk it back to Norton and Wollaston to get back to the warmth of their homes, so after a few minutes of the bus not turning up at its allocated time, we head through the town and across the Ring Road on our way home to have a much deserved rest and warmth.

An unforgettable day, one which we will look back on over the years to come, and for Mr SBI, this is his second trip within a month that has been disrupted due to the dreaded white stuff. Our plan should have originally seen us visit Redditch, Bromsgrove and  Stoke Prior, for our Christmas Trek, but we only got as far as Bromsgrove, which we weren't due to visit till later in the day, but we eventually got back to our homes, and we hope to try and stick to the plan when we all meet up again at the end of the January to have our post Christmas outing late, or early (whichever you want to class it as), with the hope of no white stuff getting in our way.

An unusual end to 2010 regarding our trips, but one that we won't forget in a hurry. Thanks to Andy, Mr UK Buses and Mr WME for the last few trips together during the end of 2010, and look forward to more in 2011. The webmaster wishes all visitors to his site a Happy New Year for 2011.