Date: 28 May 2011
May has been a busy month for days out, it is time for my third out of four planned trips, and it is a local trip with Mr UKBuses, who has nearly recovered from his troubled knee. I still offered to push him in a wheelchair, but for some strange reason he still doesn't want me to. So taking it steady he comes out today, and I catch my usual 0856 journey of National Express West Midlands 276 Service, where arriving in Norton, Mr UKBuses boards with a slight limp, and he takes the weight off his feet until we arrive at the bus stop on Stourbridge Ring Road where we alight. We have no plan and try and make the day out based on a "turn-up and go" service where the first bus that turns up, we go on it. Our first bus to turn up is a Hansons, Service 267 to Kingswinford, where we have a venture round the side streets of Amblecote and Wordsley before arriving in Kingswinford.
We alight the bus opposite the Kingswinford Co-Op, where as we walk to The Cross, we turn into Market Street and a Hanson's 226 pulls away from the bus stop, we only have to wait a few minutes where another 226 turns up, this time operated by Diamond. It is not long before we end up at Russell's Hall Hospital, where Mr UKBuses attempts to hide himself from a Pensnett Garage driver on NXWM's Service 246, but as we head up towards Dudley at Queen's Cross, Mr UKBuses work colleague spots him and looks at him in disgust at catching a competitors bus, especially a Diamond 226! It is not long before we arrive in Dudley, and I can say that Hanson's 226 service was carrying a heavy load when spotted in Kingswinford, as we traveled the entire way into Dudley on Diamond's service there were only a handful of passengers on this journey, it looks as if Hanson's have currently got the upper hand on the "226 Bus War". We arrive in Dudley, and our next bus of choice is NXWM's 87 service, which we decide to catch to Oldbury, as Mr UKBuses believes that a new J D Wetherspoons is open in the town. After about 20 minutes, we arrive in Oldbury and we alight just outside the new library building, where Mr UKBuses tests his new camera out and gets a few bus photographs. Coincidently, the new Wetherspoons pub is supposed to be in the old library building, but we don't know where the old library was in Oldbury and after about ten minutes and a bit of search down the main streets in Oldbury, we ditch the search and make our way back to the bus stops where we see what turns up and make our mind on what to catch. (Research on the Wetherspoons website whilst writing this blog post points out that there is no new Wetherspoons pub in the Oldbury area!!!)
We catch Service 404 into West Bromwich, but just before we arrive in West Bromwich, Mr UKBuses texts a work colleague, and I text Mr D9, to see if they want to meet up for a drink at a pub called "The Windmill", and on our short journey, Mr UKbuses receives a text to say that the pub doesn't open until midday, so we decide to make our way across to Wednesbury to meet up with Mr UKBuses colleague there, a second text is sent to Mr D9 to tell him about the change of plan, and we hear nothing until about twenty minutes later as just arriving in Wednesbury bus station, Mr D9 makes contact and says he is unable to meet up with us, but thanks us for the thought. We make our way through Wednesbury town centre and hit our first Wetherspoon's of the day, "The Bellwether", where with just after having a conversation with Mr D9, I catch the bladder problem and have to rush to the toilet as soon as I get there, but at least it confirms one thing, Mr UKBuses has to get the first round of the day. Toilet break over, I make my way downstairs and Pete greets me. Pete works in the office with Mr UKBuses at Pensnett, and we have a chat whilst Mr UKBuses waits to get served - My only gripe about Wetherspoons is sometimes the service, the pubs are mainly busy, but they don't have the right amount of staff behind the bar. Finally Mr UKBuses returns to the table with the drinks and before we chat to Pete, I send a text to another member of the WARP's, Mr WME, as we decide to head across to Wolverhampton and see if he is available to meet us during his lunch break. We have a chat with Pete, and he tells us a couple of stories about his time with West Midlands Travel. Unfortunately, Pete can't stay long, and he says his goodbyes, and it is not long after we make our way to the bus stop outside The Bellwether, to make a short hop to the bus station, where we change over to the NXWM Service 311, to make another short hop to the Wednesbury Metro stop. As we make the short walk to the platform, a Metro turns up straight away, and it is time to go to Wolverhampton, via Bilston Central and Priestfields, and as we pass the old WMPTE / West Midlands Travel Cleveland Road Garage, we arrive at Wolverhampton St George's Metro terminus. The rain has started to make an appearance, and as we still have no response from Mr WME, we decide to quickly pop round the corner to Wolverhampton Central Library, where we make our way to the Learning Centre to see if he is available. We have just missed Mr WME by about five minutes. We make our way out of the library and the rain has started to come down real fast.
We find ourselves jumping into a doorway to let the rain calm down before moving further, and after about five minutes, the rain has stopped, so we make our way down Market Street, past The Wheatsheaf, and down Princess Street before turning right into Lichfield Street and our usual JD Wetherspoon's, "The Moon Under Water", where we decide to have lunch. Drinks ordered and Mr D9's barmaid is working, Mr UKBuses has found a table and we are sitting down towards the back, and it is time to peruse the menu. Mr UKBuses decides to have his usual Chicken Tikka Masala, but I break with tradition and opt for the Gammon Steak and Chips. We wait for our food, and decide whilst waiting, to take a "cheers" photo, but it seems difficult as we are sitting in the middle of the room, so we place our camera's at the end of the next table and just manage to take a photograph, see left, apologies for the table taking main stage, but it is the best we could do in the circumstances. After about a further ten minutes, our food arrives, and boy oh boy, I find I nearly have two gammon steaks on the plate (note to self, I must ask for no eggs again in future, as it seems you get extra gammon). We dig in, and consume our food, after my first half of the gammon, I sense to myself that I will be quite full for the rest of the day, but I make sure that both pieces are finished off, and we wait a few minutes to let our food go down. We decide to get our money's worth out of the DayTrippers purchased and catch a train, so we head to Wolverhampton's railway station, passing the near complete Wolverhampton Interchange along the way. As we arrive at the station, we find we need to get to Platform 3 for our train, and as we make our way across Platform 1, we spot it arrive, so we try and get to Platform 3 as quick as Mr UKBuses can, but as we make our way down the stairs, our train pulls out, at least we made a good attempt. We look at the information boards and after numerous visits to the railway station, I find out that there are two more platforms never seen before, Platforms 5 and 6. We need to get to Platform 5, which is close to the entrance just of Platform 1, this confuses me as I thought there were only 4 platforms!! We arrive on Platform 5, and catch a local London Midland service, where we decide to get off at the Sandwell and Dudley station.
Upon arrival, we make our way to the street and as we turn up at the bus stop, our next service arrives, this time 404A, which takes us quickly and we arrive in Blackheath. We alight our bus and make our way to the bus stop opposite so that we can get to Cradley Heath, we do this by catching Central Connects' Service 123, which after bypassing The Waterfall in Old Hill, we make our way through Codsall estate and into Cradley Heath, alighting at Cradley Heath Interchange, where our next "turn up and go" service is Midlands' Service 240 to Stourbridge. After leaving late we make our way towards Stourbridge, and hope that the journey catches up time to make our connection for our next bus. After passing though Timbertree, and through Colley Gate and Lye, we pass Stourbridge Junction and arrive in Parkfield Road, we have about three minutes to get to our connection in Birmingham Street. We must be in luck today, as we make the connection by catching the Stourbridge shuttle, where Mr UKBuses tries to wind up the driver on the minutes journey, and we make our arrival in Birmingham Street with a couple of minutes spare and Mr UKBuses unscathed. Our next service is Hanson's Service 228, which takes us to Kinver, a place not visited for a couple of years, and as we make our way through Wollaston and Stewponey, with quite a few passengers aboard, we spot signs for the Kinver County Fayre, which was the last time we actually made a visit. We arrive in Kinver High Street and find out that, after the numerous roadworks that Kinver has had to put up with over the last few years, a new high street system is in place. We alight outside "The Old Carthorse", as Mr UKBuses calls it, and head into "The White Harte" for a thirst quenching coke. The sun has come out to play now, so we sit outside overlooking the high street. Coke's finished, we make our way to our next pub, "The Plough and Harrow", and after friendly service we take our seats, see picture above. I comment that this was a good pub a few years ago, with quite a trade, but there are just a handful of customers using the pub on a Saturday afternoon. I also notice the opening times, quoting a Tuesday "4 till 10pm, depending on custom". Let's hope the fortunes turn around for The Plough and Harrow, a once cracking pub for Bathams, this may be the knock on effect resulting from the previously mentioned roadworks that have hit Kinver in recent years. It is now time to make our way back into Stourbridge, and we decide to be cheeky as we are at the bus stop early, and decide to catch the bus around and back to Stourbridge via the White Hill terminus.
We make our way back through Kinver village and Wollaston, and arrive back at the Parkfield Road stop. It is now Mr UKBuses turn with bladder problems and we decide to have a quick drink in The Old Crispin, to alleviate his problem. Cokes nearly downed in record time, but now it is my turn to visit the toilet before our next bus, we make our way back to Parkfield Road, where we decide to catch a return trip on Service 240. With the same driver nodding at our tickets again, we make our way back through Lye, where upon arrival at Lye Cross, the driver makes his own meanings of traffic signs and decides to do a right hand turn in the shadow of a "No Right Turn" sign and we then make our way to Colley Gate and through Timbertree, before arriving at Cradley Heath Interchange again. From Cradley Heath, we decide to make our way to Halesowen, and to do this we catch NXWM's Service 141, boarding a busy bus, making our way through Cradley Heath and Old Hill and it is not soon before we arrive in Halesowen.
We both suffer again from Mr D9's catching bladder problem, and after making a visit to the toilets, courtesy of Halesowen's Cornbow Centre, we make our way back to Halesowen bus station. We make our only glitch of the day on our "turn up and go" services and have to wait around twenty minutes for our bus back to Stourbridge. As we find the right stand, we realise a flaw in the bus station design, and notice that the utility cupboards and office at Halesowen have been built on the wrong side as we can't actually see if our bus is coming until it actually pulls up at the automatic stand door! We both agree and decide that Halesowen's bus station isn't one of the best CENTRO's redevelopments and that we did actually prefer the original station. Our bus arrives and we head back to Stourbridge, courtesy of Diamond's Service 142, a service that will take us via Hayley Green, Colley Gate, Wynall (past the newly opened Hare and Hound's - one to note for a future local day out) and Pedmore Fields. We arrive at the main island at the top of Chawn Hill and answers our question we pose towards the island - Does this bus go down Grange Lane or Chawn Hill? I said Grange Lane, whilst Mr UKBuses opts for Chawn Hill. I win this one and we turn right into Grange Lane. Past Stourbridge Junction and back to our stop at Parkfield Road. Upon arrival in Stourbridge, we decide to head down Memory Lane and go back to our old haunt, The Bell. We walk past the police station and try and work out when this part of the ring road turned from a two lane road into three lanes, and what use to stand in the place of the old B&Q (now Aldi) store. Both questions remain unanswered. We arrive in at The Bell, and decide to give our conservatory seats a miss and try and reminisce about our times at the pub, in what was the bar. Before we do this, we take a "cheers" photo, (in hindsight, I think I should have used the zoom!!), and we talk about our old times and how busy the pub was on a Saturday afternoon. Drinks supped and we decide to head to Wetherspoon's "The Chequers Inn" at the top of Stourbridge. Upon arrival, we order our drinks and as we find a table we decide to have some more food. Will Mr UKBuses have a second Masala of the day? Surprisingly not, he opts for a chicken wrap, whilst I opt for my old favourite this time, a beer and burger. It is surprisingly quick and our food arrives. We tuck in and halfway through the meal we decided that we have opted with our stomach's rather than our brains and struggle to finish.
We let our food go down and it is time to make our way back home, so a quick walk to Birmingham Street, and under the subway, where we stop for a minute and look at how the redevelopment of the bus station is going. The subway's are nearing completion now, and it will soon be a start for phase two, the station buildings. The bus station is only about seven to eight months before it is due to be finished, hopefully the winter weather won't cause disruption. We carry on our walk and arrive in Birmingham Street and Stand F, where after about ten minutes our final bus journey turns up, Diamond's Service 276C to take us back to Norton and Wollaston, and our DayTripper tickets have certainly had their use in money today, with quite a few services caught. We pass through Norton first, so Mr UKBuses gives his goodbyes after another brilliant local day out, with the rain not ruining our day for us with its brief visit whilst in Wolverhampton. There is one more day out to do in May and only a couple of days away, where the WRP's (Mr D9 can't make it) meet up, considering it is a Bank Holiday Monday visit, lets hope the rain stays away.......
May has been a busy month for days out, it is time for my third out of four planned trips, and it is a local trip with Mr UKBuses, who has nearly recovered from his troubled knee. I still offered to push him in a wheelchair, but for some strange reason he still doesn't want me to. So taking it steady he comes out today, and I catch my usual 0856 journey of National Express West Midlands 276 Service, where arriving in Norton, Mr UKBuses boards with a slight limp, and he takes the weight off his feet until we arrive at the bus stop on Stourbridge Ring Road where we alight. We have no plan and try and make the day out based on a "turn-up and go" service where the first bus that turns up, we go on it. Our first bus to turn up is a Hansons, Service 267 to Kingswinford, where we have a venture round the side streets of Amblecote and Wordsley before arriving in Kingswinford.
We alight the bus opposite the Kingswinford Co-Op, where as we walk to The Cross, we turn into Market Street and a Hanson's 226 pulls away from the bus stop, we only have to wait a few minutes where another 226 turns up, this time operated by Diamond. It is not long before we end up at Russell's Hall Hospital, where Mr UKBuses attempts to hide himself from a Pensnett Garage driver on NXWM's Service 246, but as we head up towards Dudley at Queen's Cross, Mr UKBuses work colleague spots him and looks at him in disgust at catching a competitors bus, especially a Diamond 226! It is not long before we arrive in Dudley, and I can say that Hanson's 226 service was carrying a heavy load when spotted in Kingswinford, as we traveled the entire way into Dudley on Diamond's service there were only a handful of passengers on this journey, it looks as if Hanson's have currently got the upper hand on the "226 Bus War". We arrive in Dudley, and our next bus of choice is NXWM's 87 service, which we decide to catch to Oldbury, as Mr UKBuses believes that a new J D Wetherspoons is open in the town. After about 20 minutes, we arrive in Oldbury and we alight just outside the new library building, where Mr UKBuses tests his new camera out and gets a few bus photographs. Coincidently, the new Wetherspoons pub is supposed to be in the old library building, but we don't know where the old library was in Oldbury and after about ten minutes and a bit of search down the main streets in Oldbury, we ditch the search and make our way back to the bus stops where we see what turns up and make our mind on what to catch. (Research on the Wetherspoons website whilst writing this blog post points out that there is no new Wetherspoons pub in the Oldbury area!!!)
We catch Service 404 into West Bromwich, but just before we arrive in West Bromwich, Mr UKBuses texts a work colleague, and I text Mr D9, to see if they want to meet up for a drink at a pub called "The Windmill", and on our short journey, Mr UKbuses receives a text to say that the pub doesn't open until midday, so we decide to make our way across to Wednesbury to meet up with Mr UKBuses colleague there, a second text is sent to Mr D9 to tell him about the change of plan, and we hear nothing until about twenty minutes later as just arriving in Wednesbury bus station, Mr D9 makes contact and says he is unable to meet up with us, but thanks us for the thought. We make our way through Wednesbury town centre and hit our first Wetherspoon's of the day, "The Bellwether", where with just after having a conversation with Mr D9, I catch the bladder problem and have to rush to the toilet as soon as I get there, but at least it confirms one thing, Mr UKBuses has to get the first round of the day. Toilet break over, I make my way downstairs and Pete greets me. Pete works in the office with Mr UKBuses at Pensnett, and we have a chat whilst Mr UKBuses waits to get served - My only gripe about Wetherspoons is sometimes the service, the pubs are mainly busy, but they don't have the right amount of staff behind the bar. Finally Mr UKBuses returns to the table with the drinks and before we chat to Pete, I send a text to another member of the WARP's, Mr WME, as we decide to head across to Wolverhampton and see if he is available to meet us during his lunch break. We have a chat with Pete, and he tells us a couple of stories about his time with West Midlands Travel. Unfortunately, Pete can't stay long, and he says his goodbyes, and it is not long after we make our way to the bus stop outside The Bellwether, to make a short hop to the bus station, where we change over to the NXWM Service 311, to make another short hop to the Wednesbury Metro stop. As we make the short walk to the platform, a Metro turns up straight away, and it is time to go to Wolverhampton, via Bilston Central and Priestfields, and as we pass the old WMPTE / West Midlands Travel Cleveland Road Garage, we arrive at Wolverhampton St George's Metro terminus. The rain has started to make an appearance, and as we still have no response from Mr WME, we decide to quickly pop round the corner to Wolverhampton Central Library, where we make our way to the Learning Centre to see if he is available. We have just missed Mr WME by about five minutes. We make our way out of the library and the rain has started to come down real fast.
We make our way back through Kinver village and Wollaston, and arrive back at the Parkfield Road stop. It is now Mr UKBuses turn with bladder problems and we decide to have a quick drink in The Old Crispin, to alleviate his problem. Cokes nearly downed in record time, but now it is my turn to visit the toilet before our next bus, we make our way back to Parkfield Road, where we decide to catch a return trip on Service 240. With the same driver nodding at our tickets again, we make our way back through Lye, where upon arrival at Lye Cross, the driver makes his own meanings of traffic signs and decides to do a right hand turn in the shadow of a "No Right Turn" sign and we then make our way to Colley Gate and through Timbertree, before arriving at Cradley Heath Interchange again. From Cradley Heath, we decide to make our way to Halesowen, and to do this we catch NXWM's Service 141, boarding a busy bus, making our way through Cradley Heath and Old Hill and it is not soon before we arrive in Halesowen.
We let our food go down and it is time to make our way back home, so a quick walk to Birmingham Street, and under the subway, where we stop for a minute and look at how the redevelopment of the bus station is going. The subway's are nearing completion now, and it will soon be a start for phase two, the station buildings. The bus station is only about seven to eight months before it is due to be finished, hopefully the winter weather won't cause disruption. We carry on our walk and arrive in Birmingham Street and Stand F, where after about ten minutes our final bus journey turns up, Diamond's Service 276C to take us back to Norton and Wollaston, and our DayTripper tickets have certainly had their use in money today, with quite a few services caught. We pass through Norton first, so Mr UKBuses gives his goodbyes after another brilliant local day out, with the rain not ruining our day for us with its brief visit whilst in Wolverhampton. There is one more day out to do in May and only a couple of days away, where the WRP's (Mr D9 can't make it) meet up, considering it is a Bank Holiday Monday visit, lets hope the rain stays away.......
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