2011 - Day Out 33: 246 Charity Walk - The Hard Way

Date: Sunday 27 November

Pensnett Garage Driver Daniel Meanock has organised a Charity Walk along the 246 route in honour of two year old Louie Pumphrey who has Cerebral Palsy. Because of his condition Louie is unable to walk, so the walk that has been planned for today will raise money that will go towards a £19,000 adapted wheelchair and standing frame, which his family will hope will give Louie the same independence as other children his age.

Following on from a charity walk, organised by Dave Gerrard in August, Mr UKBuses was approached by Daniel to see if he could help with the marshaling along the route as we did previously for this walk today. Mr UKBuses asked me to help, and I duly agreed. With the last walk being from Dudley Bus Station to Stourbridge Birmingham Street, it was decided that this walk will go "The Hard Way", from Stourbridge Birmingham Street to Dudley Bus Station, what makes it harder is that the fact that this will be walking uphill to get to the dizzy heights of Dudley rather than downhill toward Stourbridge.

First of all I walk up to Norton and meet up with Mr UKBuses at the shops along The Broadway at approximately 1115am, it is here that he has arranged for the support vehicle driver for the day, "Shuttle" Steve, to pick us up. We head down towards South Road / The Gigmill, and as we reach the bottom of Westwood Avenue, we see a National Express West Midlands Alexander Dennis Enviro 400 coming our way, the first time that a double decker has been this way for years. Once we are picked up, I become an honorary National Express West Midlands Employee for the day as I put on my National Express Hi-Vis and Steve heads up towards Whittington Road, before following the 276 route to Birmingham Street in Stourbridge, pulling up just before the start at Stand C. Before the walk gets under way at 1200pm, it is time for the Express and Star to take a picture, I play a cunning plan by staying on the bus and looking out of the front windscreen, I shall see how it turns out when I purchase the Express and Star when we are in it. My plan was not good in the end, I am barely visible in the windscrren, see picture below (click on it to enlarge the report). Time for a quick "fresh air break" before we head off, but everyone has already arrived and so at approximately 1150, Daniel leads the way.

Mr UKBuses and myself take a short cut to get to the first crossing point at Church Street / Hagley Road by walking across Foster Street and past the new Stourbridge Interchange, which is nearing completion. We get in front of the walkers as we see them behind us as we come out of Foster Street and we carry on along the ring road ready to do some crossing. I start the crossing off as I get the walkers safely across Church Street, whilst Mr UKBuses does the honours as he gets them safely across Hagley Road, with me following behind. As the walkers are back walking alongside the ring road, I run ahead to Worcester Street with Mr UKBuses not far behind. He leads the walkers as they come towards Worcester Street, and I get in place to stop the traffic coming off the ring road, whilst Mr UKBuses stops the traffic coming down towards the ring road. Greenfield Avenue next, and it is not a busy road so the walkers get across safely. Next up is the split junctions of Enville Street, I keep an eye out on the ring road, slowing the traffic down whilst Mr UKBuses crosses them, and it is easy for the second part of Enville Street as we have the traffic lights helping us. The first crossing points are over, so Mr UKBuses and myself walk back to the bus stop located on the ring road and back onto the support bus, where "Shuttle" Steve picks us up and takes us to the Collis Street / Wollaston Road traffic lights (otherwise known to the bus drivers as "The Fish", a timing point named after the pub which is now "The Ruby Cantonese" Restaurant). As I get off the support bus to get to the traffic lights junction, a passenger is walking down towards the bus where I tell her that this bus is not in service, but the next 246 is only six minutes away. She seemed happy about that, I make my way to the corner, Mr UKBuses is in the middle of the road, ready for the walkers to come, and it is not too long to wait, they cross as I keeps my eyes left, ahead and right all at the same time as my side of the road is where they are aiming to get to continue on to Wollaston, Mr UKBuses has the traffic lights to help him. With the Fish traffic lights completed, we make our way up Amblecote High Street where with the help of the pelican crossing, the walkers are across safely, a quick crossing over King William Street ensues and we are into Brettell Lane. Another pelican crossing gives us a helping hand to get the walkers across safely. At this point, Steve comes around the corner, and picks Mr UKBuses up to get him ahead, I carry on up Brettell Lane, getting the walkers across the small side roads safely. I catch up with Mr UKBuses as we get to the Hawbush Road junction with Brettell Lane, both of us getting the walkers across this busy estate road safely. 

We both jump onto the support bus and Steve takes us the short journey to Bull Street at Silver End, Steve pulls up at the stop and gets off to get a drink from the shop, whilst we wait to keep an eye on the bus. We have a little time before the walkers get to us, so I use this time to get my breath back after the walk up Brettell Lane to Hawbush Road as taken its toll on me. The walkers are nearly here so we make our way to Bull Street, with Mr UKBuses keeping an eye out for traffic coming onto Brettell Lane, and myself keeping an eye on the traffic coming off Brettell Lane. As I'm in the middle of the road keeping an eye on traffic coming from Stourbridge and from Brierley Hill, this people carrier slows down, and dreading the worst and some abuse, it turns out not to be that bad, it is Mr D9, who shouts across the road to me, "I'm off to the pub!!!!", he drives off before I get the chance to jump in the back and join him! Back to the main object of the day and the crossing duty, the first problem of the day is about to ensue as a woman comes speeding round the corner off Brettell Lane, and she doesn't seem to want to stop, she goes straight past me, and luckily there is a gap between the walkers as she makes her way slowly through the gap. Luckily ninety-nine percent of the traffic is obeying our signals, it is just the one percent that seem to think that they own the road and it does put a downer on the events that is taking place today. I'm determined that nothing will ruin today and this crazy driver won't ruin the good things that will happen to the charity walk. Despite this ignorant driver all walkers have safely managed to get across the road, so Mr UKBuses and myself get back on the bus where we avoid walking up the hill to Brierley Hill. We arrive in Brierley Hill where Steve drops us off just before the five ways junction, we have a while for the walkers to catch us up, so I get a chance to have a fresh air break before they arrive.

The walkers eventually arrive and we attempt to get them across Moor Street, I have the task of getting them across the "inroad", keeping an eye out for traffic approaching from High Street and Mill Street, while Mr UKBuses keeps an eye on the traffic from Moor Street, this junction isn't as bad traffic wise since the by-pass road has been built and opened. We carry on up Brierley Hill High Street with the walkers, walking that little bit faster to get ahead of them and we now reach another main traffic junction, Mr UKBuses keeps an eye on the Bank Street traffic, whilst I keep an eye out on the High Street / Level Street traffic, we get the walkers across here safely despite this junction being a bit busier with all Merry Hill inbound and outbound traffic coming this way. We now needed to get onto the support vehicle to take us the short distance to get ahead to the Waterfront island, but we had to wait for someone, and I noticed that half of the walkers were nearly there, so I made a mad dash sprint from outside the bingo hall down to the island, and as the walkers were reaching John Street, I get there with about a millisecond to spare and get them safely across the road, after getting them across, Mr UKBuses was way behind and had stayed on the support vehicle as he wouldn't have managed to get down to us without having a heart attack due to the distance the walkers were ahead, I had to sprint ahead again to get the walkers across Wallows Road. After Wallows Road, it was planned that we would get ahead to Holly Hall, but the next two roads which we weren't expecting to be giving help crossing were quite busy, the road to Aldi and B&M shops near to Harts Hill Garage, which has now been sadly flattened and also Fens Pool Avenue which seems to attract the boy racers, some of them were reluctant to stop as the were racing around the corners, this junction was worse than the Bull Street junction in Silver End. Steve and the support bus was parked opposite where Harts Hill Garage was once stood, so I jumped on the bus to get my breath back after my mad sprint whilst Steve took Mr UKBuses and myself past the walkers and to Holly Hall.

As we approach Holly Hall junction the lights are on red as we arrive so Steve opens the doors, before his scheduled stop so that Mr UKBuses and myself can jump off and get into position early. After about five minutes the walkers arrive and even though this is one busy junction which is another exit route from the nearby Merry Hill Centre, we don't have too many problems. After this junction we get ahead to Holly Hall School, where with the help of a pelican crossing, we get the walkers over two main dual carriageways. Steve has parked up around the corner, and Mr UKBuses and myself jump on once more so we can get ahead again where we alight at Queen's Cross. A couple of the younger walkers have boarded the bus to give their legs a rest and also to avoid the hill from Holly Hall to Queen's Cross, they are forgiven as they have done well to get this far unaided. Back to Queen's Cross, where Mr UKBuses and myself have a look at the traffic lights sequence so we know how we are going to get people across. There is also a run off the main road into Wellington Road from the Brierley Hill direction, so it is decided that I stop the traffic that rushes around this corner whilst Mr UKBuses gets the walkers across the main traffic lights. We are nearly in Dudley and we are about to board the support bus and Daniel has come up with a good suggestion, that is for me to run ahead and tell Steve to go straight to Dudley Bus Station so that Mr UKBuses has to walk the final part of the route. As I run ahead, Mr UKBuses actually does something that I have never seen before, he runs after me and is actually keeping up with me, but he does get on board and I carry on up Stourbridge Road towards Dudley, Mr UKBuses decides to use a two finger wave as he passes me on the bus.

We are on the final leg of the walk now and I make my way to the next crossing destination with Mr UKBuses already in place. The next junction is Stafford Street, where Mr UKBuses and myself take a lane each whilst getting the walkers across safely, I get ahead and stop the traffic from entering Dudley High Street whilst the walkers make there way on the final corners of the route. We have one more junction to get the walkers across and that is Union Street, so we make our way to get ahead using High Street as a short cut to just get ahead of the walkers. As we reach the Union Street junction, the walkers appear so we get them across and it is just about a quarter of a mile to go before they reach Dudley Bus Station. We walk the final bit of the route with them and after 2 hours and 20 minutes, we finally reach the end, and as we all walk through the stand at where the 246 picks up the passengers, we make our way to the layover area at Dudley Bus Station where Steve is waiting to give the walkers a well deserved rest by driving them all back to Stourbridge. On the way back we do go via the 246 route to Holly Hall, and then down Pedmore Road towards Lye and back into Stourbridge, dropping off walkers along the way. For our efforts we are rewarded by Mrs Meanock with a Mars Bar to replenish the sugar we have lost in our bodies along the route. Steve finally pulls up in Birmingham Street in Stourbridge, where we all alight, with the younger walkers winding up Steve by keeping their fingers on the bell as we all get off. The walkers go back to their cars to soak their feet, but Mr UKBuses and myself decide to have a little ride around before we finally make our way back home.

We make our way to the nearest pub, so we walk up through Foster Street past the new Interchange, with Mr UKBuses stopping to take a few photographs, before we walk around the edge of the ring road to our first crossing point earlier and going into J D Wetherspoons, "The Chequers Inn" where we have a good old rest and a well deserved pint. After finishing our drinks, we head down the High Street towards the bus stop on Stourbridge ring road, and as we arrive, the bus that we intended to catch, National Express West Midlands service 256, just pulls out of the stop, so after a few minutes, we catch National Express West Midlands service 246, a route that we have already seen today on our feet, and we head to Dudley again. We arrive in Dudley and we spot an old Volvo Ailsa in WMPTE livery, so we head to the layover area where it is parked to take some photographs. We need to get to Wordsley, so our next bus is Diamond Buses service 226 which takes us past Russell's Hall Hospital where we spot Phil Tonks behind the reception desk. After passing through Bromley and Kingswinford, we alight outside of The Lawnswood. The road is busy but Mr UKBuses won't put his Hi-Vis back on to get me across the road safely. After finally crossing the road we spend an hour or so inside having a rest and well deserved drinks with Mr UKBuses parents. Mr UKBuses senior does stand up for me when I keep checking the Blackberry for the Brazilian Grand Prix results, only as he wants to know how the race is getting on. We leave The Lawnswood and after a lift back home courtesy of Mr UKBuses senior, I get back home and have a rest and a nap on the sofa.

A thoroughly good day was had by myself and the walkers who took part deserve a round of applause after completing the seven mile journey that they achieved on foot today, it was all for a good cause, and donations for Louie Pumphrey can be made on a Justgiving page that has been set up for him by clicking here.