Five minutes’ fag break – get back when you can

MAY I amplify Andy Simpson’s accurate and interesting letter on Wolverhampton-stourbridge buses (June 24 edition).

They were indeed Midland Red in the 1960, but 256 was a secondary service running only four or five times a day, deviating via Cot Lane in Wordsley.

The trunk route (main road all the way) was the 882, usually every half hour: about five times a day this ran through as a 311 from Stourbridge to Kidderminster via Hagley, carrying the number 885.

On Saturdays the whole half-hourly service was 885. Midland Red were noted for any possible variation, even if rare, a separate number – and funnily a Kingswinford only to Stourbridge bus was a 257, but it stuck to the main road.

Changing number

Very often a 257 had come from Dudley as a 260, just changing number at Kingswinford, which was a hark back to the Edwardian tram route.

A much nicer way of taking a bus from Wolverhampton to Kidderminster was the four-timesdaily 883: a single decker which left the main route at Kingswinford, and went via Kinver and Wolverley.

Those who remember the Summer Saturday Holiday congestion when the M6 ended at Gailey and the M5 began at Lydiate Ash will appreciate that the 885 timetable was in shreds all day: it was a case of ‘five minutes loo and fag break in Stourbridge each way and ten minutes’ turnaround at Kidderminster, and see you when you can manage to get back!’

It is a comment on the decline of bus networks outside the West Midlands county that in 1964 on a Saturday afternoon there were eight buses an hour between Hagley and Kidderminster, travelling as far afield as Worcester and Ludlow.

Now there is one single decker an hour to Kidderminster only in shopping hours. Three days a week there was once a rare 409 all the way to Hereford!

.Perhaps the current active discouragement of the use of public transport will eliminate what links remain.