National Express Coaches Discussion

[Simon75]

More east west links like 707 and 747 would be handy ( like the old cross country service that linked Stoke-on-Trent to Cambridge and Southend)

 

[gray1404]

Is the service between London and Canterbury still heavily used (so the 007 Dover and 025 Ramsgate) or is this facing the chop?

 

[extendedpaul]

I catch the 007 06.15 from Hempstead Valley to London regularly and it's at least 75% full.

An earlier service was recently introduced leaving Hempstead Valley at 05.05 but that was only about 20% full when I caught it on a Thursday.

 

[route101]

Is the service between London and Canterbury still heavily used (so the 007 Dover and 025 Ramsgate) or is this facing the chop?

I always wonder how these short services compete with the train. I guess its either students from Canterbury or older people who traditionally use NX.

I am starting to think at somepoint, we will be left with coach services only running on the trunk routes between the big cities and NX will leave Scotland.

 

[tram21]

I am starting to think at somepoint, we will be left with coach services only running on the trunk routes between the big cities and NX will leave Scotland.

Coach travel goes in peaks and troughs. I would also highly doubt there is any decline to coach usage overall, its just Flixbus is taking over the market and arguably providing a better service and product overall. That's subjective though of course.

But Flix are innovating with lots of new and successful routes, so I wouldn't be pessimistic about the future!

 

[route101]

Coach travel goes in peaks and troughs. I would also highly doubt there is any decline to coach usage overall, its just Flixbus is taking over the market and arguably providing a better service and product overall. That's subjective though of course.

But Flix are innovating with lots of new and successful routes, so I wouldn't be pessimistic about the future!

I would say in Scotland Flixbus have been pretty static recently and its Ember that's stole the show.

In 2023 I thought coach travel was coming back strong after Covid but a few routes have been dropped since.

 

[Wembleybound]

Back again has any one got any idea how busy the Sunday overnight service from london to sunderland is?

Somehow managed to get 2 to myself on the way here so here's hoping

 

[MotCO]

Back again has any one got any idea how busy the Sunday overnight service from london to sunderland is?

Somehow managed to get 2 to myself on the way here so here's hoping

Depends if Sunderland are playing in London on a Sunday?

 

[route101]

Back again has any one got any idea how busy the Sunday overnight service from london to sunderland is?

Somehow managed to get 2 to myself on the way here so here's hoping

Sunday is a night where people are heading home, so can be busy.

Does the Sunderland night service stop at any services?

 

[EYFanatic]

Sunday is a night where people are heading home, so can be busy.

Does the Sunderland night service stop at any services?

Its supposed to stop at Trowell northbound between 01:40 and 02:10 though from tracking data and personal experience, it often skips it

 

[route101]

Its supposed to stop at Trowell northbound between 01:40 and 02:10 though from tracking data and personal experience, it often skips it

Perhaps double manned but NX usually always stop on the longer services.

 

[Wembleybound]

Depends if Sunderland are playing in London on a Sunday?

Thankfully not

 

[tram21]

Looking for coaches to Heathrow Airport, I found this very strange quirk with fares.

Tickets to T2 & 3 are significantly cheaper than Terminal 5 but a very large margin. Does anyone know why that might be? I don't think staying on the same coach to get to Terminal 5 is worth £29!

 

[Deerfold]

Looking for coaches to Heathrow Airport, I found this very strange quirk with fares.
View attachment 202631
Tickets to T2 & 3 are significantly cheaper than Terminal 5 but a very large margin. Does anyone know why that might be? I don't think staying on the same coach to get to Terminal 5 is worth £29!

I suspect there's a group (or lots of singles) booked from T2/3 to Gatwick, so there's very little capacity between the Terminals - presumably the system wants seats available to Gatwick unless you're prepared to pay a similar amount.

 

[tram21]

I suspect there's a group (or lots of singles) booked from T2/3 to Gatwick, so there's very little capacity between the Terminals - presumably the system wants seats available to Gatwick unless you're prepared to pay a similar amount.

It's the same every day so can't be this specific coach, but I assume that's what they've done and set a higher price Heathrow to Gatwick and that includes T2/3-T5?

 

[PG]

I don't think staying on the same coach to get to Terminal 5 is worth £29!

Not when you can use the tube, HEx or Liz line to transfer between terminals for free!

 

[extendedpaul]

I always wonder how these short services compete with the train. I guess its either students from Canterbury or older people who traditionally use NX.

I am starting to think at somepoint, we will be left with coach services only running on the trunk routes between the big cities and NX will leave Scotland.

For me it's cost. The huge difference between coach fare from Medway to reach London before 8.30am with coachcard discount - and train with senior railcard not valid .

 

[Deerfold]

It's the same every day so can't be this specific coach, but I assume that's what they've done and set a higher price Heathrow to Gatwick and that includes T2/3-T5?

There seem to be plenty of journeys that are the other way round, which I find harder to explain.

 

[JJM22]

There seem to be plenty of journeys that are the other way round, which I find harder to explain.

In my experience as an NX driver, we seem to act as a taxi service around Heathrow.

For example, I’ll board 25 people at T5, 20 of them will get off at T4.
Then at T4, I’ll easily get at least 35 people, at minimum 20 will get off at Central.

Having to load a full coach of luggage, just to take it off again 10 mins later is nothing short of infuriating.

I’d imagine the huge price increase, is to cover all the others who just transfer between terminals.

 

[Deerfold]

In my experience as an NX driver, we seem to act as a taxi service around Heathrow.

For example, I’ll board 25 people at T5, 20 of them will get off at T4.
Then at T4, I’ll easily get at least 35 people, at minimum 20 will get off at Central.

Having to load a full coach of luggage, just to take it off again 10 mins later is nothing short of infuriating.

I’d imagine the huge price increase, is to cover all the others who just transfer between terminals.

That seems very odd - I'm not sure who is doing that as there are free transfers both airside and landside and I'm not sure who arranges to arrive at the wrong Terminal and then transfer via National Express.

All transfers seem to be priced at £2 or £2.50 which seems expensive compared with free, but not a lot for the work transferring luggage that you're doing

 

[JJM22]

That seems very odd - I'm not sure who is doing that as there are free transfers both airside and landside and I'm not sure who arranges to arrive at the wrong Terminal and then transfer via National Express.

All transfers seem to be priced at £2 or £2.50 which seems expensive compared with free, but not a lot for the work transferring luggage that you're doing

The worst I’ve heard from a colleague, was the service was almost double overbooked at Heathrow just because of terminal transfers. (No dupe arranged)

They had to do T5, T4, then Central for all the transferees. Then go back to T5 to start again for the actual passengers travelling past Heathrow!

 

[tram21]

The worst I’ve heard from a colleague, was the service was almost double overbooked at Heathrow just because of terminal transfers. (No dupe arranged)

They had to do T5, T4, then Central for all the transferees. Then go back to T5 to start again for the actual passengers travelling past Heathrow!

Could they not have been directed to the free terminal transfer?!

 

[JJM22]

Could they not have been directed to the free terminal transfer?!

You’d think! I’d say with certainty, that these passengers only have NX in mind.

An example from the other day, on my inbound trip to Heathrow, there are several people waiting at T4 to go to Central - at this point I’m heading to T5 to terminate. After which I go to park up for my break at CCH at Sipson Road.

Head back to T5 to do the outbound journey, and nearly two hours pass since I was at T4, and all those passengers were still waiting to get to Central! I don’t know why they do it.

 

[davehsug]

There's an article in the Stoke Sentinel about how the end of the 551 Liverpool-London service, leaves Stoke with only 1 service a day to London, at 1.20 in the morning!

 

[omnicity4659]

That seems very odd - I'm not sure who is doing that as there are free transfers both airside and landside and I'm not sure who arranges to arrive at the wrong Terminal and then transfer via National Express.

All transfers seem to be priced at £2 or £2.50 which seems expensive compared with free, but not a lot for the work transferring luggage that you're doing

I have just played around with the NX website, which is more than happy to sell me tickets from places such as Stroud to Terminal 4 involving a four hour change between NX coaches at Terminals 2 and 3!

 

[markymark2000]

I have just played around with the NX website, which is more than happy to sell me tickets from places such as Stroud to Terminal 4 involving a four hour change between NX coaches at Terminals 2 and 3!

Heathrow really needs to work with coach operators to integrate the free H30 into their journey planners, so then passengers are told to get of at T5 and then use the H30 to T4. It won't solve everything but it will largely improve the situation for Terminal 4 passengers.

I'd say maybe try and integrate tube/trains into the planners too (just set it up as a service running every 10 minutes for ease) but I feel that some people will get caught out as they will be told to tap their card or faff to get the transfer tickets.

 

[tram21]

Heathrow really needs to work with coach operators to integrate the free H30 into their journey planners, so then passengers are told to get of at T5 and then use the H30 to T4. It won't solve everything but it will largely improve the situation for Terminal 4 passengers.

I'd say maybe try and integrate tube/trains into the planners too (just set it up as a service running every 10 minutes for ease) but I feel that some people will get caught out as they will be told to tap their card or faff to get the transfer tickets.

Flixbus is better at it, and the journey planner clearly states by alighting at Heathrow Central you are a 10 minute train ride from other terminals.

 

[route101]

I have just played around with the NX website, which is more than happy to sell me tickets from places such as Stroud to Terminal 4 involving a four hour change between NX coaches at Terminals 2 and 3!

People will buy these tickets and silly connections without checking the practical details. Flixbus have silly connections too, Glasgow to London via Perth.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 20 Apr 2026 ==

Regarding T4 at Heathrow, It wasn't long ago there was limited service to that stop during Covid and after.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 20 Apr 2026 ==

There's an article in the Stoke Sentinel about how the end of the 551 Liverpool-London service, leaves Stoke with only 1 service a day to London, at 1.20 in the morning!

I took the 551 a few weeks ago. Its not a huge diversion of the M6 with the A500.

 

[markymark2000]

Flixbus is better at it, and the journey planner clearly states by alighting at Heathrow Central you are a 10 minute train ride from other terminals.

Having a little note isn't that great though as when you can integrate the times into your journey planner? And the Flix note only appears on the T5 stop (there's no T4 stop in their system) the note is somewhat useless in Flixbus case given that every single bus that serves T5, also serves Central Bus Station so logically people for T2/T3 would just get the bus to/from CBS.

Both NX and Flixbus already offer connections on 3rd party routes and so this would be so easy to tell people 'alight at T5 then connect onto H30 bus to T4' with no fare difference. It never fails to amaze me why such small and simple things aren't done when they would clearly be of benefit to the coach operators to sell more tickets (as people get detailed plans to the right terminal rather than just left to figure it out for themselves), and the Airport should support it too given it's promotion of their free bus and the Airport wants to get more people travelling sustainably (apparently).

 

[PG]

There seem to be plenty of journeys that are the other way round, which I find harder to explain.

If I were considering such a jouney I'd book to whichever terminal was cheapest!