Smethwickian
Member
An easier way to check disallowed journeys on NX services is to look at the walk-up driver fare charts at https://www.nxagents.com/theguide/
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National Express Coaches Discussion
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freetoview33
Established Member
I had it a few times many years ago trying to get from Cardiff to Bristol in the early hours.
The Swansea to Hathrow service took pity on us and let us get on the 2am service rather than the 4am one we were booked on. For some reason it didn't let you book on the 2am service for that part of the trip.
The Swansea to Hathrow service took pity on us and let us get on the 2am service rather than the 4am one we were booked on. For some reason it didn't let you book on the 2am service for that part of the trip.
I used to see people trying to board the Scottish night services and buying tickets. Going by the sold out messages on the National Express website, that wouldn't have worked over the last few weeks.
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I guess this service still sort of exists as Birmingham to Stansted.
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Teflon988
Member
It does as the 777 but a different route.
That's the one, I was thinking of the 707 service but that goes to Heathrow.
Anyone know if there was a Portsmouth to Birmingham service ?
310 Bradford to Southsea was the north - south service to Portsmouth but it went to Leicester before Coventry rather than Birmingham - https://www.flickr.com/photos/wirewiping/3816687183 courtesy of Julian Walker
The 341 from Burnley to Southsea went via Birmingham - https://www.flickr.com/photos/kj18181st/23672581923/ courtesy of Kenneth Jones
Not sure when either stopped.
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The full length service 310 went via Leicester. Some short runs went via Leicester (and Coventry) then terminated at Birmingham. (I used to catch the Bradford/Leeds to Nottingham services regularly which included this one).
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Interesting, thanks.
I do wonder if a service from Portsmouth up the A34 corridor will come back to run alongside the 160.
Teflon988
Member
IIRC there was a 303 service that came from Southsea, Portsmouth,Fareham, Basingstoke,Calcot Coachway,Oxford Birmingham and on to Liverpool.
Hopefully keep fingers crossed.
Correct also called Stoke-on-Trent, Birmingham, Birmingham Airport, Coventry , Daventry, Northampton, Bedford, St Neots, Cambridge and Trumpington. In addition it called at Basildon.
A later modified route ran to Clacton and Jaywick
Services in December 2012 seem to be summarised here in a copy of a Wikipedia page
uktransport.fandom.com
The quote includes numbers from 001 to 399, due to size limits.
The big difference now is how the services have been rationalised.
List of National Express Coach routes
This is the complete list of services operated by National Express Coaches. The following services all operate under the banner of "National Express", however the services are operated by franchisees trading as National Express: Details are correct to 1 December 2012. .[1] Key [note 1] - Route...
The quote includes numbers from 001 to 399, due to size limits.
The big difference now is how the services have been rationalised.
pitdiver
Established Member
Up thread there was a discussion regarding National Express registering some services. I believe this was done to enable the company to receive tye fuel discount from the Government. However this required them to carry ENCTS cards.on the registered routes.
Ex Milton Keynes Coachway Manager
Ex Milton Keynes Coachway Manager
Makes fascinating reading that page. All the variations. Now the Cross Country routes are split at Birmigham. Some of the routes are coming back like Hull to Blackpool.Services in December 2012 seem to be summarised here in a copy of a Wikipedia page
List of National Express Coach routes
This is the complete list of services operated by National Express Coaches. The following services all operate under the banner of "National Express", however the services are operated by franchisees trading as National Express: Details are correct to 1 December 2012. .[1] Key [note 1] - Route...
The quote includes numbers from 001 to 399, due to size limits.
The big difference now is how the services have been rationalised.
Currently National Express don't have a Bradford – Manchester Airport service.
They seem to have a very limited number of coaches calling at Manchester Airport from other locations, but not a regular service to use as a connection from the Bradford – Manchester (Central) service.
Any comments?
They seem to have a very limited number of coaches calling at Manchester Airport from other locations, but not a regular service to use as a connection from the Bradford – Manchester (Central) service.
Any comments?
TheGrandWazoo
Veteran Member
It was indeed to receive BSOG (or fuel duty rebate back in the day). They claimed it on dupes as well as service cars
markymark2000
On Moderation
Those journeys mostly ran as the 061 and 381. These both seem to have been cut now in a similar policy to Birmingham, it's 'most to Manchester' to force many people to change. The number of buses through Manchester has now reduced.
061 has been replaced the the 170.
381, now the 174 only does Chester to Manchester (reintroduced for a short time after COVID then they cut it, baffled as to why it made no money. Clearly people travelled further and don't appreciate being forced to change in Manchester, an hour into their journey when they can now get a direct train to most of the stops, at some reasonable prices with Northern)
Tevion539
Member
Ex Swansea driver here - what time did you try booking? They stop booking around 30-20 minutes before departure. If I had space and someone was getting on at T5, I'd ask them to buy the ticket from T2&3 and to just jump on. Scanned their tickets when I got into central station.
I would have thought the service from Manchester to Chester would have gone on to serve the North Wales coast?
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markymark2000
On Moderation
Nope. That would make logical sense and so NatEx refuse to do it. Manchester to North Wales Coast runs via Liverpool and Birkenhead then none stop to Abergele. They refuse to serve Chester on North Wales bound services now for some bizarre reason despite the fact the time penalty would be minimal and there is quite big potential for it (seeing as there is quite big demand from NW Coast to Chester.
The service which Chester had pre Covid was the 381 doing Chester - Manchester Airport - Chorlton Street - Oldham - Bradford - Leeds with 1 bus in the morning from Leeds and 1 bus in the afternoon towards Leeds additionally serving Chester Zoo and Cheshire Oaks though I believe these had dismal usage.
Right now, booking seems to be available until 10 mins before departure.
Tevion539
Member
This was, at the very least from stops such as Heathrow. Not sure if it's changed recently
Look forward to seeing that.
The NW Coast-Manchester service is operated by LLew Jones International of Llanrwst.
It used to run Bangor-Manchester calling at other Welsh resorts such as Rhyl, Prestatyn and the Holiday Camps along the coast, but I suspect is now cut back to Llandudno-Manchester via the A55 to enable it to be covered by one driver. It used to provide an early positioning journey from Llanrwst to Bangor about 6.30am in the morning, but now I suspect runs empty via the A470. It was part of a diagram involving a Manchester- London and return journey using an interesting combination of drivers. I once used it from Manchester to Rhyl and we changed drivers at Lymm Services! Then it also served Manchester Airport. As the shortened 175 Llandudno-Manchester, it still serves Liverpool, but it will be interesting to see if this routing continues when TfW introduces its hourly Llandudno-Liverpool service later in the year.
Incidentally does anyone know if it still interworks with the Manchester-London services, or does it simply lay over for 3 hours in Manchester?
markymark2000
On Moderation
The 175 is merely a vehicle placement route. The bus does the 175 then does a 13:30ish 540 from Manchester to London, the driver overnights in London then returns back to Llanwrst via 08:00 540 to Manchester and 175 to Llandudno.
Bangor was dropped due to low usage. Back when NatEx tracked properly on bustimes (with the vehicle registrations), you could see that most days, the bus never ended up going to Bangor in the evening. Mornings of course they had to in case any passengers booked 10 mins prior to departure or wanted to pay on board. It wasn't worth it. The issue with the 175 is also what makes it viable. People in North Wales seem to want to go more towards Manchester rather than Liverpool and so really a faster journey from North Wales to Manchester would be better (After Abergele, stop at Chester, Manchester Airport and Chorlton Street, that would take an hour off the journey time). However, the only thing in my opinion keeping the 175 going is Liverpool to Manchester patronage. Liverpool to Manchester can easily become much more fully booked because of the usage flows over that section. You could carry a few people from Llandudno to Liverpool but come Liverpool, the bus will fill, easily. That is because NatEx hasn't put Liverpool - Manchesters frequency back to what it was so people are forced to use the much less journeys available.
TheGrandWazoo
Veteran Member
If the 175 was merely a vehicle placement route, then I'm surprised that it goes through Abergele and Birkenhead.
That route used to have a strong seasonal aspect with quite a number of people who travelled from Liverpool and Birkenhead to North Wales. Certainly, there's much greater cultural/family connections between North Wales and Liverpool than with Manchester. The other odd thing about the route is that they cut out Pensarn and Rhyl; again, seasonally, there used to be a decent trade to places like Pensarn.
markymark2000
On Moderation
Both kind of en route aren't they. Minimal time penalty. For some bizzare reason, National Express like Birkenhead too. How often do you find really cheap fares for NatEx? I'd say not as much as you find them on the 175. Because it's a placement route and makes all of it's money Liverpool - Manchester and on the 540 Manchester - London, the fares are daft. £3 Llandudno to Liverpool, £5 to Manchester single. And even at those fares, they can't get many passengers.
There is more family connections between North Wales and Liverpool but given the distance, most people would get the train instead. Why get bogged down to a once per day coach when you can get a train every 15 minutes to Chester and change onto a half hourly (or so) train onwards. I've seen a good few 'drivers sheets' for NatEx on the 175 service and the loadings are more Manchester to Liverpool and Manchester to North Wales. Not as much Liverpool to North Wales. Add to that, who wants to be getting to their hotel at 7pm? People want to be there for midday to spend an hour before checking in and then dump the bags and go out. For coming home, who wants picking up at 9.30. That's still breakfast time for many. The 175 is ran from the wrong end of the route really but sadly the demand isn't there to make it a twice per day service. Even with the ongoing rail strikes, there is loads of capacity available. At least 19 seats available for tomorrow (Saturday 7th Sept). It won't let me try to book more than that but 19 seats available is bonkers. Fully booked though from Liverpool to Manchester.
Those 'Cultural' connections you speak of. I don't think county lines drug dealers like paying for fares and so prefer to freeload on the train rather than paying up for the coach. They are the main people travelling from North Wales to Liverpool! Biggest county lines in the UK I believe.
The only benefit of NatEx versus train was stopping outside some of the resorts but that also meant there were far too many stops. Between Llandudno and Talacre, there were 18 stops. That's a hell of a lot for NatEx. NatEx want faster buses with less stops. Seaside towns as a whole aren't really that big of a thing for National Express, they don't seem to want that market. It's only since Covid that Blackpool had only gained a half decent service and that is an extremely popular town for northerners going for time away.
I mean, Chester, a tourist hotspot city with 10k students, they can't be bothered providing any meaningful service there, what hope do dying seaside resorts have? Rhyls 'season' is now reduced as well to what seems like around 3 months. Mid June, July, August and Mid September. It's not viable to run a service via these areas (bearing in mind the huge time penalty) for such little gain.
And yet Rhyl, Prestatyn, Pensarn and the Holiday Camps are planned to see a return of service in 2023:-
Latest Service Updates
The latest update on our coach services, including any network changes and disruptions
www.nationalexpress.com
markymark2000
On Moderation
So are many destinations. Whether it happens is a different matter and how it runs will be very interesting. Supposedly Chester to Manchester will return but looking at the post Covid tempoary introduction, it will be a useless Chester - Manchester service and then everyone will be forced to change and simply, no one will do it. People didn't do it in the short comeback, they won't do it now. If they do a similar return for Rhyl, it won't work still.And yet Rhyl, Prestatyn, Pensarn and the Holiday Camps are planned to see a return of service in 2023:-
Latest Service Updates
The latest update on our coach services, including any network changes and disruptions
I've seen the usage stats for the 175, it's dismal so a return to the North Wales Coast won't end well. If it returns, I don't think it will last long.
MCR247
Established Member
- Joined
- 7 Nov 2008
- Messages
- 10,292
Without meaning to go off topic, it’s somewhat satisfying to see a NX route number mirror the number of the stock that runs the rail equivalent (for now)