National Express Coaches Discussion

[Statto]

The other thing about making overnight journeys, the roads & Motorways are not as congested as during the day which makes the journey, & reliability a lot easier, you just have to watch out for overnight road/Motorway closures.

 

[markymark2000]

I'd use National Express to get to London, as the trains can be overly expensive or just poor service. However it seems now you have to go to Liverpool, no Runcorn or Warrington stop these days.

Runcorn is particularly funny given many of the NatEx in Liverpool are operated by Selwyn's and their buses are forever running back and forth to Runcorn for the depot.

Warrington I think it's the time penalty for not many passengers. They have more and faster trains so probably not worth diverting there. If you want a stupidly long journey which goes around the world for literally no reason and costs more for the shorter journeys than it does for the longer ones, there is the 551 from Chester. The slowest route from the North West into London!

 

[frodshamfella]

Runcorn is particularly funny given many of the NatEx in Liverpool are operated by Selwyn's and their buses are forever running back and forth to Runcorn for the depot.

Warrington I think it's the time penalty for not many passengers. They have more and faster trains so probably not worth diverting there. If you want a stupidly long journey which goes around the world for literally no reason and costs more for the shorter journeys than it does for the longer ones, there is the 551 from Chester. The slowest route from the North West into London!

Yes I think I saw the Chester service, I wasn't drawn. At one time my mum used to get a coach to London from Heswall. Was very handy for her.

 

[Martin1988]

One journey that seems to have been significantly reduced in recent years is Birmingham to and from Stoke On Trent.

Remember pre-Covid there was a wider range of departures between these destinations but nowadays there only seems to be a couple with one journey from Stoke towards Birmingham in the morning and nothing for the rest of the day. I did several trips to/from Birmingham and Stoke between 2016-2018 and the coach always seemed busy each time (Remember at least two instances where I had to sit next to another passenger on this route).

Do Birmingham and Stoke benefit from a more generous train service nowadays or is there another reason why its fallen out of favour with NX?

Noticed that Telford and Shrewsbury only have one service a day too (on 411 between London and Aberwyswyth). Is this new or have these destinations only ever had a handful of departures?

 

[Lewisham2221]

IIRC there used to be about half a dozen London services per day (each way), primarily service 550 to/from Merseyside - as well a larger number of Manchester - Stoke - Birmingham services on service 325. There were a handful of services to other destinations too, almost all operating via Manchester or Birmingham. It appears to now be limited to 2 London services per day, one of which is via Birmingham. Heading North, one of the two daily services goes to Liverpool, the other serves Manchester (and Blackpool).

Taken from https://bustimes.org/stops/3890D000103?date=2024-12-04

424 - Victoria - 01:05

424 - Blackpool - 04:55

551- Victoria - 09:10

551 - Liverpool - 21:20

As you can see, most aren't even at particularly convenient times of day, either. And no, there hasn't been any real improvement to the rail service from Stoke to London/Birmingham/Manchester in the intervening period.

 

[route101]

One journey that seems to have been significantly reduced in recent years is Birmingham to and from Stoke On Trent.

Remember pre-Covid there was a wider range of departures between these destinations but nowadays there only seems to be a couple with one journey from Stoke towards Birmingham in the morning and nothing for the rest of the day. I did several trips to/from Birmingham and Stoke between 2016-2018 and the coach always seemed busy each time (Remember at least two instances where I had to sit next to another passenger on this route).

Do Birmingham and Stoke benefit from a more generous train service nowadays or is there another reason why its fallen out of favour with NX?

Noticed that Telford and Shrewsbury only have one service a day too (on 411 between London and Aberwyswyth). Is this new or have these destinations only ever had a handful of departures?

I recall stopping at Stoke on a service from Glasgow to Birmingham.

 

[daodao]

Noticed that Telford and Shrewsbury only have one service a day too (on 411 between London and Aberwyswyth). Is this new or have these destinations only ever had a handful of departures?

There used to be a second daily service to Telford and Shrewsbury, which extended to Wrexham.

 

[Stena Galloway]

I recall stopping at Stoke on a service from Glasgow to Birmingham.

I'm pretty sure this would have been the 548 service from Edinburgh to Birmingham.

 

[Mwanesh]

Speaking of daft departure/arrivals on the Megabus thread leads me to this one, National Express have a 421 Liverpool - London via Manchester, Birmingham, Milton Keynes, one journey each way daily, but the northbound service leaves London, 0030, southbound service leaves Liverpool 02.00, i mean what the, i'd love to know the loadings for this service

Saw one at Digbeth the other day it was packed.Remember some people want to be in London early

 

[omnicity4659]

Overnight journeys between London and the North are usually sold out in my experience of driving them. Usually nowhere for me to have a comfortable nap when double crewing

 

[route101]

I'm pretty sure this would have been the 548 service from Edinburgh to Birmingham.

Might of been or the 336 overnight to Plymouth.

 

[Blindtraveler]

I'm old enough to remember when the 336 went all the way to Penzance finally arriving there at about 4:00 p.m. The following afternoon having departed for Edinburgh at just after 9:00 at night

 

[frodshamfella]

Why has there been this decline in services, I wonder ? Rail hasn't improved and is certainly not cheap..

 

[MCR247]

Why has there been this decline in services, I wonder ? Rail hasn't improved and is certainly not cheap..

I think it might be more than NX have changed their focus as the market has shifted. It seems like whilst they used to serve more destinations less regularly (once or twice a day on long unwieldy routes), these days it seems a lot more lucrative to compete with rail to mop up passengers the railway no longer wants with reduced lower price advance tickets and busier trains.

 

[markymark2000]

Why has there been this decline in services, I wonder ? Rail hasn't improved and is certainly not cheap..

I think the issue with Stoke is the time penalty to serve it when there are other flows that NatEx want to focus on. Manchester to Birmingham is apparently a very key flow for coaches and to serve Stoke would cost around 20 minutes on a journey. That's possibly enough to nudge longer distance passengers onto trains or onto competing coach services.

 

[asb]

Going in and out of Hanley takes quite a while. If you can offer more attractive journey times from Manchester or Liverpool and fill the coach, why bother with Hanley?

 

[Eyersey468]

Why has there been this decline in services, I wonder ? Rail hasn't improved and is certainly not cheap..

From what I've heard NX had wanted to make big changes to the network pre Covid and Covid was the excuse to do it. They do need to up their game though with Flixbus putting a lot more services on

 

[Statto]

Going in and out of Hanley takes quite a while. If you can offer more attractive journey times from Manchester or Liverpool and fill the coach, why bother with Hanley?

Hanley gets good loadings though, even on the overnighters, & certainly did before covid.

 

[frodshamfella]

From what I've heard NX had wanted to make big changes to the network pre Covid and Covid was the excuse to do it. They do need to up their game though with Flixbus putting a lot more services on

Perhaps I will check Flixbus, because presently NX don't offer any services nearby me.

 

[johncrossley]

Perhaps I will check Flixbus, because presently NX don't offer any services nearby me.

Flixbus generally serve fewer smaller towns than NX, so I suspect you will be out of luck. Many people need to get a local bus or train to get onto the coach network.

 

[Titfield]

I'm old enough to remember when the 336 went all the way to Penzance finally arriving there at about 4:00 p.m. The following afternoon having departed for Edinburgh at just after 9:00 at night

I have a vague memory of it being Aberdeen to Penzance but I may be wrong.

I think it might be more than NX have changed their focus as the market has shifted. It seems like whilst they used to serve more destinations less regularly (once or twice a day on long unwieldy routes), these days it seems a lot more lucrative to compete with rail to mop up passengers the railway no longer wants with reduced lower price advance tickets and busier trains.

They have been doing quite a bit of market research. I wonder if that has thrown up that more passengers want high frequency routes with lower end to end journey times This would suggest they are better off focusing on core routes with big traffic flows rather than the one or twice a day stop everywhere routes as @MCR247 suggests.

 

[Statto]

I remember the 336 Penzance - Edinburgh, i caught it one day from Plymouth to Glasgow, what an epic trek that was.

The 336 took that long Penzance - Edinburgh, the northbound service left Penzance 13.30 & didn't leave the West Country until about 21.00 - 21.30, & had a refreshment break at Plymouth bus station, then again Bristol bus station, & finally at Knutsford services, arrived in Edinburgh around 07.00 the next day.

 

[Teflon988]

I have a vague memory of it being Aberdeen to Penzance but I may be wrong.



They have been doing quite a bit of market research. I wonder if that has thrown up that more passengers want high frequency routes with lower end to end journey times This would suggest they are better off focusing on core routes with big traffic flows rather than the one or twice a day stop everywhere routes as @MCR247 suggests.

Indeed you are correct,the 806 did go from Penzance to Aberdeen as I made that journey myself.

It was the longest route on the NX network at the time,( late 80's)

Travelling to Penzance from London Victoria on the 2330 overnight 404 arriving in Penzance about 8 am.

Leaving Penzance at 1320 and arriving at Aberdeen Guild Street bus station at 11 am the following morning.

I would then leave Aberdeen at 1800 the same day arriving back in Penzance at 1600 the next day.

Then catching the 2040 overnight 404 back to london Victoria arriving about 0630 the next morning.

What a great trip !

 

[frodshamfella]

Flixbus generally serve fewer smaller towns than NX, so I suspect you will be out of luck. Many people need to get a local bus or train to get onto the coach network.

Oh to have a local bus

 

[PG]

Oh to have a local bus

To be fair, if your locus hasn't got enough potential passengers to justify a local bus then it's hardly likely to be worthy of a coach stopping.

 

[joieman]

(deleted)

 

[frodshamfella]

To be fair, if your locus hasn't got enough potential passengers to justify a local bus then it's hardly likely to be worthy of a coach stopping.

That's not very fair, there has been buses in the past, in order to get to large town centres where there have also been NX coaches. The local buses have just been cut and cut over the years, even though population has grown with new housing estates. You just have to drive, that repeated all over the UK.

 

[johncrossley]

That's not very fair, there has been buses in the past, in order to get to large town centres where there have also been NX coaches. The local buses have just been cut and cut over the years, even though population has grown with new housing estates. You just have to drive, that repeated all over the UK.

How far away is the nearest local bus service?

 

[Class 317]

I have a vague memory of it being Aberdeen to Penzance but I may be wrong.



They have been doing quite a bit of market research. I wonder if that has thrown up that more passengers want high frequency routes with lower end to end journey times This would suggest they are better off focusing on core routes with big traffic flows rather than the one or twice a day stop everywhere routes as @MCR247 suggests.

Indeed they have done research and speed / frequency hass been showed to attract extra passengers.

Total coach passengers are up I believe on pre COVID.

 

[PG]

That's not very fair, there has been buses in the past, in order to get to large town centres where there have also been NX coaches. The local buses have just been cut and cut over the years, even though population has grown with new housing estates. You just have to drive, that repeated all over the UK.

Sadly that is more a reflection of transport priorities in the UK and the consequent underfunding. Governments of any colour seem unlikely to reinstate the fuel price escalator because of public backlash. However this is getting somewhat tangential for this specific thread.