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Mysterious manoeuvre ……

Hi David,

Yes the user name is a reference to a former life.

I find this photo very intertesting and my initial thoughts, like yours, was that it was an Outer Circle turnback. Both the Inner and Outer stops on the circle were (or maybe still are) on the Coventry Road side of the Yew Tree island so a turnback would make this manouvre, but you can just make out that the bus has passengers on which it wouldn't if it was a turn back. The other alternative is that it is a school bus on its way to Stechford Baths but again you can just make out a full set of destnations which is highly unlikely. So, I have made some enquiries from a former colleague who is certain that it a Yardley Wood bus operating on service 69 which ran between Weoley Castle and the Yew Tree and would have turned in this way, as a bit of extra information the timetable allowed balancing time of 34 minutes at this point.
 
Eddie 14 said:
John, it was a 15 and a 15b not 17a& 17b .The 16 and the 16b went to Whittington oval and back to Handsworth. You have got them mixed up you Nelly!!!
Click to expand...

Birmingham City Transport did use the 17C short working numbers on the 15/16 returning to Liverpool Street garage from either Hamstead or Whittington Oval, this was to reduce the number of sites on a destination blind.
 
Hi,
I don't really remember the 69 route, - could you please list a few waypoints?

Kind regards

Dave
 
Trying to think, it was made up of three routes!
No 2 from Weoley Castle to
Kings Heath
No 163 Yardley Wood to Kings Heath
No 162 Kings Heath to
Chelmsley Wood.

So from Weoley Castle via Selly Oak,SellyPark, Kings
Heath. Yardley Wood, Maypole, Shirley, Solihull. Sheldon Wheatsheaf, The Radleys
via 17 route to Yew Tree.
 
The 69 route was to Lozells, Wheeler Street. The 1960's Fare Stage posts made recently show that.

The three digit route numbers are obviously since some of the B&MMO routes were taken over by the BCT. I gather much re numbering has taken place in recent years with development of suburbs and the creation of West Midlands.
 
Service numbers in Birmingham has become a very complicated business since deregulation of bus services in 1986 and also during the WMPTE era from 1969-1986. Originally bus service 69 was introduced on 2nd April 1939 as a replacement for tram services 24 & 25. Tram 24 ran from Snow Hill Station to Lozells via Wheeler Street and service 25 via Hamstead Road thus forming a Circular service. Service numbers remained static during Birmingham City Transport days except for the creation of new services and the extension to existing ones. The status quo also remained for the first five yearsa of the PTE whern a massive reorganisation took place at about the time that the former Midland Red services within the newly created Metropolitan Area were taken over by the PTE. One of these amendments was the rerouting of service 46 away from Hockley Brook to cover the Wheeler Street section of the 69 (by this time the 69 had deviated from its original line of route to take in the new housing constructed around Unett Street) with the result that the service number 69 was no longer used. A similar situation existed with the services 96, 95, 43 and others. At de-regulation (26/10/86) a number of new services were introduced and "old" service numbers were used, as an example a new service was introduced from Hamstead to City via Perry Barr, Witton and Aston Cross numbered 53, it didn't last for long. Many of the routes with three digit service numbers had come from former Midland Red services but a number were new. The basic principle used by the PTE was for Birmingham routes to retain original two digit numbers, Walsall routes to have a 3 placed in front, West Bromwich a 4, Wolverhampton a 5. School services were all in 7xx series with Works 8xx and Limited Stops 9xx. There were of course exceptions such as the Birmingham Centre Bus which was numbered 101 which was extended to include both 96 & 43 releasing both these numbers for use elsewhere.
 
A Sparks said:
There used to be a bus route from Hampstead to Yardley via the City Centre which was the number 16 one way and number 15 the other way. The terminus was Hob Moor Road in Yardley which crosses Church Road - could it be a bus from that route?
Click to expand...
When I was a child my Mum and Dad would sometimes take an evening bus journey to a pub. It would be about the mid 50’s on warm summer evenings and we would sit in the garden of the pub. Dad with a pint of mild and bitter. Mum with gin and orange. One of these pubs was somewhere at the end of a journey on the 16 bus to Handsworth Wood. I always remember that there were convolvulus growing at the end of the gardens but don’t know where we might have been?
 
Tinpot said:
When I was a child my Mum and Dad would sometimes take an evening bus journey to a pub. It would be about the mid 50’s on warm summer evenings and we would sit in the garden of the pub. Dad with a pint of mild and bitter. Mum with gin and orange. One of these pubs was somewhere at the end of a journey on the 16 bus to Handsworth Wood. I always remember that there were convolvulus growing at the end of the gardens but don’t know where we might have been?
Click to expand...
Sounds like the Endwood with garden on Hamstead Rd in Handsworth Wood or there about.
 
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