Worcestershire and Shropshire Councils have confirmed this morning that Diamond Bus will replace R&B Travel on the 292 service between Ludlow and Kidderminster. The timetable will remain the same from the takeover date of 5 January but could be changed.
Shropshire Council is to call a meeting early in January to look at adjustments to the timetable. At present it is too tight, allowing only 58 minutes between the two towns. In bus, that’s hard to achieve with a fair wind behind the bus. But this is a 30-mile route over Clee, where the weather can be bad. Then there are roadworks and the traffic jams into Kidderminster.
It is most demanding route in our county.
The haul up and down the Clee can wreck the buses. Most buses are designed to run under the stop-start regime of urban centres. Buses like the Optare that operate in Ludlow are not suited to such a big haul. One transport specialist said trying to use a town bus for this route is like trying to drive a city car from Lands End to John O’Groats.
Shropshire Council is calling a meeting of councillors and others to discuss details and adjustments of timetable in January. We’ll keep you up to date.
Hi Andy, I travelled on this bus to and from Kidderminster/Ludlow last week. It’s a nightmare journey, like being on a roller-coaster as the driver tries to keep to the time-table whilst negotiating the bends and hills between the two towns. Despite the route being classed as an “A” road, parts of it are really narrow, especially if two buses or a lorry and a bus have to pass. The sooner more time and better vehicles are allocated to this journey, the better.
Andy good news I hope will the departure point be at the chip shop or back on Corve st
From the choip shop as far as I know
Andy
Great news that Diamond is taking over; they may well have the traffic management experience to ensure that the buses operate on time, BUT when they ran the service before they also suffered from traffic problems at either end. The fundamental point is that the existing timetable is not acceptable in the long term. It was designed to suit the bus operator, R&B, and the contracting council. That is not good enough…passengers need to come first in planning a timetable and that is the only way to re-build support for this service.
Bus Users Shropshire welcomes the opportunity to attend a meeting to work on the future of this route as it is so important for South Shropshire people as well as visitors.