West Midlands Soho Road bus corridor

Soho Road
Routes
74 Birmingham - Dudley
75 Birmingham - Wednesbury
Via: Handsworth, West Bromwich
Operation
Operator(s): National Express West Midlands
Diamond Bus
Sandwell Travel
Cityspeed
Central Logistics
Scorpio Services
Vehicles: Dennis Trident 2
Ford Iveco
Route map
Legend
Birmingham city centre
Hockley Interchange
Handsworth (Soho Road)
West Bromwich
Dudley Port (74)
Great Bridge (Interchange) (74)
Dudley (74 terminates)
Wednesbury (79)
Darlaston (79)
Bilston (79)
Wolverhampton (79 terminates)

The Soho Road bus corridor is a collection of bus routes operating along Soho Road in Birmingham. The 74 links Birmingham and Dudley and the 75 links Birmingham and Wednesbury.

Contents

History

Present

74 Birmingham - Dudley

The service currently serves Birmingham, Soho Road, West Bromwich, Great Bridge, Dudley Port and then Dudley. National Express West Midlands service 74 runs every 9 minutes during the day, with 74E's (short workings between Birmingham and West Bromwich) running every 9 minutes too. Service is then reduced to every 20 minutes in the evening and 15 minutes Sundays. The service is usually run with Mercedes-Benz O405N mainly seen on 74E routes & a few late journeys to Dudley however Volvo B7TL Alexander ALX400 and Plaxton President's are known for making a common appearances on the full 74 route. The service is run commercially.

The major competitor on this service is Diamond Bus who run every 20 minutes during the day, Monday - Saturday. There is no longer an evening and Sunday service run by Diamond Bus with the night service 74N, also ran by Diamond Bus, being withdrawn in 2006.

As of 29 June 2008, Sandwell Travel commenced operations on the 74 between Great Bridge and Birmingham, in this direction only.

As of 24 July 2011, a new 74E service was introduced to operate between Birmingham and Handsworth (Island Road / Morrisons) only.

75 Birmingham - Wednesbury

The 75 is a shortened working of the 79 introduced on 24 July 2011, operating between Birmingham and Wednesbury only. This change occurred in line with other changes to the Soho Road corridor.

The 75 is the only bus service that currently links Wednesbury with Birmingham.

It is known that whenever the Midland Metro service is terminated (due to various reasons), that National Express West Midlands service 75 accepts tickets and passes between Birmingham and Wednesbury as well as service 74 (Between Birmingham and West Bromwich) and service 79 (Between West Bromwich and Wolverhampton).

The full length route is operated by only National Express West Midlands, whilst shortened workings are operated by Joe's Travel between Carters Green & Birmingham. National Express West Midlands also operate the 75E, which runs between Birmingham and West Bromwich as an 'every other bus' service.

External links