Shrewsbury to Warwick (Part 2)

10th July 2019

The 1974 re-organisation was not kind to Warwickshire. It lost its two largest cities (Birmingham and Coventry) and a chunk of territory to the new West Midlands county, which only functioned as an administrative entity for twelve years, before being abolished in 1986 leaving Warwickshire looking on the map like an apple with a bite-size piece missing. Despite not being the county town, one of those cities, Coventry, is very much the heart of Warwickshire and there are strong local feelings that a way should be found to reunite it with the rest of the county. As in many counties, however, the "county town" is by no means the largest and in Warwickshire's case it is - unsurprisingly - Warwick.

I had entered Warwickshire towards the end of part 1 of this leg of the journey from Shrewsbury on the tram at Winson Green, almost the centre of Birmingham. To continue my journey I found that there are no direct buses from Birmingham to Warwick, the options being via Stratford-upon-Avon (which itself involves a change en-route) or Coventry. I chose the latter as it meant I need not cross prematurely into Worcestershire, which comes later in the journey. I also planned a route that took in the two small towns of Coleshill and Kenilworth on the grounds that both have acquired (or re-acquired) railway stations in recent years and also that I have never visited either of them.

X70 from Birmingham - I should have been on board!

The day got off to a good start when I got so engrossed in watching and photographing the buses in

Birmingham city centre that I realised I'd just taken a photo of the bus I intended to catch!

It wasn't a big problem, there was another one going in the same direction five minutes later, although as this was an X12 rather than an X70 it meant I would have to forgo my visit to Coleshill, in favour of the option of a short stay at Chelmsley Wood - a sort of Birmingham overspill town with nothing but a large, soulless shopping parade at its heart.

Transport Curiosities

Spaghetti Junction from the top deck

The X12 had the advantage of leaving central Birmingham via the link to the motorway and gave me a rare opportunity of traversing the city's famed "Spaghetti Junction" motorway interchange by service bus. Does this count as a "transport curiosity" I wonder?

After a more-than-sufficient twenty minutes in Chelmsley Wood another X12 took me on to Birmingham Airport, or rather the bus station associated with it. I had just ten minutes or so to wait here, but it was long enough to catch a glimpse of what is definitely one of Britain's transport curiosities - the "Air Rail Link"

This service, which links the Airport Passenger Terminal with Birmingham International Railway Station began life in 1984 as the world's first commercial "Magnetic Levitation" (Maglev) transport line, where a system of magnets was used to raise the driverless carriages clear of the track and propel them frictionlessly along it. As with so many other things the UK having invented something then lost interest in developing it and it closed in 1995. China, which in 1984 was still considered an under-developed country, now has maglev lines with speeds of up to 430 km/h but the Air Rail Link at Birmingham airport is now provided by a system of cable-hauled trams using, apart from the continuing lack of a driver, technology that was developed by the Victorians!

From the Airport, National Express West Midlands service X1 took me on to Coventry. We passed through the village of Meriden, considered to be the geograhical centre of England (as opposed to the centre of Britain, which is in Yorkshire) and along the old A45 trunk road. A modern dual-carriageway A45 now bypasses villages such as Meriden and Allesley but I love using these old former trunk roads, which still give the inpression of being purposeful long-distance highways and, given the general increase in traffic over the years, are as busy now as they always were. I was especially pleased to note that although it is a long time since anyone travelling there from Coventry would consider using this route we entered the city via "Holyhead Road".

Although I had built-in time for lunch in the schedule I was now running late so I took the easy option of eating in the cafe at Pool Meadow Bus Station. Big mistake! and all I will say is: "Don't"

On to Kenilworth and Warwick

Kenilworth "Clock"

I came close to missing my next bus, but realised just in time that the X17 to Warwick left at 13.45 rather than 13.50. It was my third "X" bus of the day (and the third double-decker) but whereas the previous two had had at least some element of limited-stop operation this one appeared to stop everywhere, especially in Kenilworth, where we entered the town by a completely convoluted route; the only benefit being that we passed the head office of the revived Alvis car company.

At Kenilworth I felt I had finally left the West Midlands behind, the town having much more of a softer, south Midland air. The shopping area is not much more than a single street although there are apparently a castle and an abbey that I didn't have time to go and look for, The timing point for buses in the town is "The Clock" , which at least is easy to find, being visible from all over the town.

There is no shortage of buses from Kenilworth towards Warwick. Stagecoach X17 runs every 20 minutes as does National Express West Midlands' service 11 to Leamington, from where there are many connections. But regular readers won't be surprised that my plan involved the twice-a-day service 16 of which the last departure of the day was due at 14.47. It's not that it follows a particularly interesting route or is operated by interesting vehicles - it was just the rarity value of such a low-frequency service in an urban area. In fact the route turned out to be every bit as dull as I expected, enlivened only by a diversion into Warwick hospital and a tour of the outskirts of the town made necessary by a road closure in the town centre. The traffic in Warwick was pretty bad, which explained why the bus had reached Kenilworth 10 minutes after its scheduled time and why we were still ten minutes late when we got back.

I had a couple of hours for a look around Warwick before getting a train home. The county museum, in the former market hall, was smaller than I had expected but the town itself definitely has the air of a "county town" and not just because of the Shire Hall and Court bulding.