Every route 100. 11 of 26.

Saturday 25th May 2024

After last time’s wander from Syston to Melton Mowbray it’s the turn of the second of three route 100s operated by associated companies CentreBus, Chaserider and D&G Bus.

We’re in Chaserider’s Shropshire territory travelling between Wellington and the suburbs of neighbouring Telford now administered by Telford & Wrekin Council.

And if this write up sounds familiar it’s because I blogged about the route in February 2023, a few weeks after its introduction, making it the newest of Britain’s 26 bus routes numbered 100.

The route is one of a suite of new routes devised and funded by Telford & Wrekin Council on its own initiative rather than from any DfT inspired Bus Service Improvement Plan. The Council also provided and funded the Enviro200 buses used on the 100 and other routes.

Update: since publication I understand the buses were bought by Chaserider and the livery design was specified by the Council.

It began just before Christmas 2022 with a simple premise – to link four of Telford’s southern residential areas (Brookside, Woodside, Madeley and Sutton Hill) with the town’s three business parks/industrial areas (Hortonwood, Stafford Park and Halesfield) as well as providing a quick link to Telford Central railway station and Wellington including the Princess Royal Hospital and the adjacent residential area of Leegomery. Buses terminates in Wellington’s small bus station alongside that town’s railway station.

As you can see, the route map on Telford & Wrekin’s website calls it “Express 100 route” to emphasise the direct route taken on the A442 main distributor road for part of the journey and also that it avoids Telford town centre.

The northern part of the route can be seen above including the deviation to serve Hortonwood in the central north and Stafford Park in the southeast corner as well as Telford Central station to the north east of the a avoided Town Centre marked in green.

The above map shows the southern section of route serving the residential areas as well as Halesfield business park.

The timetable offers an extensive 04:50 to 23:30 seven days a week service, as it did when introduced, but there have been some minor modifications as well as a rehash of the route at the southern end in the light of experience since introduction.

In particularly the route sensibly now calls at Telford Central station rather than passing by without stopping – something I commented on as being a rather strange omission in February last year.

There’s more logicality to the southern end of the route too and it now also serves the area called Woodside and Abraham Darby School.

Bearing in mind nothing like it previously existed, Julian Peddle tells me he has been impressed with the growth in passenger numbers on the route with some journeys carrying over 20. Like me, he had been sceptical of its likely success at the beginning and indeed I ranked its survival chances in my February 2023 write up at just 3/10.

But my one journey sample – admittedly in the off-peak when most workers are at work and students at school/college – wasn’t particularly encouraging.

I caught the 12:50 from Wellington for the 55 minute ride to Sutton Hill on Tuesday. Back in February 2023 I travelled at a similar time (12:55) when five other passengers were carried. This time nine passengers travelled so you could trumpet it as an almost “doubling of ridership” and it’s three times the “success”of iTravel which justified its own celebratory webinar of course.

Three of the nine passengers boarded in Wellington bus station with two alighting in the nearby Hortonwood business park and the other travelling all the way to Madeley; two travelled to the Halesfield business area having boarded in Stafford Park and at Abraham Darby School and four boarded at the Madeley shopping centre and travelled home to the nearby Sutton Hill area.

When we reached Sutton Hill I was expecting to have to alight as the timetable on the Telford & Wrekin website showed no return journey to Wellington but it turns out this is out of date and the one on the Chaserider website is correct showing a journey at 13:45, even though both timetables state they’re correct as at the beginning of October 2023.

There’s also a journey at 12:05 from Wellington not showing on the stop-by-stop minute-by-minute timetable on the Telford & Wrekin website.

Using the 13:45 journey from Sutton Hill was a good way to return to Telford Central station. It carried six other passengers up to that point, so not a huge number but nonetheless the type of complimentary route ideal for local authorities to support and fund.

It was good to see departures for the route on display at bus stops…

… including in Wellington bus station…

… which, other than the Arriva display for its route 99A/C, had a complete lack of timetables or indication of where each route stopped…

… relying on electronic displays in each shelter…

… although there is a sign indicating times of upcoming train departures from the adjacent station albeit very difficult to read in daylight.

The buses purchased by the Council are nice and comfortable to travel in…

…and I noticed the same buses are also used by Arriva on the 99 circular with that company’s fleet name on the side.

Well done to Telford & Wrekin for taking the initiative with these new routes and lets hope after the three year initial funding it proves sustainable.

Roger French

Did you catch the first ten ‘Every route 100’ blogs? Here’s 1 of 26 (Stevenage-Hitchin) 2 of 26 (Crawley-Redhill), 3 of 26 (Lincoln-Scunthorpe), 4 of 26 (Glasgow-Riverside Museum), 5 of 26 (Campbeltown local), 6 of 26 (Guildford’s Onslow Park & Ride), 7 of 26 (Warrington-Manchester), 8 of 26 Chatham-St Mary’s Island, 9 of 26 St Paul’s-Wapping, 10 of 26 Syston-Melton Mowbray.

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7 thoughts on “Every route 100. 11 of 26.”

  1. The route and vehicles are impressive. The routing suggests someone who understands the local area as nobody else would be likely to suggest such a convoluted route.

    Unfortunately the publicity illustrated lets it down. Out of date or conflicting timetables undermine confidence in a service. The Express 100 route plan combines the complication of a full map without the detail of how the route interacts with where people might want to be. It is neither a stylised simple visual like the tube map nor a full map showing roads and places off the route.

    Anyway well done Chaserider and T&WC.

    Gareth Cheeseman

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  2. The Travel Telford livery looks very smart. The route map shows the orbital trajectory avoiding the town centre, linking residential areas to employment, education, healthcare, and trains. Not knowing Telford I wondered if there’s a retail park or supermarket served by the route.

    If you look at any of the French tramways and now BRT they always link rail, education, hospitals etc, so I think Telford Council has done a good job here. Just need to sort out the information provision at the bus station, and some more eye-catching bus stop flags would be good too. The standard DfT design is dull, there are better designs out there, I’m thinking of the Purbeck Breezer bus stops in Dorset courtesy of Morebus.

    Peter Brown

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  3. Harking back at that Western National book recently reviewed The Midland Red Viable Network Project (VNP) brought about the local identities for the likes of Chaserider and Tellus (for Telford). I cannot remember the network pattern suggested for Telford and no doubt new areas of work , education , interchange and leisure have appeared over the last 44 odd years in the area. When it seemed that Midland Red S series of Single Deck vehicles would remain a constant in its operating area, somehow managing to be just that bit better than Bristol REs or AEC Reliances , these buses seem a capable suitable vehicle for the route requirements. Like all bus services , does it work as network but the proper times and frequencies help and seem to be hopefully encouraging more use of the services, helped probably by the present relatively inexpensive fares.

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  4. Many years ago I visited friends who had just moved into a house in Sutton Hill – and yes, they did shop mainly in Madeley. Just for fun I looked up (on Google Maps) a visit from London, and was pleased to see that my journey made use of the 100 – not sure whether the 12 minute connection would be sufficient for the possibly delayed trains, but there is always the every 15 minutes 1/2 from the bus station.

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