A wander from Warwickshire to Leicestershire

Tuesday 16th September 2025

This post was going to be about my journey last Thursday on bus route LC6 which runs four times a day between Coalville and Hinckley

Operated by Centrebus with one bus on behalf of Leicestershire County Council, the route was introduced on 26th August providing a north-south link between these communities and zig zagging to serve a number of villages along the way including the delightfully named Barton in the Beans.

In fact it was a resurrection, rather than a new bus route introduction, as the same service (then numbered 159) ceased in February 2023 when the County Council decided it was no longer financial viable due to low numbers travelling, especially when the then operator, Roberts, wanted more money to keep what was then a two bus operation going.

With just one bus it’s not a very attractive timetable necessitating either very short or rather long visits to either Hinckley or Coalville before a return journey.

I’d planned to catch the 11:50 from Hinckley but unfortunately Avanti West Coast was having another of its disruptive days last week and the train left Euston 20 minutes late giving no chance of connecting at Nuneaton with Cross Country for Hinckley thereby missing the LC6. I didn’t fancy a three hour and 40 minute wait for the next journey (at 15:30) so bailed out at Nuneaton to try something else…..

…. which was to see how the coordinated corridor between Nuneaton and Leicester shared by Arriva and Stagecoach was doing two and a half years since its introduction amid a blaze of publicity back in Spring 2023.

The arrangements were brokered as part of Warwickshire County Council’s Enhanced Partnership and saw Stagecoach consolidate its two separately numbered routes 48C (Coventry to Nuneaton) and 48L (Nuneaton to Leicester) into one route numbered 148 (Coventry to Leicester via Nuneaton).

Daytime frequency is every 10 minutes between Coventry and Nuneaton with two of the six journeys each hour continuing to Leicester half an hour apart. These are supplemented by Arriva’s route 158 between Nuneaton and Leicester which also operates half hourly thereby providing a coordinated 15 minute frequency with alternate buses run by Arriva and Stagecoach.

Stagecoach provides a comprehensive timetable on its website showing both its 148 journeys and Arriva’s 158 journeys.

Arriva’s limited online functionality, discussed here many times, means it only shows its own journeys.

The deal includes mutual acceptance of each others tickets so for the passenger it doesn’t matter whether they have an Arriva or Stagecoach return or weekly ticket, for example, all tickets are inter-valid.

It’s a busy route, as I found, taking in Hinckley, Barwell and Earl Shilton which, from Nuneaton, is virtually one splurge of pleasant urban sprawl before hitting the open road for around six miles…

… to reach the outskirts of Leicester.

…where the city’s welcome bus lanes enable a traffic free conclusion to the journey…

…well, mostly traffic free.

Stagecoach use one year old Yutong E12 battery electric single deck buses on the 148 with Arriva using a mix of single and double deck buses on its 158.

I caught Arriva’s 11:50 departure from Nuneaton bus station.

It’s a very functional bus station featuring a traditional drive through…

… with four lettered lanes with either a continuous shelter (lanes A, B, C) or individual ones at the three designated stops in each lane.

Old fashioned flip over seating is provided…

… and it’s nice to see a where to catch your bus poster and departure information at each departure stand.

It was also nice to see well kept toilets open for use too.

For those that like a Jenny’s café, Flames, Grill and BBQ Restaurant your tastes are also well catered for but unfortunately the clock was showing the wrong time above the conveniently sited taxi rank.

There was evidence although basic in facilities the bus station is looked after and although covering a fair bit of land in the town centre looked to be well used.

We only had two passengers on leaving the bus station but 40 others travelled during the 90 minute journey to Leicester with the largest contingent, 14, boarding in Hinckley bus station.

We lost a few minutes due to roadworks at a busy junction on the edge of Hinckley…

… and it also seemed to take an age for the passengers to board in Hinckley bus station (I think there was a aproblem with someone paying with contactless) where we left 12 minutes late.

The next delay was in Barwell where Arriva has a bus garage so another few minutes were spent with the usual driver changeover procedures.

I’m not sure with the advent of so much electronic devices and smart cards why drivers can’t just do one swipe on the ticket machine and that’s it.

We’re now 18 minutes late and inevitably are overtaken by the Stagecoach bus behind us leading to some cat and mouse as we enter the city of Leicester, now 19 minutes late with the relieving driver noticeably taking a more cautious approach to the road than his predecessor.

We finally arrive in St Margeret’s bus station in Leicester at 13:29, 21 minutes late.

The bus was due to depart at 13:20 back to Nuneaton and some passengers had started to board the 148 which arrived before us and would leave at 13:35.

Although the Arriva bus left first I suspect they’d be in tandem again for much of the way.

Still, at least passengers didn’t have to worry about ticket availability between the two buses and I noticed Stagecoach has erected shared bus stop flags along the route in Warwickshire and those in Leicestershire not yet taken over by the Council.

Timetables were also showing both operators which is all good to see.

Although I noticed the electronic departure sign in Earl Shilton was misleading only displaying the 158 journeys.

As always, it’s providing a reliable on-time service which passenger value the most.

And in that regard my try out of the Enhanced Partnership arrangements wasn’t an entirely successful experience.

As for route LC6 I understand it’s carrying around 50-60 passengers a day which works out at about 6-7 per journey which is exactly the number I found travelling when sampling the route prior to its withdrawal in February 2023.

Roger French

Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS

34 thoughts on “A wander from Warwickshire to Leicestershire”

  1. I wonder whether the LC6 would benefit from needing made a flexibus route, only deviating off the main road when required – if there aren’t many passengers from those side villages then you could save quite a bit of time by not meandering around unnecessarily. On the other hand, for just one route it probably isn’t worth the cost of managing such a system for fairly small savings in running costs and passengers’ time.

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  2. This blog has reminded me to say that the compendium of jointly operated bus routes is no longer up to date. First Essex withdrew all commercially operated journeys on Service 88 Halstead – Colchester in July 2025 although some tendered work remains on evenings and Sundays. First (nee National / Eastern National) had been the dominant operator on the route for over a hundred years.

    Konectbuses (Hedingham & Chambers) have mostly replaced the First timings and from the end of August have completely revised their other services. You should take a look especially as the livery and origin of some vehicles will be extremely familiar to you.

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      1. And in Wales of course the T12 needs to be removed, with the T4 added (Celtic Travel and Williams Coaches). The 585 can also be removed, it is now entirely operated by Evans Coaches of Tregaron including the school run previously provided by Brodyr James Coaches. The positioning journeys for the 588 previously operated by Mid Wales nolonger run since that contact is also now with Evans.

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      1. Yes, sadly Mr. Anonymous is correct that numerous journeys are being dropped at the moment. The annual report of Konectbus had a comment along the lines of the reason for the big financial loss was that they were spending too much on agency drivers.

        Nigel Turner

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  3. I visited Nuneaton under very unusual circumstances on 07/08/1997. I was on a very extensive JDW trail: starting from Hersham, visiting Lewisham and Northampton before pressing on to Birmingham with a stop for drinks at BHX using a shuttle bus between the station and airport terminal. I used no fewer than seven trains running north from Euston to Birmingham including two Connex 319s (for ticketing reasons). After visiting the then only Birmingham JDW I blundered over “last train” issues for a direct service back to London. I could however get back to London that day via Nuneaton starting out on a cross-country 158. I lost the last train from New Street to Euston but in fact had plenty of time in Nuneaton to visit the town’s JDW too! On a family matter: the Birmingham JDW (The Square Peg) used to be a branch of Lewis’s Ltd (chain of provincial departments stores unrelated to John Lewis) which was my father’s main employer during my lifetime. I had the joys of a manually typed Diary then, all so much better than my current crude style.

    As to Stagecoach swipe cards: upon a driver changeover on an eastbound Route 700 outside Worthing Garage the driver coming aboard had so much difficulty initialising the ticket machine that the following 700 came up behind and the two buses ran in tandem into Brighton.

    As to Nuneaton’s contribution to London football: Arsenal’s Nigel Winterburn (left back) although in his era Lee Dixon (right back) was my favourite and I attended his testimonial game when it came up to be played.

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  4. I regret to say that the many advantages for both passengers and Operators by the use of bank cards, well overtaken now by phone payments, are frequently lost by people who either cannot be bothered to have the correct screen ready on boarding or simply have no credit anyway! And the latest with “Tap-on, tap-off” is deciding to hunt for your card/device as you actually get to the reader on alighting…..some people really don’t help themselves and delay the rest of us in the process.

    In TfL land of course, it appears that in such events, you just look at the Driver, shrug your shoulders, walk on and thus travel free along with the multitudes of youngsters who no longer have “Zip” cards whether entitled or not.

    Nice to see the old 159 back, although after a break of almost three years, I wonder how many passengers will return from whatever ways people have adapted to in the meantime.

    Terence Uden

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    1. Nice to see the old 159 back,

      159 was Birmingham to Coventry and is today’s National Express Coventry X1.

      The 158 was 658 under Midland Red and never actually went away, at least north of Nuneaton. Stagecoach messed around with their part of it, with it ending up as the 48L or something equally weird before being numbered 148 to match the Arriva 158.

      148 to me is a variant of the (long lost) Birmingham – Redditch – Astwood Bank service 147!

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      1. Yes indeed, but I was of course referring to the “modern” 159. As my origins were in Midland Red territory (Lichfield), born in the same road as the MR garage, I am still amused that in spite of the numerous upheavals over the years, there are still 7xx route numbers in use, and even a spattering of 8xx! Although of course few bear any relation to the originals.

        Terence Uden

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        2. I was of course referring to the “modern” 159.

          Apologies, I’d forgotten that Hinckley – Coalville had mutated into the 159 for a while.

          I suppose it was to match the 158, as there’s no real precedence for the route using 159; when Midland Red East renumbered services from the Midland Red sequence in the early 1980s, the route became the 178/9 and I tend to think of it as that still!

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    1. Which I think is the first time the 2 towns have been linked by a regular daily bus service. I’m happy to be proved wrong though!

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      1. It was one of the observations that when Midland Red (South) was created, the Nuneaton depot had relatively few links with the rest of the business (buses meeting sporadically at Coventry and Leicester) and was more closely linked with MRN or MRE. However, it both enabled MRS to be of a more sustainable size and that the majority of Warwickshire services (and relationship with the council) were with one entity.

        BW2

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        1. And of course, Nuneaton was the place where North, East and South met.

          There is an irony in the fact that since Arriva purchased Centrebus Holdings Hinckley depot back in 2013, Arriva Midlands have picked up many north Warwickshire and Nuneaton area contracts. In reply to something I wrote on another enthusiast site a couple of months ago, Toby France, Arriva Midlands Head of Commercial, said that in respect of the 148/158 and other local services, as part of the Qualifying Agreement for these services, it made sense to give consistency on which operator served each of the unique sections of route. 

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        2. BW2,

          I believe the Mini-Reds were created based entirely on the preceding Midland Red divisions which, as with anything that has grown organically, weren’t necessarily entirely logical.

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          1. Very possibly ANM but there was a logic to retaining them as MRS had the ops in Warks and Oxon, MRE Derbys and Leics, MRW H&W, and MRN in Staffs and Shrops so it was easier when dealing with local authorities.

            BW2

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        1. The 748 is the Sunday and public holiday variation of the 48A which runs from Nuneaton to Atherstone during the week. The 748 is a tendered service which extends to Tamworth. As Roger mentions, the 148 had been the 48C, Nuneaton to Coventry and the 48L, Nuneaton to Leicester. There was also a third variation, the 48A to Atherstone which still retains this number and of course as you rightly mentioned, the 748. Assuming most readers are confused already (!), for good measure before the A, C and L were added to the route number, all variations ran as the 48, so when waiting for a bus in Nuneaton bus station you had service 48 running in three different directions! Good LT Country Area parctice was alive and well in Warwickshire into the 2000’s…..

          The 765 ran under that service number until around a decade ago, but had long been ended at Nuneaton, no longer reaching Coventry. Then the service was split with Lichfield to Tamworth remaining as the 765 and Tamworth to Nuneaton becoming the 65. To add to my other comment on this blog, this service has recently been extended at both ends to serve Ventura Retail Park in Tamworth and Nuneaton’s George Eliot Hospital (which being in Warwickshire is in theory the local hospital for the villages along the A5 towards Tamworth, which being in Staffordshire is in a different NHS region) as well as the large Callendar Farm housing development. More recently, with Bus Link appearing on the scene, a more direct X65 has also been introduced between Lichfield and Tamworth.

          It was through this corridor that Midland Red first reached Nuneaton when they took over the North Warwickshire Motor Omnibus & Traction Co who were based at Tamworth, but had services extending as far as Nuneaton. They were taken over on 1st February 1918 with Midland Red then opening their first garage in Nuneaton on 21st December 1921. The first service to Leicester started on 11 May 1921, when the existing service 68 from Nuneaton to Earl Shilton (via Hinckley and Barwell) was extended. At this point in time, all services ran from Tamworth garage. The 68 was Midland Red’s first incursion into Leicester and forerunner of the 148/158, the subject of Roger’s blog.

          (See how I managed to get back on topic there…!)

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  6. This is one of my local routes so it was interesting to read your experiences Roger. The area from the northern edge of Nuneaton into Leicestershire has been plagued by roadworks and the section of the A5 where you took the photo of the lane restriction was last dug up in exactly the same spot 12 months ago. Massive housing and warehousing developments have added to the chaos and in that same stretch of road in the photo, I saw 2 148s and a 158 all within sight each other one morning last week, all heading to Leicester.

    As part of the partnership agreement, Arriva, in preference to Stagecoach, now serves the two large estates to the north of Nuneaton where I live that borders this and have introduced a new service 64 from these developments (Callander Farm and St Nicolas Park) into town. This has replaced a more infrequent service 7 which ran through from Burbage to Hinckley to Nuneaton using Hinckley’s perimeter road to join at A5 at that traffic clogged roundabout. In addition, Arriva’s 65 from Tamworth to Nuneaton, has also been extended to serve Callander Farm taking a larger bus through the narrower estate roads. Whilst I was taking a photograph on Saturday there, a passing woman who was walking her dog challenged me about what I was doing and when I explained, proceeded to complain about the size of the buses!

    The LC6 has had a lot of publicity locally. Much positive stuff about the return of the bus service to the villages served, but also concerns about the timetable rendering it impractical. My wife works in the large garden centre a few miles out of Hinckley near Stapleton village where most of the dozens of staff employed work from 8 to 5.30. Since the withdrawal of the Roberts service many have turned to cycling and a number walk along the grass verge of the very dangerous road for a couple of miles from where the 148/158 turn off for Barwell. Depending on their direction of travel they can now either get to work on the LC6, or home from work, but not both. This is by far the biggest employer along the rural section of the route as well. They also knew nothing about the new service until my wife and the fishmonger mentioned it. Yes, he is a bus enthusiast!

    I took a few photos of the Centrebus Optare Solo used on the service during the week it started and sent them to Julian Peddle. His reply after thanking me summed it up, “Smart bus, just needs passengers!” It’s been good to see Leicestershire County Council’s BSIP initiatives after several years of cutting funding. Sadly though with some of these, a little more local leg work would have potentially provided an improved passenger experience which could have increased the takings.

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  7. Regarding tapping out on alighting, it would help if next bus stop audio announcements (when rolled out) could occasionally be supplemented with “please have your card ready to tap out”. This is the practice in The Netherlands where they say in Dutch and English “please remember to check out with your OV Chipkaart, also with your phone and bank card”.

    Little details.

    Peter Brown

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  8. Let’s not forget that in BMMO days the Coventry-Nuneaton-Hinckley-Leicester route was the 658, which I think was operated from the Midland Red depots at Hinckley (on Coventry Road) and one of the Leicester ones.

    Ian McNeil

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  9. Driver Change overs also involve altering the mirrors and setting the seat height / pitch. If one doesnt mind complexity this could be electric with driver preferences stored on their smart card. And really these days why dont we have smart tachographs on every PSV enabling working time, driving time and paid hours x rate easily done again can link to any ticket machine type, if needed and the GPS of the bus.

    The LC6 timetable indeed , odd one bus carries the same number of passengers per day as two did before – If I read that correctly – or did more buses carry more passengers in total.

    I dont know what main road alternatives exist but certainly if things like Local Travel Plans could ever be created (postcodes of employers and workers) there should be ways of running better bus services in some localities.

    JBC Prestatyn

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  10. Think the LC6 as been set up to fail , think the route needs looking at not anyone in some of the places being pick up as there is few houses just fields etc and one bus time table just to long in hinckley and if going to Coalville the same , why is it about how many people use the buses it’s transport we need to many cars on road and no train station in Coalville I think England should look at how they actually make it work in other countries always buses to get everywhere .

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  11. However smooth the technical side of a driver changeover can be made, there does also invariably seem to be a long chat between the two drivers, however late the bus. Possibly relating to operating/traffic vehicle issues, but not always.

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  12. The Sunday 748 between Nuneaton and Tamworth covers the main part of the weekday 65 route – minus the recent extensions to the 65, and with a couple of minor variations including one to cover part of Tamworth local rite 7.

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  13. I sampled the 158 almost exactly a year ago, choosing the same 1150 journey from Nuneaton because it was double deck.

    My journey was also delayed by a long wait at Hinckley Bus Station, partly due to a driver changeover, but we did manage to claw back some time on the fast section of route between Earl Shilton and the edge of Leicester.

    It is, perhaps, a bit ironic that on Roger’s trip it was the through (148) bus from Coventry that managed to keep to time while the shorter 158 journey could not.

    Peter Hale

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  14. Not sure if I’m too late to comment.

    Good to see the link between Hinckley and Coalville is back. In Midland Red days it was the 679 but after the split Fox renumbered it 179. At deregulation the route passed to Leicester Citybus who ran it from the former Gibsons base at Barlestone. Don’t know when it became the 159 which, as mentioned above, was really Coventry to Birmingham.

    Richard Warwick

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    1. I don’t know WHY the route numbers were changed but I do know when – the 179 became the 159 from 7th June 1999 when the service transferred from Arriva Midlands North (Stevensons) to Network 2000 under a Leicestershire County Council re-tender. At the same re-tender, the 177 (Coalville – Belton – Loughborough) was renumbered 157, so presumably the renumberings were at the request of the County Council.

      Mike T (Leicester)

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