Sunday 1st March 2026
It comes to something when passengers wanting a bus timetable book showing all the bus routes operating across a county have to turn to the Omnibus Society to find out what runs when and where in a printed format. But that’s exactly what’s happened in Powys where the South Wales and West Branch of the Omnibus Society has taken the much welcome and commendable initiative of commercially producing a fully comprehensive countywide timetable book detailing every bus route – including those with just a part section of route in the county – and an easy to follow countywide bus map.
Omnibus Society member David Chalkley has put it all together and is to be congratulated on a magnificent job with all the timetables laid out to a crystal clear and consistent format with easy to understand codes detailing any journeys with exceptional routings or other variations. David also explains “we have seen operators’ website timetables, Traveline Cymru and bustimes.org sometimes define a timing point in different ways, and we consider it is of more use to readers if a timing point is described in the same format throughout the book”. Hurrah for that.
The book kicks off with a list of the 15 bus operators featured in the book along with route numbers of the services they operate followed by an Introduction page giving the background to the timetable’s production.
Where space permits within the timetable pages the reader will find seven lovely colour photographs of buses going about their work throughout the county and a real highlight is a colour map across the centre pages which shows all the principal inter-urban routes in red with other routes in green together with an indication of their frequency. Railway and heritage railway lines are also shown but, for reasons of space, not school services.
The map is a masterclass from Brendan Fox who runs the hugely helpful busatlas.uk website and is to be congratulated and heartily thanked for giving permission for his cartography skills to be included in the book. It’s so much easier to follow than what is now on the Powys website as featured in last month’s Seen Around.
The timetable book is available to purchase online for £5 either through MDS Books or by sending a cheque for £6 (to include postage if a non member of the Omnibus Society) made payable to ‘The Omnibus Society SWW’ to OS-SWW, 5 Angelica Avenue, Melksham, Wiltshire, SN12 6ZP. Alternatively, a bank transfer can be made by emailing sww@omnibus-society.org with the address for dispatch and details of the bank account will be emailed back.
As a long standing member (and past President) of the Omnibus Society it’s so heartwarming to see this new dimension to the organisation’s activities. The Society has long been an excellent source of recording and detailing developments and changes to the UK’s bus routes over the decades so how lovely to see it now also providing useful and helpful information for passengers wanting to use current services.
Quite why county council’s (and in commercial cases, some bus companies) abrogate that responsibility continues to baffle me. Well done Omnibus Society (South Wales and West). The timetable book has already enticed me to make a return visit to Powys for some more travels.
Roger French
Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS
BusAndTrainUser 
Thank you, Roger, for the excellent review!
Darryl in Dorset (and OS SWW Branch Secretary)
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But isn’t the problem with such a book is that it’s quite possibly out of date even before people can purchase it – and potential travellers wouldn’t know which routes had been changed?
Of course, if operators only changed their services and (say) two defined days per year, there’d be no problem!
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