Coventry Buses - past and present

Thank you for that, very useful.

Hi all Returning home from Birmingham airport this afternoon, I have had a last ride aboard the 360, from the Brooklands pub, to Holbrooks. Some of the stops have already been changed to the No 61. The 61 is the same route from Coundon as the 360, to my home, but is only once an hour.

Hi all An area of Coventry that appears to be very devoid of public transport is Baginton. Try getting to the "Old Mill" or the "Lunt Fort" & you will see what I mean. There is a skeleton of a service, almost providing there is a Z in the spelling of that day of the week. Historically, I travelled to school on the old No17 Baginton Village bus service, but it always needed a subsidy & being on the city boundary with Warwick county, it appears to have been a "nobody wants" orphaned casualty. When the airport was doing good business, a regular half-hourly service was well used, but once the airport died, the bus service died with it. That might explain why I see so many ring & ride vehicles in that area now. How do older folk cope out there who can no longer drive?

I've got this Old Age Pensioners Pre-Paid 3d Bus Ticket here from Bedworth Urban District Council, which was issued for use on Coventry Corporation's buses and valid from Bedworth terminal to Ironbridge and vice versa! One thing that's puzzled me slightly is, whereabouts exactly on the route is "IRONBRIDGE"??? (and it's not the one in Shropshire I must point out!!! lol).

Well I'm damned, blowed if my old granddad didn't have one of those tickets. Was going to put it with my collection and got a clip round the ear instead. I'm flabbergasted. What this forum brings forth is astonishing,

A "Coventry Transport" leaflet here from 1964, for anyone wishing to hire a vehicle from their fleet?

"CCT" contact details here on the back of the leaflet!

Pictured inside the leaflet are just two of the "CCT" vehicles that you can get for your money!

Wartime buses with the wooden slatted seats, and also the leather/rexine concertina folding window blinds, with a small aperture for each blind cut out so you could (with difficulty) see out to where you had reached on the journey. This was not often needed though as has been said many conductors would call out the street names at each stop or junction, some in Hillfields had four or five for the one stop. I recall this well, maybe it was wartime blackout that started it all.

I do not know if it is the power of nostalgia but my memory tells me that when I boarded a Coventry Corporation bus in the late 1940's there was a distinctive smell. It may have been the fuel but I feel it was something else as well. In those days we got the number 1 (I think) from the Valley Road terminus at Stoke Heath into town getting off near the Council House. I have been away from Coventry for some time now, did the number 1 in those days go between Stoke Heath and Chapelfields? Was the Cheylesmore bus number 2? Please don't laugh, for me there was a unique smell, which I liked.

Don't know about the smell, Ken, but you're quite right above the route numbers Check them out here on this great site

Thank you for that Midland Red. Will contact you shortly about Coventry Speedway and a couple of other joint interests.

It's odd about our memories of what we remember with smells. Harnall Lane garage supervisor once told me that it was a mix of caustic soda, disinfectant & cats. The cats were there by design, as they kept the problems of rats & mice in check. That is what I was told.

NeilsYard, good photo's of Pool Meadow, but the opposite side was for coaches and during the fifties was loose ash. What is the building opposite the Pool Meadow cafe the Midland Red bus stands next to?