It has been announced today that Thandi Buses have ceased trading and are no longer operating their two routes in the Walsall area.
37 – Walsall to Willenhall
NX West Midlands have stepped in at short notice to introduce an hourly daytime ‘shuttle service’ operating between Wilenhall and Darlaston only.
From today, Friday 26th August 2022, we will be running an hourly shuttle service between Darlaston and Willenhall to replace the cancelled Thandi 37 service.
The shuttle will run for the next 2-3 weeks, whilst we work to fully incorporate the 37 service into our current network.
https://nxbus.co.uk/west-midlands/service-updates/new-37-shuttle-service
There is no change to the evening or Sunday journeys currently operated by NX West Midlands.
New 37 timetable available here
334 – Bilston to Walsall
This service is withdrawn with immediate effect and will not be replaced, NX West Midlands’ 34 service covers much of this route already.
Despite what many people might think, it is never ‘good news’ to hear that a small local company has gone out of business, and I feel sorry for the employees who now find themselves out of a job, this has happened to me twice in the past so I know what it is like.
And I feel sorry for any regular passengers who use and rely on these services, and I hope they can quickly adjust to the new arrangements.
I only learned recently that another smaller operator Discount Travel Solutions had also ceased trading a while back.
These are troubling times, and I expect there are a few other local operators that might be nervous right now.
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I feel sorry for smaller companies and employers but they probably should offer services NX dont. Depends what services are by people whether they use it or not. We have one 30mins anywhere near us only few centres and thats it. Basons Lane have 5 bus services (but generally all to the same places – no Cape Hill or Smethwick bus at all) We are a much larger area with longer walks than Basons Lane where roads are smaller so easy walk to more buses. Like most people in that part of Smethwick/Oldbury we travel to 5 centres High St, Cape Hill, Oldbury, West Brom, Bearwood equally even in same week as each centre has different facilities. Mistake imo to take off the range of service destinations on offer, NX will never get loads of people in those areas going to one place and even the same people using buses are split on where they go to locally. So not providing a mix of services regardless of frequency doesnt tend to work and doesnt attract bus users its far better either mix of services or buses doing more. Its why so many there own cars as cars get to all the centres whereas the buses/services on offer generally dont so arent that attractive to use. Services on offer are lopsided.
Chaserider is certainly one to watch, I’d say, at the moment.
The reality is smaller hourly or 30mins buses are often covered by regular NX services to same places. The hourly 21 Bearwood to Oldbury bus not far from me is a classic example already covered by 12/12a 48/48a 49 and 87 along much of its route within short walk away from 21 stops and even on ssme stops. It is always baffling they do this. My road had Bearwood and Oldbury buses took off no replacement, and everybody by me saying its ridiculous no direct Bearwood and Oldbury links, yet 21 rolls around more empty same 20 and 22 services yet avoids us despite people by me needing it and despite people needing a direct Bearwood to Smethwick High St bus plus Langley needing a direct link to Smethwick again all links lost from previous changes, a nightmare to get to Bearwood and Oldbury currently by me despite being our local shopping centres and often 15-20mins walk to those services, which is why people drive 🙄🤦♂️
Agree Stu Thandis operations have looked quite perilous recently while personally I miss DTS off the 11 they used to fill in gaps in the NXWM service very well. The Solihull services of Stagecoach are an interesting development bearing I’m mind they are unable to operate thier main networks fully currently personally I can see that network back with Diamond before long the only stable local independent operator & congratulations on providing us with an excellent website over the last decade it is much appreciated
Thanks, as I wrote in a previous article, what we will see is more ‘coalescing’ – either smaller independent operators will be ‘acquired’ by larger ambitious groups such as we’ve seen with Rotala/Diamond Bus with Midland Classic, Claribels and Johnsons, or they will be allowed to ‘fold’ and go out of business, with the ‘big operators’ such as NX Bus, First, Stagecoach, GoAhead etc waiting to pick up the contract tenders at their ‘asking price’, knowing that the smaller operators with lower overheads who would have previously ‘outbid’ them, are now safely out of the way.
I think that Landflight is a stable indipendent operator and can’t see why Diamond would re buy the tenders for the services they have lost to Stagecoach.
Thandi and DTS are funnny companies as they start running services under two names so you don’t know what company it is. Take for example the 424 Thandi operated this service under the name Thandi coaches but the 37 and 334 was run under the name Tandi Transport. So I can see why they have gone out of business. As people wouldn’t know what company to contact if they loose anything. Example I contacted the company to ask them to up date their website to show all timetablesfor routes they operate and I got the response back that said they don’t run bus services you’ll have to contact the company who are around the couner but when you do you don’t even get a response
These were ran by 2 separate Thandi companies 28A/53/424 and 334/37.
Also Discount Travel solutions started out under the same name in 2014.
Originally running on the 29 Birmingham to Northfield and 63 – Birmingham to Longbridge every hour.
Since then they have ran the 966, 87, 97, X12, 11A/11C.
In there later days on the 11A/11C they had only ran between City Hospital & Erdington/Ward End (PM peak), to avoid delays in the Perry Barr/Bromford areas.
NX to this day still run as 2 separate routes with an overlapping section.