Service W5 was introduced by Birmingham and Midland Motor Omnibus Company Limited (BMMO—Midland “Red” Motor Services) on Friday 1st June 1928, as part of the new Worcester City network of local services. The service operated every 10-minutes Monday to Saturday, and every 15-minutes on Sundays between Worcester City Centre (St Nicholas Street), Rainbow Hill and Ashwood Road, terminating at the Cemetery.
While the route for Service W5 remained unchanged, in c. 1932 BMMO introduced an extension, which continued along Ashwood Road for another 620 yards (567 metres) to terminate at the junction with Bilford Road. This was initially known as Service W16, but after a few years it was renumbered to Service W15. Buses on the extended route ran an hourly frequency, seven days a week, between 07:00 and 23:00 on Monday to Saturday, or 10:00 and 23:00 on Sunday. Meanwhile, during the same time period Service W5 continued to run every 10 or 15-minutes throughout the day, but on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings the frequency increased to between every 5 and 8-minutes.
On Monday 3rd June 1935, BMMO introduced an additional extension to Service W5, to continue to the new Brickfields Estate as Service W25. At the same time, Service W16 to Ashwood Road was renumbered to Service W15 to give the following group of services on the Rainbow Hill corridor.
During the early wartime period, this group of services expanded again with the addition of new Service W14.
As both Service W5 and Service W15 kept to Rainbow Hill and Ashwood Road, they did not need to pass under the low railway bridge on Brickfield Road near the junction with Ashwood Road. This would restrict Service W25 and later Service W14 to single-deck only use. At the time Service W25 was introduced there was still very little housing development on Brickfield Estate, so that route only saw around fifteen departures throughout the day at infrequent intervals, between 07:30 in the morning and 22:55 in the evening. Meanwhile, Service W5 continued to operate with a 10-minute frequency.
The Worcester Agreement had ended in 1959, and thus many of the restrictions placed on the Worcester network ended, and by then end of 1960 there was a bus departing for Rainbow Hill every 5-minutes during the peak periods. By this time most were running as Service W15 or Service W25, which ran every 10-minutes each, and very few journeys ran as the original Service W5 terminating at the Cemetery. They were however being advertised as a combined “W5/14/15/25” timetable, which was probably a bit confusing for anyone not familiar with the network.
This came to an end in c. 1967 when the Rainbow Hill corridor saw significant changes as part of a revision to the wider Worcester network. Service W15 was rerouted to run via Brickfields Road, Blackpole Road, then an anti-clockwise loop along Bilford Road, Ashwood Road, and Field Road back to Blackpole Road, then returning to the City Centre via Rainbow Hill. The Service W25 route remained unchanged and continued to be inter-worked with the rerouted Service W15 to give a 10-minute frequency over Rainbow Hill and a 20-minute frequency on other parts of the routes, Monday to Saturday, or 15-minute and 30-minute respectively on Sunday.
Service W5 and Service W14 were both made redundant by the 1967 changes and were withdrawn, leaving only Service W15 and Service W25 running along the Rainbow Hill corridor.
Between c. 1952 and 1967, BMMO also ran Service W24 along the Rainbow Hill corridor to Hindlip Hall. At it's peak, this only saw a maximum of three departures a day on a Wednesday, so for simplicity has not been included on this page.