Service 119 running between Birmingham, Halesowen, Brierley Hill and Gornal Wood, renumbered to Service 137 on Saturday 11th February 1928.
Details to follow.
Service 119 running between Great Barr and Sutton on Sunday during Summer Season only.
Details to follow.
On Saturday 11th February 1928, Birmingham and Midland Motor Omnibus Company Limited (BMMO—Midland “Red” Motor Services) renumbered their entire network of local bus routes. At this time, the busy corridor between Birmingham City Centre, Perry Barr, Great Barr, and Walsall was renumbered from Service 113 to become Service 118.
By the early 1940s, Service 118 was operating with a 3 to 4-minute frequency at certain times of the day, and to provide extra capacity additional short-working journeys between Birmingham and Great Barr (Scott Arms) were added as Service 119. The June 1940 timetable did not show departure times for Service 119, but instead had the following statement under Service 118 times “Additional journeys will be operated between Birmingham and Great Barr (Service No. 119) during peak hours and between 9.0 p.m. and 10.30 p.m.”
This statement would continue to be shown on later timetables, but with minor variations to the start or finish times, or the use of the phrase ”…in accordance with Traffic requirements” for Saturday times. By the time the May 1943 timetable was published, Service 118 and Service 119 were running at such high frequency that BMMO abandoned the idea of showing departure times between 06:00 and 19:00, and just showed “Then at frequent intervals throughout the day…”. In that same timetable, Service 119 ran with a 10-minute frequency between 19:00 and 22:30.
From the late 1940s, All Night Service NS119 was also operated from 23:30 daily to 05:00 the following morning with a minimum fare of 6d.
As Service 119 ran entirely within the City of Birmingham boundary it was one of several routes that transferred to Birmingham City Transport (BCT) during 1957 and 1958. As the full route to Walsall (Service 118) ran outside the BCT area, it continued to be operated by BMMO until all Birmingham and Black Country routes were taken over by West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive (WMPTE) on Monday 3rd December 1973.
See Service 118 for further details.
1 From c. 1943, the Birmingham terminus was moved to Bull Street each evening after 1930.