On Friday 1st June 1928, the Birmingham and Midland Motor Omnibus Company Limited (BMMO—Midland “Red” Motor Services) commenced operation of a new network of local bus routes in the City of Worcester. This network replaced the electric tramway network that ceased operation on the previous day, and was introduced as part of the historic “Worcester Agreement”, in which BMMO oversaw and operated local bus routes in Worcester on behalf of the local authority.
The new Worcester bus network was the first of many area networks to be introduced by BMMO carrying a letter prefix on route numbers to denote the area, with Worcester route numbers having a “W”-prefix. To operate this new network, BMMO moved a fleet of approximately thirty new SOS “QL” buses to the city. The existing Worcester (East Street) depot could not accommodate all these, so a former factory in Padmore Street was acquired and converted for bus operation.
See Service W1 for a list of routes operated as part of the 1928 Worcester local bus network.
Service W10 was introduced on Friday 1st June 1928 at the formation of the new local Worcester network, running between Worcester City Centre (The Cross) and Bath Road, terminating at Norton Turn. Buses ran once an hour in each direction throughout the day, seven days a week. Service W7 also ran over the same route but only as far as the Berwick Arms. These ran with a higher frequency of three buses and hour Monday to Saturday or two buses an hour on Sundays.
By the end of 1938, Service W7 had been withdrawn and replaced by additional Service W10 journeys that ran from the High Street with a frequency of every 10-minutes throughout the week, but the frequency had been reduced to run every 15-minutes on Sundays by the late-1960s.
In c. 1967, Service W10 was withdrawn. As a replacement, certain journeys of Service W9 running between Worcester City Centre and Warndon via Tolladine Road were extended past Warndon to return to Worcester City Centre (High Street) via Bilford Road, and continue to Bath Road. This new cross-city route ran as Service W39. At the same time, Service W2 running between Worcester City Centre and Droitwich Road was also extended to Bath Road as a cross-city route.