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.
Route number W15 was not used as part of the original network introduced in 1928, but was one of the many new routes introduced at a later date as the network expanded.
See Service W1 for a list of routes operated as part of the 1928 Worcester local bus network.
At some point between 1931 and 1933, Birmingham and Midland Motor Omnibus Company Limited (BMMO—Midland “Red” Motor Services) introduced new Service W15, as the first of many expansions to the Worcester local area network of “W”-prefix services, first introduced in 1928.
Service W15 ran two journeys a day, Monday to Saturday, between Worcester City Centre (Angel Place) and Bromwich Road, terminating at the junction of Whites Road (sometimes incorrectly shown as “White Road” in timetables). This service was a short-working variation of Service 361, Service 362 and Service 363, and these services were all inter-worked to provide between eight and ten journeys a day between the City Centre and Bromwich Road.
In mid-1935, this version of Service W15 had been renumbered to Service W16, with the route number W15 being reused for the Worcester City Centre (St Nicholas Street) and Astwood Road route. This was to allow all routes serving Rainbow Hill to have route numbers in sequence, ending in the number 5.
| W | 1 | 5 |
| January | 1935 | Worcester ↔ Bromwich Road |
In c. 1932, Birmingham and Midland Motor Omnibus Company Limited (BMMO—Midland “Red” Motor Services) introduced Service W16 as an extension to existing Service W5. The new route was the same as Service W5 but continued past the W5 terminus along Ashwood Road for another 620 yards (567 metres) to terminate at the junction with Bilford Road. 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 ran 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, Service W16 to Ashwood Road (Bilford Road junction) was renumbered to Service W15, and at the same time BMMO introduced an additional extension to Service W5, that continued via Brickfields Road to the new Brickfields Estate as Service W25. With the 1935 changes, the following routes operating 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 the 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 on the Rainbow Hill corridor. The wider changes to the Worcester network also saw the introduction of new Daimler Fleetline double-deck buses for local services in Worcester, but both of these routes passed under a low railway bridge (12′ 6″ limit) on Brickfields Road, so all buses over Rainbow Hill would be restricted to single-deck. These would almost certainly have been the BMMO S16 type that were operated in large numbers at Worcester depot from the mid-1960s, and displaced with the arrival of the new double-decks. Service W15 also had to pass under an even lower bridge (10′ 0″ limit) on Field Road, which was eventually closed to all motor vehicle traffic, and remains closed to all but pedestrians to this day.
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.
On Monday 3rd December 1973, Birmingham and Midland Motor Omnibus Company Limited (BMMO—Midland “Red” Motor Services) sold a number of depots in the Birmingham area, and the operations of those depots, to the West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive (WMPTE). As a result of this, the company renamed to Midland Red Omnibus Company Limited (MROC) on Friday 29th March 1974.
At the end of operations on Friday 13th February 1976, the entire existing local Worcester bus network, except for Service W37, was withdrawn and replaced with a new network starting the following day. New Service W34 was introduced to replace Service W15, and new Service W35 replaced Service W25. This new network was designed to run with one-man operated Leyland National single-deck buses, but these were too tall to pass under the low railway bridge on Field Road so Service W34 was the only route on the new network to continue to operate with BMMO-built single-deck buses, complete with conductors. New Service W34 was also a cross-city route and continued to Dines Green, running an anti-clockwise route via Oldbury Road, Tudor Way and Bromyard Road, before returning to the City Centre and onward to Bilford Road.