From Saturday 12th April 1930, Birmingham and Midland Motor Omnibus Company Limited (BMMO—Midland “Red” Motor Services) operated Service X96 as a long-distance service between Northampton, Coventry, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, and Shrewsbury*. At just over 100-miles in length, this was one of the longest stage-carriage services operated, taking 5-hours to complete in each direction. Two or three full journeys were operated in each direction, seven days a week, with additional short-working journeys on certain parts of the route.
On Saturday 2nd September 1967, additional short-working journeys were introduced on Service X96 corridor to provide extra capacity on the busiest parts of the route, but to avoid confusion these were given different route numbers in the range X93–X95. These were…
Service X96 had previously called at all stops, but with introduction of this new group of services all ran as Limited Stop between Coventry and Wolverhampton in both directions, and were inter-worked to give an hourly frequency between Birmingham, Wolverhampton, and Shifnal. On sections of the route before and after those locations, the short-working journeys resulted in timings being less regular.
* The Birmingham to Northampton section of the route first operated on 8th December 1928, as Service 196, being renumbered to Service X96 on 25th February 1929. The route was extended to Shrewsbury on 12th April 1930.
| X | 9 | 3 |
| July | 1970 | Birmingham ↔ Wolverhampton ↔ Shrewsbury |