aye up guys birmingham yeah I tell you what i've got a feeling that things are just not going right
today I don't know why well i've got an idea why anyway um yeah i'm taking a trip down to
london this lunch time over to heathrow but i'm not um doing it the conventional way uh
normally i would take the train down to euston or marlybone and take the underground out to heathrow
but today i thought i'll try the coach instead and the cheapest one i could find online was
megabus believe it or not and they depart from brunell street which i believe is just kind of
round there somewhere so i've got to find that and then i'm gonna get on
the coach it's gonna take about three hours or so including stops never tried it before
let's see how it goes and i will catch you on the coach cheers for now
Yep so actually, the Megabus departure point was, as I said, just around the corner, probably about
a two minute walk from New Street Railway Station which, to be fair, is more convenient than Digbeth
Coach Station where the National Express buses go from. There’s a couple of stands here and probably
room for three coaches I reckon? Handily, there was a Megabus already here, bound for Southampton
and, I must admit, when seeing the coach close-up, I thought it looked pretty smart. All I could do
at this point was cross my fingers and hope that my coach would be something similar.
Usefully, there are departure boards at the stands that tell you all the times and destinations of
the Megabus services leaving from this point. Here’s our coach, the 12:50 to London, calling
only at Reading and Heathrow (where I would be getting off). Now when I think back, this is much
better than the solitary ‘post’ Flixbus provide in Birmingham that has absolutely no information on
it whatsoever. I tell you what, check out this video here if you want to compare and contrast the two services.
As well as providing cover when it’s raining, there’s also an information board with details
of the Megabus onboard policy, luggage allowance and a contact email address etc.
At this point, I thought I’d better go and get some provisions for the trip and when I returned,
another Megabus had turned up - amusingly named ‘Basil Bus’!
I loved the fact Megabus had taken to naming their coaches - I didn’t know this
and I’d be interested to find out what other names are out there (and of course your favourites).
This coach, which I am reliably informed (via the internet) is a Volvo B11RT/Plaxton
Elite Interdeck. But it was displaying a ‘Sorry not in Service’ notice on its digital display here at the front.
So I carried on waiting for my coach to arrive,
but as we got nearer and nearer to the expected departure time, nothing else had turned up.
Anyway, as it happened, Basil Bus was actually our coach which was great news wasn't it! A proper, branded,
Megabus - at last! I’m not sure why it didn’t have the destination indicated on it but, at
around 13:00 the Megabus staff which had shown up on the kerbside decided it was time to board, so
we all shuffled into line and handed our luggage over. This was really well organised, one chap loaded the
cases after asking for our destination and the other guy checked our tickets and seat reservations.
And you'll notice here that the destination displays had now changed to London Victoria
Boarding the coach, there was one row of three seats downstairs behind the driver
and then you went upstairs to the single deck seating area. I guess this is why it's called an 'Interdeck'?
My seat, number 8 was in the second row.
Inevitably, there was somebody sitting in it, but they moved easily enough.
It was a pretty good view from here tbf as I was able to see over the front row
and because it’s in a raised position I was actually over the drivers cab so
it’s very similar to a double decker really.
Engine started at 13:15 - 25 minutes behind schedule at this point.
Although it was pretty grey outside, the driver decided we all needed to feel the benefit of the
coaches ice cold a/c system which streamed out of the vents above the windows! Hmm, yeh
someone would have to say something about this.
Anyway we left stand at 13:19 and as I glanced back I noticed another Megabus had pulled up behind us.
So I'm therefore, I’m assuming we were late because we
were waiting for that to arrive so that passengers from that coach could then connect down to London on our coach.
Now I thought we’d head for the Aston Expressway then the M6, M42, M40 but instead,
we headed south out of Birmingham on the A435 and kind of through Kings Heath?
But it was so busy this way, almost an hour after we were supposed to depart we’d travelled a grand
total of 4 miles! I saw a National Express bus coming the other way down this road too so it’s
not exclusively a Megabus thing. I know there’s a few coach drivers who watch my channel so
if anybody can explain why we took this route i’d be really interested to know the reason.
Anyway, we finally made it to the motorway (junction 3 of the M42)
where predictably, we were met by three lanes of queuing traffic.
This didn’t take long to clear though and we were soon making steady progress along the M40.
Right so let’s have a look at the seat and here we have integrated grab handles with coat hooks
that nobody uses. There’s no seat back table unfortunately which would have been handy because,
despite there being ample leg room as you can see here
there is no seat back pouch either so really there’s nowhere to put your stuff. The seat itself
had an antimacassar displaying the number, that was quite useful and yeh, all-in-all was reasonably comfortable.
There’s a drop down arm rest here above the seatbelt sockets
and down the side of the seat well, a few bits of grime but i’ve seen worse tbh.
There’s a recline lever here but that didn’t really seem to do anything to my seat unfortunately.
Twin usb power is provided and was working fine.
Note the floor is not carpeted but that’s ok isn't it, much easier to clean I suspect. Above
the seats were individual air vents and reading lights. The vents didn’t really vent anything
the main source of the icy blasts coming from this vent here blowing onto and down the window.
It was still freezing cold on the coach, so much so that there was this like tattoo-covered guy (who I reckon was probably
the hardest bloke on the coach). He had to go down to the driver to ask him if he could turn the heating up.
What we then experienced was heat coming from somewhere but the a/c was still belting out
freezing cold air!?! I don’t know why it’s such a problem to get these things right but there you go I suppose.
So the next thing I did was to try to ‘kick back and relax with the free WIFI’.
It did look quite promising at first this but ultimately, it wouldn’t connect so that’s yet
another unsuccessful coach WIFI experience to add to the list. And talking about relaxing, well, the
seat next to me was occupied by someone who'd obviously reserved seat number 7.
So there wasn’t a great deal of space to be had. But
thing was, most of the seats behind were completely unoccupied and he was getting off at Reading. So,
I don’t know about you but, if it was me, once I knew nobody else was getting on at Birmingham,
I’d have just moved to an empty double seat. Then we would both have had more space
and he could have looked out of the window or sat on the aisle or whatever he wanted to do.
But no, he insisted on sitting next to me all the way to Reading. I mean it's his prerogative isn't it but, I dunno, what would you have done?
Well we carried on for a bit until we hit another queue of traffic. I don’t think it was related
but the overhead signs informed us that there were reports of a cyclist on the motorway!!
You couldn't make it up really could you this
I never saw them but I did see an ambulance driving down the hard shoulder at high speed.
All I can say is, I hope nothing too serious had taken place!
Anyway, we turned off towards Oxford and then we turned off again driving this massive coach
through some like really small villages like Nuneham Courtenay and Shillingford as we headed towards Reading on the back roads I guess.
It was still an ominous 16 miles away at this point. Nice countryside though I suppose.
OK so just before Reading, I thought I’d go and check out the toilet
and (I like the sticker here btw) yeh it was OK really. It was a bit of
a squeeze but aren’t they all? Mirror here above the tiny sink,
running water is operated by this button, no soap in the onboard dispenser but the hand drier worked
and there was a handy bin just to the left here.
There was alternative liquid soap provided next to the loo
which was good to see and yeh all-in-all, I was pretty happy with the toilet.
I climbed back out and headed back to my seat. We were just coming into Reading now and
arrived almost an hour late. No problem for me, but if I were connecting
on to say a train service from the adjacent railway station, it could have been an issue that.
So yeh, we didn’t hang about here and proceeded to head towards Heathrow. Talking to the driver
during the stop, he said it’d only take about 45 minutes to get to the airport so
yeah overall that made it a total journey time of around three and a half hours. For those
heading on towards central London, you’d have another 45 minutes to an hour to go.
Now I reckon the route we took was about 126 miles so that works out at an average speed of
just 36 miles an hour. Having said that (and I’ve also mentioned this in other coach videos I've made),
if you’re not in any particular rush then, once on board, you can just kick back and relax
until you get to your destination without necessarily the bother of changing trains.
Yes, taking the train, including the underground out to Heathrow would have been quicker but
how does that stack up against price? Well, I paid £16.96 for my one way ticket which I
booked a couple of weeks in advance. National Express at the same time wanted £30.10 for their direct service
on the same route at around the same time and taking the train changing in London would have been over £50. So ultimately,
I thought it was pretty good value and to my absolute surprise, what I expected for the price
(this time around), Megabus really delivered. The coach was clean, the driver was friendly and the ride
quality was very good. Yeh I’ve gotta be honest this was a really big and pleasant surprise!
And also, the arrival into Heathrow by road is much more exciting than on the train isn’t it.
Seeing the aircraft landing and the advertising displays around Heathrow
I think is genuinely exciting and you get that sense of anticipation don't you just before a flight.
Yes the coach was late but that wasn’t really the fault of the coach
company or the driver and you know, trains can be late too can’t they? At the end of the day,
both modes of transport have their advantages and disadvantages and you need to weigh those
up inconjunction with your onward travel plans (if you have any) before making a decision.
Anyway, we arrived into London Heathrow Central Bus Station at 16:48 (48 minutes behind schedule).
I collected my bag from the side of the coach and headed for the entrance to Terminal 2.
Before I made my way inside, I took a minute or two to just sum up my thoughts really
okay guys just got here at heathrow central bus station on the megabus which is the one behind
me there all the way down from birmingham what did you think let me know it's the first time
i've ever done it by coach would i do it again not quite sure um the train is a bit quicker i think
i mean we've been on the road about three and a half hours it's a little bit late that's not
megabus's fault necessarily the traffic was quite busy um but yeah it was interesting
and not a bad price either as i said let me know what you think in the comments below
thank you very much for watching and join me on another adventure soon as always guys cheers
for now!