History
Service 50 was introduced by Birmingham City Transport between the City Centre and Maypole in October 1949 to replace a withdrawn tram route. It was supplemented by service 49 which ran as far as Moseley or Kings Heath (via Leopold Street rather than Bradford Street) and service 48 which ran Gooch Street, Clevedon Road and Salisbury Road to Moseley then Alcester Road to the Maypole. The latter was extended to the new Druids Heath estate in July 1966.
Service 49 ceased in May 1975 when West Midlands PTE linked it to service 35, the new service adopting the latter number whilst being also further extended to Pool Farm (the 35 previously ran Kings Heath to Brandwood only). In the 1980s the 48 was also withdrawn with the 35 instead covering the Gooch St / Salisbury Rd section and the 50 extended to cover Druids Heath.
Following degregulation Travel Your Bus additionally operated on the route under the heading 50Y before they were taken over by the successor to WMPTE operations, Travel West Midlands (originally West Midlands Travel, now known as National Express West Midlands), in 1994 and the route renumbered to 50.
In 1999 route 50 became the first Travel West Midlands route to be operated using low-floor double-deck buses. It celebrated its 50th anniversary later in the same year.
In January 2006 the route was criticised by local councillor Paul Tilsley for being overly popular with drug users.
People's Express operated a rival service before being taken over by Diamond Bus. Sunrise Travel started operating on the 50 running every 30+ minutes in October 2006, but withdrew the service a couple of months later. Diamond Bus introduced a commercially operated night service 50N in September 2007. This was withdrawn in April 2008.
National Express West Midlands introduced new Alexander Dennis Enviro400s to the 50 in February 2008, replacing the Dennis Trident 2/Alexander ALX400s previously used on the route.
Read more about this topic: West Midlands Bus Route 50
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