On Trains & Buses

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Going from One British Nation to Another

Reading time: 8 minutes.

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Brought together here are bus services that cross boundaries between different home nations within the United Kingdom, helping you travel between England and Wales or England and Scotland. These routes demonstrate that administrative borders need not be barriers to public transport connectivity.

The collection began with England-Wales crossings but has expanded to include England-Scotland routes as well, and continues to grow as additional cross-border services come to attention. Many routes provide access to quality walking areas, from the Southern Uplands to hill country around towns like Hawick, Selkirk and Galashiels.

Several services connect with rail stations, enabling longer journeys across borders, and some routes shadow railway lines whilst serving intermediate communities that trains do bypass. These cross-border connections are particularly valuable where rail links are limited or non-existent, with some routes taking several hours but providing the only public transport option for reaching remote communities.

Between England & Wales

1: Wrexham - Chester

This service goes to show that Arriva does expand in some places with Sunday frequency having become half-hourly for much of the day rather than hourly all day as it was before. The story gets even better on weekdays with up to five services an hour. Trains are hourly if you are lucky, so I suppose that’s what helps a bus service to succeed like this one seems to have done.

1 Timetable

2: Wrexham - Ruabon - Plas Madoc - Acrefair - Chirk - Gobowen - Oswestry

2A: Wrexham - Ruabon - Plas Madoc - Acrefair - Chirk - Weston Rhyn - Oswestry

2C: Wrexham - Ruabon - Cefn Mawr

It is odd that Oswestry now enjoys seven day connectivity with Wrexham and only six days of service with Shrewsbury. On Sundays, the service frequency is hourly and the time of operation extends from morning until mid/late afternoon. Services 2 and 2A combine to provide a half-hourly service frequency for much of the day on other days of the weekend. Cefn Mawr gets half-hourly service on route 2C with all weekday operations covering the day from early until late on all routes.

2/2A/2C Timetable

4/4A/4B/4S/X4: Chester - Broughton - Buckley - Mold

Between all of these bus services, there should be plenty of ways to get between Chester and Mold every day of the week. Of the lot, only service 4S operates on Sundays but still has a respectable frequency and excellent coverage of the day. The others are Monday to Saturday operations that make getting between the two termini and anywhere along the route a facile operation.

4/4A/4B/4S Timetable

11/11A/11C/11F/11M/11X: Rhyl - Prestatyn - Flint - Holywell - Queensferry - Chester

It is my understanding that it once was possible to travel from Chester to Rhyl using a single bus journey, even if that may be a case of my memory fooling me. Nevertheless, a change of bus is now needed to do the same journey. With the total journey length being more than two hours, travelling by train is faster, but recent experiences of overcrowding on Sundays are such that going slower and more comfortably has its appeal.

Coverage of the day extends from early morning to late at night and service frequencies are respectable too, extending from half-hourly to two-hourly depending on the time of day and the day of the week. That these are seven-day services is another asset in an age when Sunday bus services are much curtailed.

11/11A/11C/11F/11M/11X Timetable

41: Kington - Presteigne - Knighton - Knucklas - Lloyney

This service just about edges over the English border into Herefordshire and I almost thought of it as wholly Welsh. Realising my error, the Monday to Saturday service finds its way onto this list instead. Though a lot more standardised than it once was, the timetable still needs some careful study because stops can differ between journeys. Still, its coverage of the day from early morning to early evening makes it invaluable in a part of Wales that is less well served by public transport.

41Timetable

66: Hereford - Monmouth

It seems that Monmouth is well-connected with other places by bus and that is just as well since it is near an attractive part of the Welsh River Wye. Chepstow and Abergavenny are other places with useful rail connections, but Hereford is just as good since this service originates from there. Its Monday to Saturday operations offer a near two-hourly timetable, while coverage of the day reaches from early morning until early evening. There are Sunday services too, though they finish in the middle of the afternoon, meaning that care is needed so as not to get stranded.

66 Timetable

409: Aberystwyth - Newtown - Welshpool - Shrewsbury - Birmingham - London

Being a National Express coach service, this is a limited-stop affair though it does a useful thing in passing through the heart of Wales. The one journey each way every day connects lesser-known places like Ponterwyd, Llangurig and Llanidloes with larger spots across Wales and England. Anything that has a use in getting outside visitors to and from a quieter part of Wales has to be good.

409 Timetable

461: Llandrindod Wells - New Radnor - Kington - Hereford

Kington is another of those border towns on the course of Offa’s Dyke Path National Trail so here’s a way to get there by public transport. It’s a Monday to Saturday service like many in Herefordshire and Powys, but there’s a largely hourly frequency for much of the day too.

461 Timetable

738/740: Knighton - Leintwardine - Ludlow

It is Knighton’s position on Offa’s Dyke Path National Trail that makes the place of interest but Ludlow’s not an unpretty spot either, and it is one of Simon Jenkins’ best views in England too. This bus service is a Monday to Saturday operation with four journeys in each direction. Looking at the timetable may lure you into thinking there are more than these because of several deviations that are Thursday only for some reason. On all days of the week, the service timings are useful too and compare well with the eccentricities of those on the Heart of Wales line.

738/740 Timetable

X44: Hereford - Kingstone - Hay-on-Wye - Brecon

On this route, there are five journeys in each direction on Sundays (some of these are partial) and public holidays and service frequency is more than double that on other days. All make both Brecon and Hay-on-Wye vastly more reachable by public transport than they otherwise might be. In fact, basing oneself in Hereford might be more viable than it might have seemed.

X44 Timetable

X76: Oswestry - Welshpool - Newtown

In some ways, it is striking to see that Oswestry is better connected with Wales than it is with Shrewsbury. After all, there is a Sunday service on this route (around seven journeys in each direction, some of which only serving part of the route), unlike others that serve Shropshire. On other days, the service frequency is mainly hourly with coverage of the day from early morning until mid-evening. All of this makes this route quite useful, particularly when planning hill-walking excursions in its vicinity.

X76 Timetable

X77: Shrewsbury - Middletown - Welshpool - Newtown

This Monday to Saturday service offers a handy if not so fast way to get from Shrewsbury into Wales, though you need to change buses to reach the heart of the principality. Usefully, the service frequency largely is two-hourly with much of the day between 07:00 and 18:00 being covered.

X77 Timetable

Between England & Scotland

60: Galashiels - Melrose - Duns - Berwick-upon-Tweed - Tweedmouth

There has been only one occasion when I made use of this service and that was to return from Galashiels to Berwick-upon-Tweed after a weekend spent in the Scottish Borders that had me going around via the East Coast Mainline by rail. The quietness of the areas that it serves was marked compared to the relatively busier places that the equivalent 67 passes on its route. Then, the operator was First, but the bus was smart and clean and wasn’t unused either. Nowadays, it is in the hands of Borders Buses and the frequency is largely two-hourly on all days of the week and seems to shadow service 67 to provide cross-border bus connections nearly on an hourly basis.

60 Timetable

67: Berwick-upon-Tweed - Norham - Coldstream - Kelso - St Boswells - Galashiels

This service featured on one of my cross-border excursions from England to Scotland when Munros of Jedburgh still operated the route. These days, it’s Borders Buses that run it and the frequency is as good as two-hourly on all days of the week too. On my most recent use of the service in July 2011, it was better used in Scotland than in England and there was a sharp drop-off before crossing over into Northumberland on the return journey too. That observation says a lot about Scottish and English public transport usage. That there are connections with services to Edinburgh at St Boswell’s probably helps too.

67 Timetable

X95: Carlisle - Langholm - Hawick - Selkirk - Galashiels - Edinburgh

There was a time when there was a rail link between Carlisle and Edinburgh that passed right through the Scottish Borders, but that is now no more, though there has been a restoration between Edinburgh and Galashiels. It is when you see three and a half hour journey times you realise the usefulness of trains for getting to places such as Langholm, Hawick, Selkirk and Galashiels. That hill country surrounds each of these is what gets the service included here. So many pass the Southern Uplands en route to elsewhere and that’s a pity so any route that brings you near the heart of such untended action only can be a good thing.

X95 Timetable