It appears that there are quite a number of new routes about to start. The ‘Leaving from’ drop down on the Megabus bookings website has new locations. Here are some of them together with the ‘Travelling to’ possibilites:-
Bath – London
Cambridge – Oxford
Havant – London
Salisbury – London
Wembley – Barnsley
Derby – London
Honiton – London
Loughborough – London
Manchester – South Coast
Newquay – Exeter, Plymouth, London
Nottingham – London
Poole – London
Weymouth – London
These routes can’t be booked yet so how they will operate is not clear. For example leaving from Poole only offers London as a destination. Leaving from Bournemouth (it’s joined on to Poole) offers London, Birmingham, Manchester etc. so this latter route appears to be an extended journey for the existing South Coast to Birmingham bus. Similarly Havant (right alongside Portsmouth) only offers London and not all the other destinations possible from Portsmouth.
I guess there may be some errors on the website. From Wembley to only one destination, Barnsley, looks very odd. Ah, I’ve just noticed that it’s a special for the FA Cup semi-final so maybe the above list is accurate.
I guess some destinations relate to the introduction of Megatrain fares on Stagecoach’s new East Midlands Trains franchise, such as London to Loughborough, Derby and Nottingham. But other routes look like Megabus, and I look forward to London to Newquay!
Dominic
Hi Malc
Weymouth, Poole, Honiton, Salisbury, Havant are all MegaTRAIN services.
It appears that the Southcoast to Brum service is being extended to Manchester – the 1st day I could get is 28th April. The timings are revised between Winchester and Birmingham (arr 1030) aswell.
A new service is to be started from Newquay (operated by Exeter?)
However – if this doesn’t happen, please do not shoot this messenger
The Oxford – Cambridge service has been around for a while. Like the Oxford – London service passengers don’t actually travel on a coach in megabus livery (instead it’s the X5 to Cambridge and Oxford Tube to London) which can catch some people out.
I think some of those can be covered by Megatrain.
Although the Birmingham – Manchester, Manchester – Liverpool buses route could be quite interesting! Sure they could get quite busy if the timings are right.