Johnson’s Coach Travel

Johnson’s Coach Travel was founded in 1909 and incorporated as a limited company in 1932. It has always been a family owned and operated business and is based at purpose built facilities at Henley-in-Arden in Warwickshire. The company specialises in the provision of both British and Continental holidays together with a programme of day tours. In recent years the Company has diversified into bus operation and has been successful in winning a number of contracts mainly with Warwickshire County Council. As a bus operator Johnson’s Coaches has served Redditch for a number of years with a Thursdays only shoppers service from Henley in Arden and Stratford. This service was for a number of years regularly run using a double deck  bus which was filling in between school trips. In recent years the service is now more normally run using one of the Company’s many Bova coaches.   

 On Tuesday 27th May 2003 Johnson’s took over the operation of the bus services 178/9 from Redditch to Birmingham via Wythall a route that Pete’s Travel had mainly operated since October 2001. The emergency Worcestershire County Council contract awarded to Johnson’s does not call for low floor bus though the Company has been using a mixture of low floor and non-low floor vehicles. The company went onto having a more long term contract for the 178 with Worcestershire County Council until October 2011. When Worcestershire County Council put the service out to tender it was registered commercially by Solihull Travel as X50. This lasted only a few weeks when Solihull Travel stopped operating as they did not have any vehicle insurance. Johnson's resumed operation of the service (still numbered X50). Following retendering they retained the service with a longer term contract with  Worcestershire County Council. On Sunday 22nd April 2012 the company took over the Sunday and Bank Holiday service 248 from Redditch to Evesham from First Midland Red.

 In December 2014 the Company expanded by announcing  the purchase of the coaching part of the Whittle Coach and Bus business that had been up for sale by its owners East Yorkshire Traction. The Whittle business had been losing money for some time with the bus operation being he least profitable part of the business. The bus operation finished on Saturday 3rd January 2015 with Worcestershire and Shropshire County Councils having to find alternative operators for their tendered bus routes that were run by Whittles. The National Express diagrams were taken back by National Express just leaving the coach operation to be sold to Johnsons. Click for the official announcement

On Thursday 28th April 2022 it was announced that the whole of the Excel bus operation would be sold to Diamond bus's parent company Rotala PLC for £936K.The deal included all commercial and tendered bus services  run by Johnson's plus 18 of the current bus fleet and around 50 staff.  Diamond Bus would take the operation over from 29th May 2022 when the Excel operation would move to their Redditch depot and be integrated into the Diamond operation and brand.

Saturday 7th May 2022 saw the end of local bus operation in Redditch by Johnson's. Due to staff shortages this was three weeks earlier than planned. Services 150, 149 and 64 transferred to Diamond Bus. Service 150 was cut back to terminate in Kings Heath. The Redditch to Bromsgrove College contract s R1 and B1  also moved to Diamond Bus together with the S83 school service to Bromsgrove High School.  The remainder of the bus business and 18 vehicles were transferred to Diamond Bus on Sunday 29th May 2022. Diamond Bus actually started operating the Johnson services on Monday 30th May as Johnson's operated the Sundays only X50 from Chipping Norton to Birmingham for one last time on Sunday 29th May using bus vehicles that were not transferring to Diamond bus as shown above of YJ68OVV at Chipping Camden whilst working 0910 departure to Birmingham on 29th May 2022 bring down the end of 22 years of local bus operation.