Zak's Buses - Diamond West Midlands

Diamond West Midlands

In late 2012 Blue Diamond, Black Diamond and Signature became Diamond West Midlands and operates all services across the West Midlands.

Black Diamond
In 2008, upon takeover by Rotala, Diamond started to "localise" their operations. In the Black Country, this meant that the brand became Black Diamond with 20 new Plaxton Centros (8 of which have since moved to Wessex Bus due to service cuts.). These were new for the 401, 402, 404, 404E and 404H.

In 2009, Diamond launched 8 more Plaxton Centro buses on service 9, these using Royale Black Diamond branding. The 202 route Halesowen - Bromsgrove and the 4H Hayley Green-West Bromwich uses Royale Black Diamond buses.

Most of the routes these buses were new for have since either had new buses (404E), withdrawn (404/H) or had older stock transferred to them (401/2).

In October 2010, Diamond bus branded 10 MCV Evolution bodied MAN 14.240 for the 404 Walsall – West Bromwich service under the branding Black Country Connection, the service operates every 6-8 minutes.

These buses displaced the Black Diamond branded buses of which 2 have transferred to Wessex Bus and the rest have been cascaded to other routes, e.g. the 56.

In 2012, these buses were sold to Transit Group, New Zealand.

Blue Diamond
Blue Diamond (legally Central Connect ltd) was formed from the merger of Zak's, North Birmingham Busways and Birmingham Motor Traction. A deal was also signed in January 2008 for the completion of the purchase of Ludlows, Halesowen. Originally the operation was called Central Connect before in November 2011 being re-branded to Blue Diamond to bring it inline with other operations in the area.

Signature
On 7 June 2010, Central Connect launched the Signature brand with two Solihull routes that were taken over from National Express West Midlands, the S2 (S2/S2A/S2C) and S3 are operated with Optare Solo SR vehicles with leather seating and on-board WIFI.

On 26 July 2010, the Signature brand took over service 82 from National Express Coventry but following a more direct route between Solihull and Coventry using Mercedes-Benz Citaros and service S4 (taken over from Grosenvor) using MCV Evolution buses, again both feature leather seating and free on-board WIFI.

From 27 March 2011, the Signature brand expanded again with the addition of the 30 service (Solihull-Acocks Green) which was withdrawn by National Express West Midlands.

When Central Connect was rebranded as 'Blue Diamond' in late 2011, the Solihull Signature brand was retained.