Artist paints the town red for Birmingham’s iconic bus route

IT WAS the inspiration behind The Woodbines 1999 song, it was made into a dance by a Birmingham-based Scottish country dance group and it features in Jonathan Coe’s bestselling book. And now Europe’s longest bus route has been celebrated with oil paints and a specially-brewed ale.

West Bromwich artist, Chris Holloway has created a set of four oil paintings each featuring a number 11 bus in various locations along the Outer Circle route.

The self-taught artist, who took “a bash” at painting after being made redundant, said: “As a boy I was a trainspotter – I went all over the country looking at trains, locomotives and railway stations and I traveled on the no.11 four times a day when I was at school, I was interested in all of it and that’s always stayed with me.”

The artworks – which have been painted from photographs – depict three different time periods in honour of the bus route’s 90th anniversary which is being celebrated this year.

One depicts a scene from 1978, another from 2002 and two of the works have been painted from photographs Chris took himself as he traveled the entirety of the route earlier this year.

The route has also recently reclaimed its title of Europe’s longest route from Coventry’s 360, clocking in at 27 miles in total and taking over two and a half hours to complete.

“I hope the paintings will show the history of the route and the different nature of the locations it travels through, on the one hand it goes through the leafy suburbs of Harborne and on the other hand it’s going past Winson Green prison and through different suburbs of Birmingham, each with special characteristics of their own,” Chris said.

As one of the many locations the bus passes, National Express invited Chris along to their Acocks Green garage to show off the paintings to the hundreds of staff who drive and look after the number 11 buses.

Chris added: “It goes through so many interesting places it goes past many schools, colleges and universities, and it goes past Cadbury world and shopping centres, and 66 pubs, some of which are even selling a number 11 brew.”

Created in celebration of the Outer Circle route’s 90th anniversary, No.11 brew was produced by Birmingham’s Two Towers brewery and is being sold in 11 of Birmingham’s best pubs.

National Express managing director Peter Coates said: “Let us be your designated driver for the number 11 Ale Trail. The number 11 bus runs every 8 minutes and all the stops by the 11 Ale Trail pubs have real-time information screens so you don’t waste valuable drinking time waiting for a bus.”

As well as supporting the route with the Ale Trail, interested locals can now purchase Chris’ number 11 artworks, prints and notecards in celebration of their favourite bus route.