Civic Pride - Find Your Ride
This man was one of the big stars of public transport in Sheffield, back in the day. He became Alderman Sidney Dyson and was, for many years, the Chairman of Sheffield Transport Committee and this the politician that had the oversight of Sheffield's well respected bus operation.
One Saturday, he had been on an evening out on Civic Duties when he made his way to the stop for the last bus to Manor Estate where he lived. The bus was very busy and there was insufficient room for all who wanted to travel. After a brief chat with the crew (who knew him to chat to, of course), the big boss (he was a big man) walked home, leaving an extra space for another needy passenger.
But in 1956 he was Chairman to 14 members of the Committee.
With true civic pride, they are all billed as Mister Councillor! They appear in a list on a small brochure celebrating the opening of Sheffield's prestigious Central Bus Station.
In the early days, Pond Street was a rather tatty thoroughfare just off the city centre, bordered by light industrial premises and dilapidated three and four storey terraced houses, much of it desperate for demolition. Buses lined up along the street ...
... with no facilities. Other services used stands at the two stations, mainly Sheffield Midland.
In the mid 1930s, plans were made for a central bus station on land cleared along Pond Street, but the conflict brought a stop to any serious development. What did arrive was a grid of parallel roadways with home-built shelters and, again, no facilities.
The original Pond Street stops forked away to the right ahead of the buses in the middle distance of the picture above. A rare (but fuzzy) colour picture is available on line.
What arrived in 1956 was astounding.
Stands A an B were covered with an arched roof and equipped with railings to assist with queues ensuring that there was plenty of circulation area even if all the stands were packed, which they often were.
fbb suspects that the people in the picture above were employees of the Transport Department or the Council. It was never as quiet as this, even early on a Sunday, when in operation. In the view below of platform C the uncharacteristic emptiness is somewhat weird.
The stand labels were made of varnished hardwood frames with glass on which the route descriptions were hand painted in the Department workshops - on the back of the glass using "reversed" lettering. The routes above are service 15 which no longer operates and service 21 which is partly covered by today's X54.
Sheffield United Tours (coach trips, holidays and express services) joined in the development by commissioning a matching set of offices and booking shop at the back of the site.
There were underground toilets on stands A and B and the original grottibogs from the previous tatty and "temporary" stands. You could get refreshments and, near the entrance was what was described as an "umbrella" newsagents.
The enquiry office (above the umbrella - above) was extended, and in fbb's day, there was a cosmetic refurbishment with and escalator link to the city centre (now gone) and new brighter signage.
The souvenir booklet gives some interesting statistics from 1956.
33 services leave from the bus station in 1956
14,000 departures every week
5.00pm to 6.00pm : 240 buses depart carrying 12,000 passengers
Bank holiday : 240 buses leave carrying up to 14,000 passengers
Progressively more buses were moved in from various peripheral "mini" bus stations that circled the city centre.
The present bus station was developed in the 1990s ...
... but privatisation and deregulation had already begun to create the death knell of this busy interchange. More routes were diverted to serve city centre streets and a big chunk of stands built at right angles to the traditional roadways ...
... (aboce, centre left) were closed and sold off.
The new bus station entrance area was intended to combine a large enquiry office, national express ticket office, retail outlets and refreshment stands.
Very little of this opulence now remains "live".
Thanks to the crackpot policy of the PTE and a lack of alternatives from the bus operators, printed information is now non existent and the enquiry desk is staffed by contractors who do their best but complain that even they are not kept informed about bus service changes. "Mystery shopper" visits by fbb's correspondents confirm that the service varies from poor to non existent.
And the bus operators are blaming a decline of passengers on everything EXCEPT themselves!
There is a second enquiry office on Arundel Gate near most of the city bus services ...
... which gets slightly better reviews by some users - but you will not find much in the way of printed material, except, possibly the PTE produced network maps. But then everyone will tell you ...
It Is All On Line
Really?
The new and courageous X57 from Sheffield to Manchester has been running for less that a month. It has had one timetable change, mainly tweaks Monday to Saturday but a major re-write on Sundays.
But a correspondent contacted fbb to report that the late evening journeys running on Fridays and Saturdays had been withdrawn, possibly after operation on 31st October, or so he thought.
No mention, of course, in the Travel South Yorkshire timetable "library" ...
... and nothing in the updates list - the changes are those shown in the above extract - no mention of the withdrawal of the late journeys ...
... and nothing on the "Disruptions" page.
Understood? Withdrawing at short notice (at NO notice?) is not a disruption - is it?
Nothing, yet from Derbyshire.
For a while, fbb thought his informant must have got it wrong; but then he was guided to an entry on Hulley's Facebook page.
And that's it - just one sentence above a copy of the timetable still showing the abandoned journeys. And how might you find it. Presumably Hulley's expect every potential customer to search Facebook every time they might think of travelling, hoping (a vain hop) that thet might, almost be accident, hit upon each significant change to their "excellent service".
The announcement appeared on Monday 9th November after two weekends of non-operation.
Appalling mis-management, appalling customer service and, well ...
Beyond belief!
Yep, it really IS and adventure!
A hearty thanks to correspondent Peter for finding the 1956 booklet in his loft and gifting it to fbb. He also found another booklet which will from the subject of a future blog.
Next Variety blog : Saturday 14th November
Not sure where you've got it from that the late journeys didn't run? The first weekend it operated with Solo 9 and the following weekend it ran with Solo 18.
ReplyDeleteThe timetables showing the journeys are crossed out and quite clearly noted in the key. This version was also submitted to the website host so the delay can hardly be blamed on Hulleys.
There's been no mismanagement or appalling service on Hulleys behalf.