What A Mess? Or Maybe Not?

Of course it is necessary to review, revise and reroute buses to allow them to serve their customers more effectively. So imagine the weirdness of a busy bus route that has been unchanged for 90 years.

In 1936 you could get a red London bus numbered 24 all the way from Hampstead Heath to Pimlico.

Here is an arbitrary old bus doing it!

And a routemaster.

And a DMS

Then there was the first "contractor", then allowed to use its own livery.

There were different contractors, but now obliged to use "mainly" red like Arriva ...

... or Metroline.

Now, contractors have to remain anonymous, all in adulation of King Khan! (and/or a politician called Boris - remember him?)

Whether a city's buses should be fully controlled by politicians is still open for debate? 

What will happen to the Bee Network when Andy becomes Prime Minister Sir Murray Burnham (his middle name, slightly more presidential than Andy!)?

Now there's a question!

Will Andy's successor be so up front with the people of Manchester?

Or will the new Mayor be ordering a whole new batch of stickers?

But wasn't this blog about longstanding routes 75 and 76 in Sheffield?

True, but, as they say in so many conversations in TV 'Soaps', "It's complicated."

Basically it is all wound up with the untimely doomed Sheffield Bus Partnership.

This 'improved' bus services in the city by reducing timetables and altering routes. Shiregreen was a case in point. Since the 1930s buses to the burgeoning estate on the north of the city ...

... were numbered 150 and 151 and, in fbb's student days, were served by some of the oldest buses in the fleet..

These circulars were later renumbered 47 and 48 and became subject to short-lived competition post 1986.

Then, in a mystery move, largely unexplained by First, loads of serviced were rejigged and our friends 75 and 76 were cut back to Firth Park then sent off round the Shiregreen loop as shown in BROWN on this very fuzzy badly presented nap.

It s the best a weary fbb could find!

The GREEN line is a competitive service 88 from Stagecoach which was left in place by the 'Partnership' after a period of intense self-promotion.

But at least the 75/76 followed a simple to understand loop, both ways round, just like the 47/48 and the 150/151 before.

But not any more as we shall see tomorrow.

PLEASE NOTE

fbb is improving health-wise but still feeling feak and weeble, bad enough to retire to bed after any exercise - like writing a blog or eating a sandwich!

  Next 75 and 76 blog : Sat 23rd May