Change Of Plan

 fbb Gives Up!

Faced with a heavy cold, a big back tooth extraction, preparing for a short holiday, Church lunch; AND preparing for Fellowship meetings which happen immediately after the holiday; fbb has abandoned his Wuhan series. The amount of research needed was just too much.

Wuhan will return later

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Back To Our Roots? Or Routes? 

In the glorious days of Sheffield trams (that's proper clanking trams, not the modern resurrection beauties), one key route was from Sheffield Lane Top (shown erroneously as Firth Park on the above diagram) ...

... to Meadowhead.

Of course, the trams just stopped in the middle of the road! Replacement buses numbered 75 were a direct substitute for greatly missed trams.

Part of the frequency was numbered 33 but did not make it to Meadowhead. We will see why below.

For the buses a little turning circle (a k a mini bus station) was constructed off the highway but close to the tram terminus.

The terminus lasted into the First Bus era.

On the map below you can trace the 33 and 75 bus routes.

The Sheffield Lane Top terminus was by the church symbol on the map above. Buses used much of the RED A6135 with a diversion via Firth Park on the ORANGE B6088.

South of the city the 33 left the main A61 GREEN ...

.... via a squiggle and continuing via Graves Park to Hemsworth. Meanwhile the 75 buses continued, like the trams, to Meadowhead. The buses turned via a side street loop.

Briefly, the 75 was extended along the GREEN outer ring road and the YELLOW local bit to Norton.

It was all change south of the city centre on 8th October 1968! (Usual fbb unreliable memory warning). A revised 75 and a new 76 were diverted away from the A61 between city centre and Woodseats.

... via the RED Abbeydale Road and up the hill to join the historic route on the YELLOW Woodseats Road at the bottom of the map. 

The 75 ran from its historic Meadowhead terminus via a new ORANGE road .at the lower end of the map below ...

... to Bradway.

The 76 ran via Greenhill almost to Bradway, then turned back to finish at Low Edges.

In a later change, the 75 moved from Bradway to Batemoor on the opposite side of the A61.

It may be that our readers are already confused. Please try to hold on to the simple fact that, despite the changes, buses still ran from Sheffield Lane Top, cross city to the Meadowhead area.

Indeed, south of the city things are still broadly the same for the 75 and 76 since the big shake up in 1968.

Above we see the 75 in KHAKI, and the 76 in RED.

But we also see lots of variations.

So what is happening?

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Off The Track!

In the good old days of fbb's youth, loco wheels had big flanges ...

... but the centre set of wheels were flangeless! That meant the 0-6-0 chassis could get round the sharp curves and pointwork without falling off the track. Here is part of an early Triang point ...

... and a Hornby Dublo point ...

... both with far deeper rails than today's equivalent. Below a Hornby Dublo (3 rail) 0-6-0 loco also with no flanges on the centre wheels.

0-6-0 locos without centre wheel flanges but with deep flanges elsewhere will run satisfactorily on old deep rail track. But what happens with modern models with all wheels enflanged?

They can get round the sharp curves because the axles can slide a little, left to right.

But if the track is not well laid they still derail! Up and down movement causes one set of wheels to jump off the track, particularly when coping with bumps and tight curves.

Which is why fbb was having problems.

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 Next 75 and 76 blog : Thursday 21st May 

Dentist Day Blog!

"When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions."

It was Pam Ayres who hit the headlines a goodly few years ago with a poem, "I wish I'd Looked After Me Teeth". fbb shares the concept, but at 81 he has probably left it too late. Today at 1000 the old bloke will be enjoying a very expensive extraction; after which he is due at the church "Contact" Lunch.

Woohoo Wuhan!

Having failed so far to unearth detail about Wuhan's apparently excellent bus service, he is now trying to understand tour buses. They are not "open top" but they are double deck.

They are in multiple touristy loveries and have a look of a modernised Routemaster about them.

Some top deck windows are large and curve into the roof thus ensuring that there are good views looking up. And there is plenty to look up at! Some have an upwards view but others don't.

Tables are provided for families that wish to sit face to face.

The seats look far more comfy than on any open top tour bus fbb has ridden on in the UK.

They congregate near a clone of Bradford Town Hall ...

... amd the only place they appear to pass is the Yellow Crane Tower!

Hopefully you do get to see a bit more for your money! The only price fbb could find on-line was in US dollars.

That equates to approx 38 Chinese Yen which doesn't seem a good deal as you would get 19 bus rides at 2 Yen and more fun! That is if you coud find out where and when the buses go.

But there is plenty to see apart from tower blocks ...

... and very, very scary road junctions!

Four Wheels Good : Six Wheels Bad

"When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions."

fbb has already hinted at problems at the re-sited and extended Peterville Castle. There was insufficient clearance between track and castle walls causing longer coaches to either demolish bits of castle or be demolished by bigger bits of castle.

So the whole track layout at the castle end had to be rejigged and carried over a huge drop to the floor of the fbb attic!

And even then, fbb's 0-6-0 tank locos were prone to derail!

It never used to be a problem in the old bloke's teenage years.

Six wheel locos would rattle through the track at great speed without derailing. So what's the difference from then to now?

Can our eagle eyed reader spot the differences between the wheels on a 1967 0-6-0 chassis and the wheels removed from a 2010 chassis.

More tomorrow - hopefully!

"When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions."

Yesterday, the sore throat burst into a hugely annoying cold generating huge amounts of mucus and an aura of total lethargy at fbb mansions.

Sigh. Groan. Sniff. Cough. Sneeze and repeat as required!

 Next Emergency blog : Weds 20th May 

Technical Troubles Emergency blog (1)

Hamlet, King Claudius, Queen Gertrude

Readies will doubtless be familiar with Shakespeare's ,"Hamlet", notably Act 4 Scene 5. Here King Claudius utters those memorable words,

"When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions."

Most authorities explain these words as follows:

Claudius uses this metaphor when he is completely overwhelmed by a cascading wave of crises. Polonius has been murdered, Hamlet has been exiled, the public is restless, Ophelia has lost her mind, and her brother Laertes is secretly returning from France to start a rebellion. Claudius realizes that his problems are not arriving one at a time, but are crashing down on him all at once in a massive wave of misfortune.

But fbb knows different. He understands the taxt thus:-

"When technological troubles come, they come not single spies, but in battalions."

In the last year or so, fbb has been moving from laptop to tablet for composing blogs. It is easier for the old man's slightly dodgy eyes with a brighter picture and more old-man-friendly operating system.

BUT ...

Since about a week ago, the device has not been charging effectively. On Saturday night it was on charge all night and only made it to 50% then going into near terminal decline throughout yerterday.

Things had declined to 17% by lunchtime yesterday and it WAS plugged in to the charger ...

... AND, the charger was plugged into mains electric!

Aaaaargh! And even more Aaargh!.

Then there is an uncomfortable dental extraction tomorrow.

And the fbbs are off on holiday for a few days on Thursday (of which more later in the week). The hotel has dodgy WiFi in the lounge area only.

"When any troubles come, they come not single spies, but in battalions."

So it is back to the laptop with a need to re-re-organise downloaded pictures and cope with a less satisfactory screen.

Oh yes : and both the aged fbbs have been beset by minor but debilitating ailments over the weekend.

fbb will soldier on with perseverance and determination, BUT ...

Wuhan Buses And Trolleybuses

That would be lovely, but where do you start?

Thus far, fbb has found no timetables, no complete list of routes and no map, so immersing himself in the rhythm of this dynamic city is a bit of a problem! The minimalist web site that provided the above is not much help despite claiming to be a guide of Wuhan buses.

No thanks! At least not if fbb has to cope with the Chinese language.

Apparently you can pay the driver with money - now there's a novelty.

Or you can use technology including on-line payment.

So that is all we need to know?

Hmmm?

One fact does emerge, however, is that the basic bus fare in the city is just TWO Yen. A Yen is about 11p. 

So your normal city bus ride costs you a tad over two shillings in real money. Maybe there is some benefit of total state control?

fbb suspects that the full timetables information is available, but only on Chinese language web sites. 

He has had a little more success with information on double deck tour buses ...

... of which more tomorrow.

New Times for New Quay

It would be fair to say that the Par to Newquay branch line was allowed to decline to almost nothing over the years. Economies brought a reduction in the track layout which in turn brought a reduction of service.

So real trains gave way to a poor diesel service at unhelpful frequencies.

Until a few years ago, Newquay station would better have been described as Newquay platform.

The station has been given something of an upgrade, but from the May timetable change the erratic service has become hourly. There have been substantial improvements to the track layout by reinstating passing places and improving the signalling.

The trains are better too. 

But just look at the new timetable.

The summer schedule is not "clock face" due to the need to accommodate through trains from Exeter and London.

But look at the beauty of the winter schedule. There is a train from Par every hour at a fixed sixteen minutes past. fbb thinks that Newuay has never before had such a good service!

And Newquay station is getting better! It has even got a Tessile Canopy at the buffer stops end!

Internet Idiocy ...

... which does NOT look like the picture above!

Neither is there a cruise ship that looks like this ...

... or a railway station that looks like this.

This "accident" never happened ...

... what would a large sea-going cargo ship be doing on a reservoir?

But these gets fbb's vote for utter nonsense on-line.

It is just possible (but only by a huge stretch of credibility) that a passing drone could have caught this near miss at a busy level crossing. But what are the chances of this?

An alligator ambles across just as both the identical trains are passing in exactly the same place.

No alligators were harmed in this computer montage!

As well a Wuhan Tour buses we will be looking at fbb's problems with some of these.

Coming soon - hopefully?

 Next Emergency blog : Tuesday 19th May