So Who is to Blame? [1]

An Appropriate Pre-Election Question

No 1 son took his family for a few days' break at the Youth Hostel in Edale. It gave him a chance to show the next generation some of the well-remembered haunts of his own childhood. 

fbb lived on Crimicar Lane, on the yellow road directly above the "l" of Fulwood Hall. Dave took the lads to Stanage Pole ...

... an ancient boundary marker on he western edge of the City. Some "city" eh? With not a house to be seen in the 360 degree view from the pole! They also visited Forge Dam (the little pond above "Whitely Wood") where a huge slide was always a big attraction.

The video is from YouTube and has no direct connection with fbb's family! But you get the idea.

South of Fulwood lies the picturesque Mayfield Valley ...

... and on the brow of the hill, behind the trees, is the equally picturesque hamlet of Ringinglow.

The building on the left is the octagonal "Round Gouse" (Sheffielders were never very good at Geometry!) which was a toll house on the ancient turnpike between Sheffield and Castleton, dating from 1778. Straight ahead is the Norfolk Arms (c. 1840) possibly supplanting and earlier precursor of the Little Chef, providing essential refueling on the chilly moorland journey.
For the record, the stream that courses the length of the Valley is the Porter Brook, apparently an appropriate name for a train leasing company!

fbb always preferred to old livery.

But; back to the matter in hand. 

Bus services to the tiny village have featured in various fbb blogs in the past. Why? Many reasons; it is an intriguing route to part of the city way out in the country; it has a chequered history ...

... with limited services on Monday to Saturday now being provided, under a PTE tender, by T M Travel.

From now until September you can even get there on a Sunday using First Bus 240/241, part of their seasonal Derbyshire network.

As an even better bonus, you can even get back to the city.

One of the mysteries of Traveline that is immediately apparent is that an on-line enquirer is offered a pointless 6 minute walk to Moorhead to find the "Sheffield" stop. Crazily it takes 9 minutes to walk back. By no stretch of anyone's imagination is Moorhead the centre of Sheffield.

But; at least you can get back!

Which, sadly, is not possible on any day and at any time from Monday to Saturday. Well, of course, you can get back; but not on a through bus. Traveline insists that you must change buses.

Daft; or just plain daft.

But let's get there first.

So that's the Traveline headline for getting there; again with unexplained and unhelpful oddities. It is simple at 1431 ...

... using First's occasional 84; whereas at 1733 ...

... we are obliged to walk for 6 minutes to a stop which is near Moorhead.

City Centre stops are at the top of this aerial view; Charles Street is at "A" and the bus station (departure point of route 4) is centre right. The Ringinglow Bus does call at the centre on its way from the bus station so there is even less reason to force the enquirer to walk to Charles Street.

We will look at (not) coming back tomorrow. In the meantime a repeat of this blog's headline is in order.

So who is to blame?

But, just before the myriads of Traveline enthusiasts take finger to keyboard to explain how helpful these anomalies are (???), could fbb suggest that they wait until after tomorrow's blog.

 Next bus blog : Friday 17th April