Thursday 20th October 1927
Sheffield Tramways and Motors (later Sheffield Transport Department) acquired the business of Hancocks and included in the package was their bus route between the city and Buxton. It was numbered 84, with short workings to Tidesell showing 83.
Monday 3rd October 1928
The route became joint with the North Western Road Car Company. In 1934 journeys were diverted to serve the village of Great Hucklow. Here is a timetable from 1952 (click on the tt to enlarge).
Friday 27th March 1959
The Sheffield terminus was moved to the embryo Pond Street Bus Station ...
Wednesday 31st December 1969
This was the last day of operation by Sheffield, the route being wholly North Western from that date. Sheffield's Joint Omnibus Committee (JOC) was being "wound up" ("wound down"?). The JOC was a very clever cunning plan to ensure that Sheffield Corporation kept control of buses run by the railway companies.
City routes were defined as Category A, wholly owned and operated by the city. Category B was for outer suburban routes (Dore, High Green, Beighton etc) which were jointly owned and operated by City and the Railway companies. Half the vehicles belonged to the railways; revenue and costs we split 50/50. Longer distance routes (Buxton, Gainsborough, Bradford) where wholly railway owned and designated Category C.
Sheffield Transport took control of the railways' share of the B routes and the C routes were disposed of to the appropriate geographical bits of the of the state owned bus companies.
Hence North Western got the 84.
January 1st 1972
Most of North Western was sold to SELNEC (later Greater Manchester) PTE and rebranded as SELNEC Cheshire.
Most of the rest was tagged onto Crosville (the original, operating throughout the north west and north Wales). But Buxton and Matlock depots were handed to Trent.
Things now get confusing, so, if fbb has got the sequence wrong, please forgive and correct!
Recent (?) times
Trent renumbered the route 208 and thus it was in 1985.
For a time the 208 had run through to Stoke, but Potteries Motor Traction had started their own alternative link numbered X23.
This used main roads (not the back lanes of the 84/208) and then via Leek to Hanley.
After a spell as X23, the route then became X18 ...
... in which guise it passed to First Bus ...
... and soon fizzled out completely.
Meanwhile the former 208 found its way, under a Derbyshire tender ...
... into the hands of T M Travel, later owned by Trent!
under the protective umbrella of Derbyshire's contribution, the route has been remarkably stable. Compare departures above in 2010 ...
0925 1125 1325 1555 1730
... with 1985 ...
1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 1930
... and even with 1952.
0925 1125 1325 1525 1735 1955
And now a confession from fbb. In all his years living in Sheffield (1963 to 1984) he never rode on the 84/208; he never went by bus to Buxton. It would have been an ace ride on T M Travel double deck.
Tomorrow we look at what is happening to the 65 from Monday.
Next right image blog : Thursday 23rd March
The service history details have a bit missing
ReplyDeleteAt de-regulation the 208 went and was replaced by the commercial x65 operated by Whites of Calver and the x66 operated by East Midland. Via various manifestations this has then become the 65.
...and when the service went through to Hanley, it ws 28 for a while before becoming 208.
ReplyDeleteThe 'clever cunning plan' comment on the JOC over-simplifies things rather. Geoff Kerr's excellent book on Yorkshire JOCs says much more-he sums it up as "the outcome was that Sheffield corporation surrenderd aprt of its busnetwork in return for a scheme which protected the interests of all three aprties (ie LMS, LNER and STD) and averted the alternative of a bus war between the Corporation and the railways."