Regular readers will know that fbb is not enamoured of South Yorkshire PTE's (Travel South Yorkshire's) maps. The full colour fold-out versions are generally very good indeed, but those that accompany non-printed timetables are, on a good day, useless.
We have been attempting to work out where the buses go and where they stop in the village of Barnby Dun, north east of Doncaster.
But there is an even bigger problem.
Here is Hatfield Lane Barnby Dun with a from-Doncaster bus stop on the right ...
... but covered by a PTE cloaking device to bamboozle passengers. It is there on Google's map ...
... as is one just round the corner in Pine Hall Road.
And to complete the picture, here is an enlargement of the relevant (the irrelevant?) bit of the TSY map.
Hatfield Lane runs left to right, Pine Hall Road top to bottom. Presumably TSY thinks the buses divert via people's back gardens, even their living rooms! No, that's unfair. The loop off Hatfield Lane is Parkhill Road and the loops off Pine Hall Road are Meadow Field Road and Pinefield Avenue, none of which have buses along them.
The network map is simpler, thankfully.
But nowhere in any timetable or on any map does anyone tell the poor long-suffering travelling public which buses go that way.
fbb THINKS he has worked it out. If you click on a stop on Google maos, it shows which buses Mr Google thinks will stop there. If the map is right, service 84 and 84a are the ones you need.
From this and an extensive perusal of every bit of bus information available, including the all-stops timetable on Traveline ...
... there is some evidence that 84a buses and some 84s go that way.
fbb's tentative conclusions therefore are thus:
The hourly "shorts" numbered 84 (RED) turn in a one way loop via the High Street to terminate at the Spar Shop S (YELLOW STOPS) before returning to Doncaster via Pine Hall Road. The 84a (BLUE) runs out and back via Pine Hall Road calling at Spar TO Doncaster and a Top Road (PINK STOPS) on journeys from Doncaster.
Although the Top Road stops are best defined as the "centre" of Barnby Dun, the timetable points are well away from the shops on the edge of the village, as we saw yesterday.
The 84b (GREEN) follows a different route in Barnby Dun via Station Road (there is no station) and Stainforth Road. Outward it shares the Top Road stop with the 84a, but inbound it stops opposite the Post Office P but, again, its time point is almost out in open country and remote from the shops.
So that's it - all sorted. Possibly?
Oh no it isn't!
In the evening and Sundays a quite different 84 runs through the village and off to points north-east. fbb has called it 84E (ORANGE) although it claims to be an ordinary 84.
And there's more! there are a few 84a buses (BLUE, remember?) and a few short workings on the 84 (RED) which might well loop as they do at other times. Do they ALL go via Pine Hall Road and not as fbb has shown in orange?
Do any Sunday buses go via Pine Hall Road?
Does anybody know?
Does anybody care?
Is there perhaps a reason that buses in places like Barnby Dun are losing passengers?
An 84 leaflet is one of the items that fbb has been "helping" First Bus with. Sadly, time and space considerations meant that the best your intrepid bus researcher could do was to reproduce the TSY (and First's on-line offering) timetable layout. A better, clearer, leaflet is surely an important project for the future?
Next electric blog (plus) : Thursday 17th August
I too am confused by the proposed change to Stagecoach Devons route H. - does it still go via Exeters Royal Devon and Exeter (R,D &E) Hospital?
ReplyDeleteYes it just doesn't go beyond st David's now but the 5 will divert around west garth road to cover but not as frequently.
ReplyDelete