Daventry was, until the mid 1960s a quiet market town, not quite on the road to anywhere in particular. The cross-country A45, however, did pass through on its way from Birmingham and Coventry to Northampton and points east.
Bits of the town centre are relatively unchanged!
Western Avenue ...
... provided an early by-pass to avoid the centre.
As is so often the case, the by-pass is now by-passed by Stefen Way and Leamington Way.
Daventry Station ...
... on a quiet branch line that linked Weedon, on the West Coast Main Line, with Leamington Spa, closed in 1958. The site is lost nowadays as part of the trackbed formed the A425 as it too, was diverted away from the town centre. But the station was about here:-
Apart from the occasional bit of bridge wall, as here at nearby Braunston ...
... there is little to see of the former line from ground level.
fbb's 1952 timetable shows an hourly service 11 (with extras) from Northampton.
The 1979 timetable shows a similar frequency but a concoction of bus routes with a perplexing variety of route numbers. 341, 342, 343, 344, 345 and 346 were all on offer in a typically rural hotch-potch service.
As well as journeys on the timetable above, there was a "town service" of sorts.
By year 2000 the Great Britain Bus Timetable was showing just a bus every two hours along the main road.
But both towns were growing and a Stagecoach relaunch and boost produced a tidy timetable numbered D1, D2 and D3.
Tomorrow's and Friday's blogs will examine the changes to this network from 5th November, but the revisions do not affect the Northampton to Daventry set of services.
After this weekend these will remain as an half hourly "main road" (?) service on D1 and D2 ...
... and an hourly service "round the villages" numbered D3.
A simple map explains the different routes.
Northampton is just off the map on the right.
A new fleet was introduced in 2014 ...
A new fleet was introduced in 2014 ...
... but it is what's happening with Daventry's town services that is of interest. Are they being improved or given a carefully disguised pruning?
Our Northampton correspondent Alan quails at understanding the network in detail, but fbb, brave (or foolhardy) as ever will attempt to "contrast and compare".
Now where are those tranquilisers?
Barsntaple P.S.
Comment writer FrankFrog sent a picture of a North Devon Wave bus, suggesting that it did not look toil-worn as reported by fbb.
When el chubbo was there the sun was NOT shining, so perhaps not the best viewing and photographing conditions?
Does anyone "out there" know what is happening to this fleet?
But why does it not appear on the "proper" Buses of Somerset pages within the First Bus mega-mash web site?
Nippybus PS
Picture and timetable on Buses of Somerset Facebook Page showing new service 52 replacing some of the journeys lost by the demise of Nippy.
Monday to Friday (extract)
Saturday
Thanks to an Anon for the comment on yesterday's blog.
Next Daventry blog : Thursday 2nd November
Anon here about nippy bus. Does anyone look at the first website? I know that I never have and I live in Somerset. Where I live it is Mendip Explorer land. A google search for the time table gets me what I need so why visit the website?
ReplyDeleteFrom 1986 until the early 2000s United Counties ran Coachlinks X64 Corby - Northampton - Daventry - Birmingham every 2 hours, on top of the all stops service (41 by then), so there was one bus per hour between Northampton and Daventry as a minimum.
ReplyDeleteThanks PH. I forgot the X64!
ReplyDeleteRe timetable searches, some stagecoach timetables provide this warning - "Some search engines will provide links to old timetables. Please check stagecoachbus.com to make sure this is the latest version."
ReplyDeleteOne company ... I can't remember which one ... recently announced that service updates would be 'migrating' from Facebook to Twitter but the website would be kept updated.
I choose not to be on either Facebook or Twitter so the website is my one and only call.