There was bus route 201 in Sheffield. It began as a long rambling service designed to serve developing industrial parks. Over the years it has been cut back and now serves the huge former Newton Chambers site at Chapeltown (Sheffield) ...
... and the Wentorth Business Park near Tankersley.
Here you will find the usual sorts of stuff; offices with plenty of car parking and plenty of cars plus warehouses employing a lot less people than their size might imply - not good bus territory at all.
Until September 2017, the 201 also served some of the hinterland housing in the Stocksbridge area. (click on the map to enlarge it)
Basically it runs along the A616.
From September 2017, the clever people at Stagecoach combined the 201 with the service 57 from Stocksbridge into Sheffield. This made for more efficient operation (cheaper) whereby the 201s, like Cinderella's pumpkin became 57s (and vice versa) using the existing 57 timings to replace much of its former Stocksbridge excursion.
Stocksbridgers could join the outbound 57 at Deepcar, Stubbin or Garden Village, sit tight at the Unsliven Bridge terminus (Pretty, isn't it?) ...
... for a leisurely few minutes ...
... and then whizz off on the same bus to points east.
Needless to say, the journey planners know nothing of this and often make you walk to Unsliven Bridge (blue line) to catch your 201.
There are some really, really potty answers as well ...
... three buses plus 24 minutes walking. It is perhaps not at all surprising that loadings on the 201 have never been great.
We know that the PTE does not print any information these days but it is worth looking at how they show the through timetable.
They don't! Surprise!
There is a non-leaflet for the 201 (note that this route does NOT serve Tankersley) ...
... and there are a different set of pages containing the 57.
Only one source currently shows the through service, but when fbb mentions it he gets stick from some negative anonymice for promoting a product that does the job properly.
But there is better news.
On the Stagecoach leaflet for the upcoming Supertram Link "improvements" (i.e. reductions to meet up with the chopped frequency on the Supertram) we find this ...
TaDa!
Yep - at last, you have the through buses shown on the same table. Perhaps now folk might be able to find out about the 57/201 and, horror of horrors, they might use it!
There is an even more dramatic feature of this publication which fbb will reveal tomorrow.
Meanwhile, in response to a comment on yesterday's blog ...
... fbb is off to observe the bus industry from the top of this edifice. Sadly, it still looks its strange self from up there, just like being on terra firma.
Next surprise and no surprise blog : Thursday 11th January
You are so easy to wind up
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