Maltby Mix-up Mutterings (1)

Maltby is a former mining village due east of Rotherham.

Post World War 1, miners were accommodated in the optimistically named "Model Village" ...

... "model" in the sense of an example to others.

The "Picture Theatre" (upper right) still stands but no longer showing pictures.

It seems to be no longer doing very much! The "Hall" on Morrell Street deals with matters of eternity, as a Funeral Director's premises, rather than present-day entertainment.

Nearby, the Roman Catholic Church seem in use ...

... whilst the church on Firth Crescent is now a block of flats with most of the former open land surrounding it being developed for sheltered housing.

But the "School" on Blyth Road has gone, sufficiently recently to leave the shadow if its "school keep clear" road markings just visible.

But there is still plenty evidence from the days when this area was a more close-knit community than it is today.

And there are Travel South Yorkshire bus stops a-plenty ...

... but a definite lack of shelters. This ill-equipped stop on Firth Crescent is shown as a "terminus" on the Travel South Yorkshire network map for Rotherham ...

... but it isn't. The X1 runs every 10 minutes between Sheffield and Rotherham continuing via Dale Hill Road to the central stops in Maltby, namely the Queens Hotel.

Half the X1s nip right to "double run" to the "Model Village", returning to "The Queens" then to continue straight ahead as we look at the junction above to their terminus here on Tickhill Road.

The other half of the buses turn left at "The Queens and run via a 1950s housing development to a terminus on Salisbury Road.

Back in the day, these two services were numbered 1 and 2, although different combinations of loops were looped over the years.

It was always a bit silly not to use X1 and X2 when the Maltby service was linked to the Sheffield Rotherham service; but the "image" of the revamp of the Sheffield to Rotherham section was considered more important than common sense.

First's Maltby map is even sillier showing the Salisbury Road "half" as a dotted line ...

... implying, if not actually stating, that this bit of the route was for occasional journeys only; as for service 1 to Ravenfield.

 Service 1 has four peak time "peak flow" trips Monday to Friday and is shown dotted ...

... whereas service X3 has two similar peak flow trips and is shown solid!

Helpful, NOT!

In addition to the X1 to Maltby and the X1 to Maltby, there is also service 10. This takes a different route out of Rotherham ...

... via the Hospital rather than "direct". As the map clearly shows, service 10 does NOT serve Whiston! In the Bramley area the route leaves the main road to run via a wiggle to serve newer housing at  Flanderwell.

The wiggle is unlabelled on the PTE timetable "leaflet" map ...

... but does get a mention on the rather cluttered network offering.

After Flanderwell, the 10 continues via the main road to "The Queens", then zooms off via Braithwell to Doncaster.

So there you have it. 

Maybe some of our readers have, understandably, already lost the will to live; but in a valiant attempt to preserve blogging sanity, fbb will summarise the above information.

Service X1

Sheffield, Meadowhall, Rotherham, Wickersley Road, Maltby

continuing via Model Village to Tickhill Road

OR

continuing to Salisbury Road

Service 10

Rotherham, Hospital, Flanderwell, Maltby

continuing via Braithwell and Edlington to Doncaster

But, and it is a frustrating "but", things WERE different during the evenings and on Sundays until last Saturday 28th April; then from Sunday 29th April these "things" become even more differenter and more difficult to unravel.

fbb will reveal the mess tomorrow.

 Next Maltby blog : Thursday 3rd May