Mysterious Missing Matlock Mention

You would think that bus companies might consider it advisable to tell their potential customers the times of their buses, rather than leaving them to guess. But first a little bit of background.

Once upon a time East Midland ran a service 17 between Chesterfield and Matlock.

A highlight (?) of the trip was the very long Slack Hill.

It used to have a warning sign specially for buses, but fbb could find no picture thereof. 

In a Chesterfield area re-jig, they 17 was extended as X17 to Sheffield via the fast A61 replacing through buses from Nottingham..

Later it became Gold-ised.

Then, earlier this year it was extended via Meadowhell to Barnsley ...

... picking up the times of the recently introduced X65.

Today, Monday 5th November, there is a change of timetable. It is not a big change, BUT ...

It was announced by Derbyshire County Council in their "advance notice" mailing on 26th October to start on 4th November (actual change starts Monday 5th).

Seems simple enough, but why?

Derbyshire had an answer which fbb could not understand.

How can it be "commercial" yet receiving funding from the PTE? And no mention of any retardation from Barnsley.

Later last week Derbyshire published the revised timetable. Here is the "old" journey (far right) ...

... and here is the new.

So it is the last departure from Barnsley that is retarded to provide a through journey all the way to Matlock.

So that's OK then?

It is fine IF you receive Derbyshire's update email OR if you happen to check the county's timetable library at regular intervals. On the (sort-of) positive side, the journey is later than previously, so you might stand at your bus stop shivering for 33 minutes but still get home!

Or you might give up and curse the unreliable bus service.

How does South Yorkshire PTE reveal its sponsored change?

It doesn't. There is nothing on the forthcoming changes page ...

... and the actual timetable is dated 2nd September 2018.

Perhaps Stagecoach can dip into their reserves of gold and give us a timetable.

Of course they can! Their web site provides the SYPTE timetable - unchanged.

And Traveline? They know nothing of an X17 from Barnsley ...

... but can give us the wrong times from Sheffield.

As Traveline doesn't seem to know that the X17 has been extended, journey planner enquiries for, say, Barnsley to Chesterfield are generally wrong because they don't show any X17 departures.

No 2048 departure.

Actually, they don't show the old journeys either. No 2015 from the bus station.

And there is nothing on the Stagecoach "updates" pages for any of the three locations.

All this information (lack of information) was checked at 1630 yesterday afternoon.

On Saturday evening, a correspondent kindly visited Sheffield Transport Interchange (STI) one-time Central Bus Station.

Checked STI at around 2000 today (Saturday) -  no updated notice. The TT is dated September this year

And at the stop near his home ...

The paper timetable in the. Cobnar Road frame doesn’t mention the later Matlock journey 

And further:-

Looked at STI Matlock stand. I can confirm that at 1645 hrs (Sunday) there was no updated info for the X17

Maybe it will have appeared today?

There is a bit of good news. GoTimetable Sheffield is correct ...

... as is Stagecoach's in-house journey planner.

We know that this was a short notice registration (but we do not know why!) - but surely with over a week's notice (and more internally at Stagecoach), somebody should have done SOMETHING to warn potential passengers. Isn't new technology supposed to allow "instant" updates?

But, as fbb mentioned above, maybe something will appear today in time for folk making their journey this evening on a half-hour delayed bus.

Tomorrow, we go to South America

 Next Titicaca blog : Tuesday 6th November