Lancashire is, to use a technical term, "big". Immediately, then, we come up against the conundrum faced by Harry Beck when he designed the London Underground map; if we draw a bus map to scale, the detail (in our case between Lancaster and Morecambe) will be unreadable.
Stagecoach overcome this, in part, by restricting their on-line map to the "Bay Megarider" area. This stretches north to a little way beyond Carnforth, barely any distance to the east ...
Whilst this is a commendable effort, it does leave the busy urban area somewhat minimalised. It is to the credit of the Lancaster Bus Users Group (LBUG) that they realised that TWO maps would be needed; viz an urban map showing Lancaster Morecambe and Heysham in some detail plus along distance inter-urban and rural diagram.
Creating the second map presented plenty of challenges, nevertheless. The City has a collection of long bus routes. In order of approximate length these are ...
89 Lancaster to Knott End 17 miles
80 Lancaster to Ingleton 18 miles
81 Lancaster to Kirkby Lonsdale 20 miles
40/41 Lancaster to Preston 22 miles
42 Lancaster to Blackpool 34 miles
555 Lancaster to Keswick 50 miles
... and, the daddy of them all
582 Lancaster to Skipton 72 miles
What is listed above as "582" is actually three separate services (582, 581 and 580) operating as one through route.
Distances are based on a rough on-line calculation following the actual bus route. Remember that buses do not necessarily follow a direct road link. E & O E!!!!
But those statistics mean that a square allowing for 70 plus miles north to south and a similar distance east to west would be necessary for the proposed cartographic concoction.
In the end, and after much discussion with the client, it was decided to run from Ambleside in the north to Preston in the south and from Morecambe in the west to a crushed Skipton in the east. A valiant attempt would be made to preserve the geographical relationship between most communities, even if the distances were somewhat corrupted.
To make it more of a challenge the client wanted to show the main local routes between Lancaster Morecambe and Heysham IN FULL if not in detail.
Travelling south from the City was comparatively straightforward.
Stagecoach 40, 41 and 42 make a neat group, provided you can follow the routes between Cabus and Garstang.
There is an excellent map on the timetable leaflet, but we are not allowed access to that facility on-line. And none of that area is on the Stagecoach map.
You can see what fbb meant when he opined that working out where buses go can be incredibly difficult.
And, of course, the 41 serves the University campus (underpass) ...
... whilst the 40 only stops near the main gate.
It is a huge campus!
The routes to the north are more complex.
The 5 runs from Overton (south of Heysham) to Carnforth; the 49 runs via the Kellets, also to Carnforth whilst the 55 is, effectively, a short working of the 555 but diverted via Hest Bank. But that is a different Hest Bank from the service 5.
The 55 gets as far as the east bank of the Lancaster Canal ...
... where it has a pretty little shelter for Lancaster passengers ...
... on Peacock Lane.
The 5 stops on Marine Drive near the site of the former railway station ...
... on the West Coast Main Line, ironically at the one short section where you might actually glimpse the west coast! Nothing remains now, but the building immediately to the right of the loco still stands to give context.
Service 49 runs via Halton and the Kellets, two villages dominated by a huge but well hidden quarry.
Which leaves the prestigious 555, of which more tomorrow.
Also tomorrow a look at the routes that are squashed on the east of Lancaster.
The local area, by the way, is repeated on the long distance map to a larger "scale"than the whole but smaller than the separate "local" map.
More big map stuff tomorrow.
Yet Another Underground Map
This one is really weird, but fascinating all the same. This one replaces today's station names with medieval locations.
You will recognise Padintune, Maryburne, Knottyng Hull, Bayard's Water and the Knight's Bridge. There are many more on the full map which you can see (here)
Next Lancashire map blog : Friday 11th January
I love the Antique Tube map, but some of the names are a bit creative (just like "South Wimbledon" on the current one!) So, in the part of west London I know well, "Pallenswick" for Ravenscourt Park is bang on (it could also have been called "West End"). However "Gaggle Goose Green" for Goldhawk Road is pushing things a bit as this is a good half-mile to the west.
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