Sixty After Sixty(4)

In 1960 There Is A Map

There is, however, a health warning. The print does not properly register. The black (place names) has shifted down and left and therefore to fully grasp it you need to mentally shift the names back up and back right. But it is workable.

Almost all the services in the group ...

... run via Wootton (top right); the exception being the 161 which uses the old B557 to run "direct" to Stewartby, once the home of a massive brickworks.

We are looking towards Bedford, with the village of Stewartby centre right and the station and level crossing lower right.

The 158 is the core route but with variations and several different destinations. Such was the way rural bus services were organised sixty years ago. We have also met the 163 but not mentioned it. It seems to be a 158 to North Crawley but with no other difference of route.

We have also met a stubby end of theo 160 running a local hop into Bletchley.

Now let's move on to post 0900.

Here are more 158s, two 161s and a 163 to which we can now add a 162 and a full length 160. The keen timetable geeks can look back to yesterday's blog and work out the notes against certain times.

The full 160 is merely a 158 to Marston Moretaine  then via Cranfield Village ...

... Salford, Wavendon, Woburn Sands and westwards to Bletchley via Bow Brickhill. Please note that this is the only though 160 of the day in this direction; there are two from Bletchley TO Bedford at 1034am and 3.39pm so nothing is much use for a day return end to end. 

In 1960 slightly more frequent 130/131/132 buses linked Bedford, Wolverton and Stony Stratford via Olney (130/131/) or Stagsden (132).

We also now have a 162 which is, effectively, a 158 plus an extra wiggle between Kempston and Wootton. Rather than coping with the United Counties 1960 cartographic extravaganza, we can better understand if we look at the current Bedfordshire County map.

It shows a 68 via Wood End and Hall End, similar to the 162 back in 1960! This little group of communities then had a "commuter" bus to Bedford, and a return shoppers trip on Wednesday and Saturday (Market Days) and a "commuter" bus back in the evening.

What about today's 68?

Two journeys in each direction serve the wiggle.

To get to Box End the bus passes the side roads to Green End and Church End ...

... and coming back southwards it calls at West End, Wood End and Hall End.

Sadly, Bourne End (a different Bourne End from yesterday's blog) does not warrant a bus service!

But, in general, the 162 in 1960 and the 68 in 2000 were designed to tie up a number of loose Ends. (GROAN)

We now know what serves Wootton today and what goes to the Ends of Bedfordhire's earth (?) - so what of the rest. We enter the world of Uno's "C" routes of which C1, C10 and C11 run between Bedford and various bits of Milton Keynes.

"C" stands for Cranfield University.

Cranfield University is a British postgraduate and research-based public university specialising in science, engineering, technology and management. Cranfield was founded as the College of Aeronautics in 1946. In 1969, the College of Aeronautics was renamed the Cranfield Institute of Technology, was incorporated by Royal Charter, gained degree awarding powers, and became a university. In 1993, it adopted its current name.

The main campus is unique in the United Kingdom (and Europe) for having its own semi-operational airport – Cranfield Airport – and its own aircraft, used for teaching and research.

There is a lot of it!

Pre-crisis there was a half hourly service Monday to Friday between Bedford, Cranfield Uni and Milton Keynes as C1 and C10.

On Saturdays it was hourly alternating between C1 and C11, the latter a slight variation of the C10.

It is the Saturday/Sunday service that is now running seven days a week.

Northampton Alan reminds fbb that Stagecoach 53 (now Bedford to Wootton) used to continue hourly all the way to Milton Keynes ...

... but was curtailed at Wootton faced with the onslaught of U No Who!

Of course, a lot has changed in the intervening 60 years. Bedford itself has grown, as has its suburb of Kempston. Cranfield Uni has expanded from aircraft stuff into a much wider coverage of all "technology" and Milton Keynes has appeared and grown!

You do wonder what the reaction from a passenger on the lonely 160 might have been if anyone had predicted that the one journey a day would develop into a bus every 30 minutes!

There is much more that could be said about the 1960 "network" (please, no!) but these two blogs will give some idea of the comparison over sixty glorious years.

 Next Castles blog : Sunday 3rd May