Sunday Variety

CHURCH LINK

SERVICE STARTS AT 1030

Today's service is live and ON-LINE
back in the Church.

 Click on this link (here),

which will take you to the YouTube page.

Then click on the icon for today's date.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o 

Diversion Diverted

Regular readers may remember that, in response to the virus, Sheffield City Council closed Pinstone Street to help with Social Distancing. Here the pavements are some of the widest in the city with plenty of room for bus passengers to queue in their spaced-out protectiveness. 

Hence the removal of buses!!

Those who kept an eye on Council policies were aware that some honourable members wanted such a change to be permanent. This would, they claimed, improve the environment for shoppers and visitors alike. 

In so doing the scheme would take bus passengers well away from where they wanted to be.

Instead they installed replacement stops in a creepy back route (Carver Street) well away from anyhere people might want to go. Here is a service 51 ...

... passing the lavish facilities on Carver Street. Note the cosy shelters, the timetable frames and the (un)real time display screens - all of which were available on the now vacated Pinstone Street.

So when the Council announced to an enthusiastic crowd of passengers, the press who didn't really understand and several equally happy bus companies that the inconvenient scheme was to be made permanent, the statement also promised a "Bus Hub" on Carver Street complete with all the facilities so far unprovided.

Deep joy all round.

Those alighting at present and, foolishly, seeking a route to the shops, would enjoy a battle with concrete mixing lorries etc, adding to the encouragement to relish the fading magnificence of Sheffield's wondrous retail experience.

But, as from tomorrow, all is changing; there will no longer be buses on Carver Street; they will no longer face a tight right hand turn into Wellington Street, another central area attraction.

Indeed buses are expunged even from Carver Street. In fact they will now use Rockingham Street between West Street and Charter Row.

First Bus tells us that the new stops will be on the very bottom bit of Rockingham Street between Wellington Street and the comparative sanity and safety of Charter Row.

First also thinjs they will be on the "up" side of the road, on the opposite side from the buses, there, on the right in the picture below.

Should be fun! Currently the 95/95a to Walkley is the only buis the goes UP Rockingham Street ...

... and it stops further up at an equally lavish stop.

But it won't be doing so from tomorrow - it will run via its old stop in Church Street, opposite the Cathedral and nowhere near Rockingham Street.

But Travel South Yorkshire locates the Carver Street replacement stops above Wellington Street; but at least they are on the correct side of the road.

When correspondent Roy went for a look-see on Thursday last, there was no sign of any activity on Rockingham Street. Lets hope they sort it by tomorrow, because currently this elegant thoroughfare is one way UP!

It will be chaos tomorrow!

Scarborough Topless

What a gorgeous view, taken at the southern terminus, as from Street view on a much more Scarborough-like day!

How are they "better than ever"?

In the past they have terminated at Peasholme Park at the end of the Northern Esplanade ...

... but this season they continue northwards to Scalby Mills and the Sea Life Centre.

Another glorious sets of views of the bay.

You could ride back to Peasholm Park on Scarborough's splendid miniature railway with its terminus just up the cliff a tad from the Sea Life Centre (pyramid building far right in the pic above).

The over-enlarged Streetview image does not do this railway justice, so here is Scalby Mills station when there was nothing else there ...

... when the area was beginning to develop ...

... and what's there now.

The station is somewhat grander!

And The Puzzle Picture?

In a serendipitous search on-line fbb came across battery powered sets of tiny LEDs which you are supposed to scrunch up, pop into glass jars and add atmosphere to your intimate little cocktail parties. How has fbb ever managed without them?

A while back, fbb had tried illuminating pub and church using "normal" LEDs ...

... but you needed resistors and soldering AND the wire rotted in the damp outside. Now that the old man's scenery modules can be packed away for the winter, your modelling genius (NOT) wondered if the jar-filling strings might do.

The carriage shed was easy, just  a simple straight line glued to a strip of plastic.

The hole in the workshop wall is hidden by the roof  but permits a few extra lights to be poked through to shine through some the the windows.

Sweet!

Flushed with what might have been a misplaced sense of success, fbb progressed with the church and pub module. Wrapping the lights around, in and out, here and there etc., looked like a possibility ...

... but dangling LEDs would not have much of a shelf-life.  So yesterday began the process of fixing them properly. Remember, dear reader, that it is near impossible to adjust the length of the wires joining each LED, so careful jiggling was needed to get things in a sensible place.

But here is the work in progress. Note the use of gaffer tape, Mrs fbb's clothes pegs and that essential tool of skilled railway modellers, namely a tin of Lidl chopped tomatoes.

It may be possible to reveal the finished product in tomorrow's blog. Unless fbb has gone ape at its fiddliness and smashed the whole thing to pieces with a lump hammer.

THAT Stagecoach Livery

fbb had never seen a picture of the back end of a bus in the new, awful, livery of Uncle Brian Souter's beauties - no longer beautiful. Until now that is! Single decks are bad enough ...

... but the deckers! The mind boggles.

A part view of a  pair of orange Y-Fronts? Are they all like this, or was this one (from Kent) a ghastly mistake?

Creating Desire - Oh Dear No!

 Next Variety blog - Monday 12th April