Leigh Park - Growing ...

 ... and Growing!

The diagram above gives some idea of the speed of the development of the estate. Work started in 1947 and about ten years later most of the areas were very much in progress or complete. So bus services had to expand rapidly to cope.

Bus Services - Growing And Growing

Big Year 1956

The very visible change was the Portsmouth;s M and N were given route numbers! Shock Horror! Thus 148a and 148b were born. At the same time, the 148b was extended further into the new development.

Fortunately we do have a route description which fbb can translate on to a chunk of Open Streetmap. It is not clear how far along Botley Drive either the original M/N or the new 148a trundled. Clearly the aim was to run the full length of the road and further.

At much the same time, Southdown was expanding its local service from Havant.

Again, fbb will attempt a map without the help of a safety net! Clearly the complicated look of the timetable disguises the simple fact the we have a circular service both ways round.

Or is ir?

Yes it is! Could the residents understand it?

Hmmm?

A few months earlier, the original 48/48a from Southsea via Havant to Leigh Park and Rowlands Castle is also further extended on its Leigh Park leg.

The xx16 from Southsea now runs to Botley Drive, the terminus of the 148a.

Fun innit?

Things seem fairly stable (?) until 1961.

March 1961 : More Buses from Portsmouth

Unfortunately, whilst the interwebnet can furnish fbb with tram and trolleybus maps for Portsmouth, the bus information is as parlous as the bus services themselves.

In 1957 the Trolleybus map shows a C and D running from Dockyard and off the map along Tangier Road (a k a Baffins).

Best try to understand what is happening. C/D is being renumbered 143 except that it isn't as simple as that.

All Portsmouth-bound buses are numbered 143. Seemples?

But outbound ....

Maybe the timetable helps. 

It doesn't. 

The compiler of the booklet passed to fbb has only included some extracts from the new 143 etc. Outbound from City we get the evening (post 1900) fixed interval service.

The bus to Moneyfield Avenue (locally in Portsmouth) is, of course, a 143f. Yay! 

Henderson Road Ferry Road ...

... is at Eastney.

The services run to the Dockyard, are then timed at Stanley Avenue ...

... which lies between Baffins and Portsmouth College on today's 13 and 14, soon to be Stagecoach and now First. At the end of Tangier Road the revised 143 (etc) turns left and leaves Portsea Island by way of Portsmouth Airport ...

... the Eastern Road bridge and Farlington seen below on a modern map.

The estate now filling the former airport (opposite Anchorage Park industrial area) has roads all named after communities in fbb's former home territory, Northamptonshire.

One village is Sywell, Northampton's small airfield!

Initially both 143a and 143b follow the same route in Leigh Park ...

... with the 143b running through to Havant, as the first route to serve West Leigh, and the 143a showing (helpfully?) simply Leigh Park.

If only there were a good map of services to the estate. The only one provided (extract only) for this era is a couple of years later in 1963.

Aaaargh!

So much for the good old days of public transport.

A further episode will follow later in the week.

 Next Railway Infrastructure Quiz blog : Tuesday 15th August