Liverish About Livery

 Variagated First Bus

It was good to observe more and more Sheffield buses n the new "standard" lvery for the City ...

... and to note that both sngle and double deckers had a couple of diagonal flashes of stainless steel plast attached. Whether Joe public would notice or would care eve if they did is doubtful - but fbb appreciated it!

Likewise Doncaster has a similar scheme but in red ...

... which looks particularly smart on the single deck version.

Again, for those who notice these thngs, both have a hint of Doincaster Corporation's purple stripe livery.

Infortinately, heat and old age prevented the chubby one from spending a great deal of time scurrying arouns Sheffield taking pictures of buses; but ...

Oh dear, oh dear, what a mess it is for First.

The old man did not actually see a First Bus in Buses for Sheffield livery ...

... but there were still new-liveried double deckers route branded for service 20.

What is, or was, so special about service 20? Who knows, but it is the only such route to be so emblazoned in addition to the new city colours! And it looks like an amteirish afterhtought.

Then there were several of these running around.

They are Leeds cast-offs, some on which the shape of the vinyl reading "Leeds" is clearly visible. Poor!

But buses like these were the most obviously "wtong".

They first appeared on the X78 to Doncaster which then ran every 10 minutes, so there are lots of them around. They were then moved to the X1 and rebranded accordingly. So here is one branded for the X1 on service 80 between Killamash and Chesterfield!

In Doncaster the town (city now) welomed some new exciting branding with purple wedges as here modelled by previous MD Nigel Eggleton ...

... but they were actually Leicester cast-offs. 

The first attempt at red was very similar to buses in Stoke on Trent ...

... but fbb thinks they were Yorkshire local!

After losing its "Steellink" branding, the X78, now reduced to every 20 minutes has gained its own livery ...

... shown here as X78. It is X3 now!

Yet again, a good persistent image to encourage passenger use. 

Then this has appeared from time to time ...

... perhaps another experiment like the red fronted single deckers.

But it is not the same colours as the X78/X3 or the same as the "standard" Doncaster scheme.

Why?

Do the passengers from Conisbortough and Denaby really know what a Donny Spare is? Do they care?

These appeared, but fbb does not know why and whence!

Neither does he know whether this still exists.

It was for HMQ's Platinum Jubilee.

fbb is not a party to First South Yorkshire's vehicle policy (if the company has one) but he would have thought that there should be (should have been) a more determined effort to rid the city of wrong liveries. Surely a coat of paint is cheaper than a loss of passengers through confusion?

Then there is the problem of nice shiny repaints with nasty dull interiors, again experienced last week by fbb on several Sheffield vehicles.

Of course, fbb does remember when ALL Sheffield buses wore the same livery, commended in a recent First Bus heriitage job (actially not that recent!).

Whatever the vehicle type, or its age, the blue stripes on cream were a truly iconic brand.

Oh, all right - some did once use a different style!

And it was the tram livery as well.

Sadly, Stagecoach's attempt to create the traditional scheme on supertram was something of a failure. It was the wrong blue and a watery "single" cream!

Even in the PTE era, after a few experiments with weak, medfium and strong coffee (!!) this looked tidy and consistent in Sheffield Doincaster and Roitherham.

Talking of Rotherham, when will First Bus be revealing the Rotherham version of the new Sheffield or Doncaster livery?

Now that would look very smart!

But here endeth the main reports from the fbb's visit oop noorth.

Meanwhile In Glasgow Route 1

Route 75

Route 77

It seems to be goodbye to route branding!

P.S. The fbbs' poll cards arrived yesterday ...

... just in time to remind them that the last date for applying for postal votes is on 19th June.

 Encore Un Prolongement : Thurs 4th July 

Roadside Variety!

120k : k for Krazy, k for Klever?

When First won the tender to replace Hulleys (who replaced Stagecoach) on the service 80 from Chesterfield to Crystal Peaks, the deal involved two separate routes as shown in the Derbyshire timetable library. Here is the 80:-

Even though the 120k only peeps into Derbyshire, the county included its journeys in a separate table. 

These two panels accurately follow the fbb map above.

Travel South Yorkshire has no interest in Derbyshire so does not include the 80 in its pages.

That was back in May. Then somebody had a good idea. Generally speaking, good idas do not emanate from First Bus, so this may have been a request from Derbyshire which is much more likely.

The idea was to join the routes together and run through buses from Chesterfield to Fulwood via Killamarsh. Amongst other things that would restore through buses from Killamarsh to Sheffield, lost with Hulleys 80 - also, of course, it restored the through link with Hulleys 80 to Crystal Peaks.

So the new deal appears on Travel South Yorkshire (TSY)?

Of course not, TSY have little or no interest in foreign parts. 

But Derbyshire provides a full through timetable admittedly badly shown at Norwood. They are through journeys!

First Bus offers the same set up as Derbyshire but indexes the service as route 80.

Their 120k is the same as TSY.

So it's TSY nul points, First 4/10 and Derbyshire  8/10. 

Because of the treatment at Norwood, guess what ...

... the journey planners make you change buses at Norwood. So the unwary might get off the 80 and wait in anticipation for the 120k which will have just  disappeared down the hill!

Good innit?

Even better (sick joke!) is how this 120 complex is shown in Sheffield; in this example for journeys from the city centre time point at Flat Street.

At this point, Monday to Saturday daytime, First Bus runs the full route to Fulwood whilst Stagecoach turns short at Ranmoor. In the evenings Stagecoach buses run to Fulwood instead of First and on Sundays both run to Fulwood.

So in the frame at Flat Street we have a departure list for the First Bus 120k (to Fulwood)

These all go to Ranmoor!

Then we have a table for the First Bus 120 (to Fulwood) ...

These run an identical route with the 120k and they all go to Ranmoor! The 120k journeys are not included in the above.

Then we have a list for the Stagecoach 120 (to Ranmoor) ...

... BUT ...

... those journeys in RED run to Fulwood via Ranmoor.

So it is a 100% incompetent mess.

Well done Travel South Yorkshire.

Meanwhile In Derbyshire

Excellent roadside publicity for the Peak Sightseer buses. Here at Chatsworth:-

Here on a Stagecoach local service bus in Sheffield.

And at Hathersage.

Plus departure list e.g. Hathersage!

And whist looking at this stuff, fbb snapped a departure list and map for T M Travel's 218 (Bakewell, Chatsworth, Sheffield) at Chatsworth.

Crystal Peaks Car Priority?

There are no views of the outside world (except of the sky!) from inside the Crystal Peaks shopping centre near Sheffield. It was fairly empty when fbb called by, a week ago.

Bit it has a six stand bus station ...

... and should have a tram stip here, in full view of the bus stops.

But the tram stop is actually 200 yards away along the road.

Disappointing.

But even more disappointing is he total lack of signage to buses and trams from inside the "mall".

The argument that people coming by bus will know their way to the bus stops is misguided. Surely motorists would know the way back to where they parked to car? When fbb had finished his feast at Greggs, even he turned the wrong way for the exit to tram back to the city centre.

He did quickly realise his route error and exited correctly.

But then nobody comes to Crystal Peaks by bus, do they?

Bus Stops Not Matey On The 80!

Derbyshire used to be top dog when it came to public transport information. Whilst the roadside publicity at Chesterfield New Beetwell Street was fine with various maps ...

... and departure lists readily available ...

... and Stagecoach timetables on a rack in the Bus/Coach station ...

... out on the route, information was very poor indeed.

Here is the best of a bad bunch ...

... at the hospital. There is no 80a!

But elsewhere ...

... service 70 has been gone for years!

Many stops had nothing to show for themselves, not even a frame with a departure list.

If Derbyshire won't do it; can't do it; can't afford it (or all three), then why are the bus operators not ensuring that their roadside advertisement poles are up to date, attractive and properly equipped with a timetable?

Is this one reason why fbb's First bus service 80 journey ran empty most of the way from Chesterfield to Killamarsh?

And while fbb is having a grump (a justifiable grump), why is this stop named BRIMINGTON (in capitals) ...

... when it is nowhere near the centre of Brimington. If you must, make it HALL ROAD in capitals (because that is where it is!) and put a small "Brimington" as a possible addition.

Maybe ALL the stops are called BRIMINGTON to further discourage passengers for the 80.

Very poor indeed.

Better?

In Sheffield itself, TSY provides a timetable frame and departure lists at evey stop. (?) although my local correspondents report that the "contractors" are often slow to update. In Waterthorpe, the flags look very tired but the frame has its departure lists.

Remember, Remember!

A while back, keen and regular traders will possibly remember that TSY  started a PR campaign to "bring all the buses together" inder the tag "one City one service".

fbb was given a mug, a shopping bag and a tin of very small mints. The lettering on the mug faded at about that same speed as the campaign fizzled into nothing.

fbb remembers the new network map designed to make travel easier ...

... which was so full of mistakes that it was utterly useless.

Well, a couple of echoes of this failure were spotted by fbb last week. 

Here is a Stagecoach single decker still adorned with its sticky backed plastic ...

... and at Moorfoot a very small sticker on one of the shelters.

Did any passenger understand this idea?

No they didn't! It was never really explained.

 More Bits and Pieces : Wednesday 3rd July