So What's The Plan?
As with so many of these reports, it's aims are far reaching, noble, and, of course, absolutely superb for the environment. Surely they will also be a contributor to increased social mobility and the revitalisation of the countryside.
fbb once worked for a boss whose opinion was that any proposal that filled more than one side of an A4 sheet of paper was a waste of time as no one would ever read it. fbb thinks those strictures did not apply to reports that the boss himself wrote!
The mini-Switzerland proposal for bus services in the Hope Valley is packed full with noble aims ...
... ideas which are hardly revolutionary.
But the "concepts" flow thick and fast. (click on the panels for an enlargement).
Brilliant.
Odd that nobody has thought of those ideas before!
If more people use the buses, the cost to the public purse will be lower.
It's Mao's red book all over again; but this time, blue with swans! Here are some happy immigrant agriculture workers from the Hope Valley, rejoicing over the Abelman report and the improvement it will bring to their journeys to and from the fields of waving corn.
The picture on the report itseilf is based in a view of Ashopton Viaduct from the road leading to Derwent ...
... but the "Northern" DMU in the contrived picture is on a non-existent track which, in reality, runs about six miles south at Bamford.
Unless, of course, someone has built a railway line across the Snake Pass since fbb lived that way
fbb can now reveal the details of the mini-Switzerland bus plan. What he cannot reveal is any actual timetables or details of how and where connections will be made.
Such information is not given.
On the following diagrams, routes are colour coded by frequency as follows.
Here are the routes from Sheffield, now ...
... with the 65 from Sheffield and 66 from Chesterfield continuing via Eyam to Buxton and thus not technically "Swiss'!
Here is the Abelman plan.
The 272 from Sheffield has become hourly rather than an incorrect every 90 minutes. It has been hourly, roughy, for ages!.
The only real change is that the 257 adds a double run to Eyam. The pink shading claims to be a bus every 20 mins - but it isn't!
Next comes the 173, now ...
... and new.
It doubles in frequency to a bus every hour. The 256 between Bradwell and Castleton is from a past timetable. fbb is not sure what it is doing there now. The grand plan appears to withdraw the 272 from Bradwell, a route variant that dates back to an age so old that it predates fbb.
And so to Castleton, now ...
... and proposed.
Today's 62 from Buxton to Castleton is curtailed at Edale station, so a frustrating and retrograde change would be necessary according to the Red Book (whoops, the blue report).
Completely new is an hourly 73/64 link shown on the diagram as running between Hope station, Edale and Castleton via Mam Tor or via Castleton, Mam Tor and Edale.
Sadly the road via Mam Tor was closed permanently in 1977 for reasons which are fairly obvious if you take a stroll that away. Perhaps Mr Ableman is expecting Derbyshire to rebuild it!
The proposed 63 and 64 are almost circulars, as shown by the yellow roads on this map.
There is one bit of white road for the 63/64 to use and that is the super smashing and utterly glorious Winnats Pass, shown cartographically above "Peveril Castle".
Wow! That almost looks like a mini-Switzerland!
The route is via Barber Booth and not Mam Tor!
Is the plan viable?
fbb will offer his modest opinion in tomorrow's blog.
Spoiler alert : it isn't!
Next mini-Switzerlabd blog : Weds 25 Feb
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