fbb Has Tried But Is He Right? (2)

The Other Shiregreen Half?

Yesterday, in amongst an attack of the screaming abdabs courtesy First Bus and Travel South Yorkshire, fbb managed to work out that the the current 75 (anti clockwise) round the Shiregreen estate "circle" was being unhooked and diverted elsewhere. See above for long term traditional (left) and upcoming revision (right).

As a minor aside, from September 1st, passengers from Bellhouse Road, used to flagging down a 76 to City will now need to understand that their bus is now a 75. Probably they will never notice.

So what has happened to the 76 (clockwise)?

Although the 76 is unchanged south of the city centre it has vanished from Shiregreen.

Here is the PTE's explanation

Services 47, 48

From 01 September these services will be introduced, providing journeys between Shiregreen, Sheffield and Herdings in a circular loop.

Journeys operate every day of the week, and up to every 10 minutes (combined) on Monday to Saturday daytimes. These services partially replace services 75 and 76 in Shiregreen and services 1a and 11 in Gleadless Valley.

Here is the First's explanation/

Services 47 and 48

These new services will operate from Shiregreen, serving Gregg House Rd, Hartley Brook Rd and Sicey Ave - via Firth Park, Firth Park Rd, Firvale, Burngreave, City Centre East Bank Rd, Newfield Green, Hemsworth and Herdings.

There is more obvious detail for routes to the south of the city.

At First glance, however, that looks like the western leg of the Shitegrenn circle, some of it unserved by the re-jigged 75.

Sensibly, fbb will quietly ignore the routes south of the city centre for his sanity and that of his readers. He will return to this change when he has recovered from the work on today's and yesterday's offering.

Does the timetable help? Not really!

The PTE's version is a hopeless source of necessary information with no point times between Shiregreen and Firth Park and, to be tackled later, no indication of route round the loop in the south.

First's timetable is not much better. It has too much white space and therefore is more difficult to read, but ...

... at least it does indicate which way the buses go in the south; Herdings then Hemsworth OR Hemsworth then Herdings. But why do we hate those unexplained "stop codes"?

Some readers will be screening at their screams that First does have a map of the 47 and 48 on its web site. So it does, but it appeared later than fbb's tortured research, so the old man did not, at first, have the benefit thereof.

But he did turn, hesitantly to the PTEs route and/or stop list, a weird mixture of both - that is not a complete list of either!

The above is as quoted for the 47. We first notice that the 47 gets to Firth Park via the former 75 and 76 route (DARK BROWN). Whilst the 75 and 76 now run via Rock Street (GREEN 95s on the maps below) which is, confusingly, the way Shiregreen buses (including the former 47 and 48) have gone since pre WW2.

Likewise the new 47 uses Firth Park Road ...

... rather than the old Shiregreen route via the Northern General Hospital.

Confusing, innit?

But, again according to the PTE, the 48 serves exactly the same roads in Shiregreen as the 47. 

Cleverly (?) fbb has recreated the route in Shiregreen for his readers who have not yet lost the will to live.

The lollipop is traversed in a clockwise direction.

This means that the original circular Shiregreen loop of fond memory and long long history no longer operates. There is no loop round the whole estate.

That will bring cheer and rejoicing to residents (NOT) who will have lost the opportunity of going "the long way round" (on the traditional loop) when the frequency is low, or, indeed, by just getting on the first bus that comes if it is raining or the shopping is burdensome.

This route is confirmed by the First Bus late-arrival map.

So fbb did get it right.

In the past, if course, the original 47 and 48 ran alternate ways round the estate "loop" and there will be many, many residents who will assume that the same will be happening from 1st September. First Bus even introduced its early reporting of the plans at "consultation" (snigger snigger) as "returning to the popular 47 and 48 routes of old" which it isn't!

What Has Happened to the 76?

Readers with a brain of monstrous memory skills will, of course, remember that fbb covered the proposals for the 76 when writing about the "consultation". Effectively instead of striking clockwise through Shiregreen, the 76 assumes the route and operation of the former 95 and 95a in the north of the city.

And this is exactly what fbb was expecting. But is it and does it?

Keen readers can pick out the 95/95a on the two maps quoted above and you would expect the new 76 and 76a will follow the same route via Rock Street and Hucklow Road just like the new 75 and 75a.

Oh no they don't!

The 76, 76a and a 76e (an evening portmanteau of the 76 an 76a) use the route via Burngreave just like the old 76! But then, to confuse everyone, they rejoin the new 75, 75a to serve Northern General Hospital.

Surely both 75s and 76s will then run via Hucklow Road to Firth Park? This is the way ALL buses have gone since time immortal to get from the Hospital to Firth Park - including the old 47 and 48 and the even older 150 and 151.

But to really bamboozle passengers, the new 76 and 76a do something utterly unpredictable (and probably utterly useless).

Instead of forking right on Hucklow Road like this outbound Stagecoach service 1 ...

... and the recent 95 and 95a, the 76 and 76a go straight on up the hill, a continuation of Barnsley Road.

As Google Streetview shows us, this road is packed with potential customers ...

... having previously only carried service 65 then 165 then 265 and now 2/2a between Sheffield and Barnsley.

The 29 is what is left of a through route from Sheffield to Huddersfield and Halifax once numbered 68 and later X68.

Next our errant 76s hangs a right ...

... turning south into Stubbin Lane ...

... with an inbound Stagecoach 1 ahead. Our 76s approach Firth Park from the north ...

... and here is the route on First's map - enlarged ...

... and showing no useful road names.

From Firth Park the 76/76a picks up the 95 and 95a route to Meadowhell.

Whilst First Bus have given us a complete map ...

... it is combined with the 75 with which it now has little affinity except perhaps unchanged on the south side of the the city.

Different colours for the two routes would have been sensible - especially as the timetables are shown separately.

Somebody may know why one 76a starts from Tinsley at 0804 and offers no return journey; but fbb doesn't.

There is no explanation on the PTE non-leaflet ...

... but, helpfully (?), it does materialise on the route description list. Or is it a list of some stops in an arbitrary order?

What is certain is that the poor people of Sheffield will get no printed material to help them with this almost crackpot series of changes.

fbb asked an expert and experienced ex manager what he thought was motivating these weird timetable "improvements".

His reply, after some explosive expostulation, was ... 

... that somebody somewhere had told an expensive computer system run by expensive consultants (who had never been to Sheffield) to evaluate several huge buckets of data, and the system has come up with an idealised re-jig of the network with no reference to current actuality or to where people really want to go.

QED!

That's modern management at work!

So more passengers lost to First Bus then?

fbb will leave the changes to the south of the city until next week as his elderly brain has come close to blowing several fuses.

Gibber gibber! Order some more tranquilisers!

 Next "Down Under" blog : Friday 23rd Aug 

fbb Has Tried But Is He Right? (1)

Who Knows?

It is reported that the children of Shiregreen estate in Sheffield have learned a new "nursery rhyme" which they sing enthusiastically as they play their street games outside their homes on the estate. The words vary,  but are something like this.

Buses, Buses

See what the fuss is!

Where does the new route go?

Weird bus stop names,

No times in the frames,

No map, so how do we know?

 

The "lyrics" have supplanted a similar ditty about a woman of contrary demeanor who grows strange but well aligned flowers in the plot in front of her house. The old version, say the kids, is "silly". The new one, they explain, is what mummy and daddy are talking about all the time.

Services To Shiregreen 

Shiregreen is a vast ex Council estate to the north of Sheffield and to the east of the A6135 to Barnsley. It was developed progressively and rapidly in the 1930s to improve the lot of Sheffielders who were stuck in near slum conditions, notably in and around the heavy industry clustered along the Don valley to the north east of the city.

As the building work continued, buses were pushed further and further into the estate, ending up running both ways round a large loop, as shown in red below.

Initially buses only ran to Firth Park (aerial view above, bottom centre) where they connected with frequent trams to city. After road improvements, said trams had a reserved track through the middle of the roundabout, seen below looking north ...

... and below looking south.

Trams would continue northbound to a terminus typically in the middle of Barnsley Road at Sheffield Lane Top.

The roundabout and its short length of "reserved" track is still there but preserved, with rails, as a decorative and historic feature of the shopping centre.

Later the buses were extended into city via Rock Street, a route which will feature later in this complex and frustrating route change. Here on the right are a couple of buses on their way to town.

For most of their life, the buses to Shiregreen were numbered 150 and 151 but in the early 1970s they became 47 and 48 and were later linked cross city with services running south east-ish - again of which more later.

In the most recent change they became 75 and 76 but the big circular loop remained untainted and stable throughout this period of approaching 100 yeats!

Here is today's route map.

With the arrival of the Sheffield Bus non-Partnership, Stagecoach was running a competitive 88 (GREEN). the full length of Sicey Avenue using part of this long road never previously served by a frequent Sheffield service.

Although Sheffield folk grumped about the changes of route numbers, they soon adapted. They even coped with the fact the Shiregreen's buses were now running into the city via a different route; via Firth Park Road instead of Hucklow Road (DARK BROWN) 

... and via Burngreave Road instead of Rock Street.

Still awake at the back? Good!

Then fbb will plough on with his brain already aching.

And there is good news! - not much, but a bit!

The 75 will continue to serve Shiregreen!

Here is how the PTE explains it.

Service 75: From 01 September there will be timetable and route changes to partially replace service 1a, and service 75a will be introduced to provide connection to Fox Hill.

In South Sheffield, there will be no route changes. In North Sheffield, both service 

75 and 75a will leave the city via Rock Street (instead of Burngreave Road).

From Firth Park, both services will operate through Shiregreen.

Service 75 will then continue via Ecclesfield to Chapeltown (and High Green), whereas service 75a will continue via Lindsay Avenue towards Parson Cross and Fox Hill.

Combined, services will provide journeys up to every 15 minutes.

And here is how First Bus explains it.

Between Batemoor and the City Centre, the route will remain unchanged. 

In North Sheffield, this service will be revised to operate via Rock Street, Pitsmoor, Firvale, Northern General Hospital, Hucklow Rd, Bellhouse Rd and Hartley Brook Road.

Buses will split to operate via Ecclesfield Village to Chapeltown.

Service 75a will operate via Lindsey Ave, Bucannon Rd, Parson Cross Asda, Cowper Ave to Foxhill. 

During the daytime (Mon-Fri, services will be every 15 mins (every 30 mins to Chapeltown and every 30 mins to Foxhill)

So the 75 (and 75a) will be going a completely different way between city and Firth Park; they will actually be using the same route as the old 47 and 48 or the even older 150 and 151.

From Firth Park, however, the 75 and 75a make it round about three quarters of their former loop route before striking off. The timetable information is minimalist ...

... with just one time point between Shiregreen and Fox Hill or Chapeltown.

The PTE (Travel South Yorkshire) gives us what it calls ...

... which sounds like a list of stops but might be a list of roads served. In fact it is neither!

The names in BOLD are district names although they do not appear in the PTE list where you might expect them to appear geographically. So, for example, the former tram stop at Firth Park comes geographically between Hucklow Road and Bellhouse Road and not as listed.

According to the list above, once the 75 has left its former loop (below, far right)  ...

... it tuns north on Barnsley Road to terminate at Chapeltown. Currently, this is the terminus of First Bus 1a which gets there direct and not via Shiregreen. It is PALE BLUE on the map above.

The 75a runs west to Fox Hill where it will use the former turning circle once used by the tram replacement service 42.

fbb cannot dredge from his coal measures brain exactly when the 42 ceased, but the turning circle is still there and used by the locals as a car park.

An hourly 86 does use the stop, but not for terminating or turning.

But how does the 75a get to Fox Hill? fbb had assumed that it will run straight along Deerlands Avenue as shown by his red line on an map above.

The PTE list of stops and or roads mentions 

Parson Cross

Lindsay Avenue

Adlington Road

The PTE text mentions just

Lindsay Avenue

towards Parson Cross

First Bus text offers

Lindsay Avenue

Bucannon Road

Parson Cross

For the record it is Buchanan Road.

But, joy of all joys, First Bus has a map!

This offers ...

Lindsay Avenue

Buchannan Road

Parson Cross

... which is a link never before operated by anyone, ever!

Buchannan still wrong on First's map!

Adlington Road (as per the PTE route explanation) is not shown by First.

Indeed, Buchanan Road has never had a bus service, ever!

So fbb asks, Why is First going that way? 

Commercial desperation?

There is currently a route 32 (DARK BROWN) which wiggles over part of the route ...

... and would appear to serve much the same function as First's 75a. The 32 runs hourly Monday to Saturday and is tendered by the PTE.

fbb predicts that the 75a to Foxhill will not last!

So what about the "other half" of the Shiregreen service?

Aaargh!

 Next fbb  "Trial" blog : Thursday 22nd August 

Futile First Failure - 95 (Part 2)

Warning :This blog will hurt you brain!

Frantically Finding Out!

On the First South Yorkshire web site, the above picture is accompanied by some meaningful text.

So, having caught the Summer Woohoo, fbb is looking for timetable changes from 1st September - information which will include then new-look 95s.

Woohoo!

We are guided from the opening headline page to details of the "more buses and more links" that we may have spotted a few weeks ago. We might even have taken part if the "Consultation", the results of which have manifested themselves in almost no alterations to the original plans.

What a surprise!

But there is a change to the 95 from Walkley. Instead of the revsed routes being numbered 95, 53 and 53a, they are now, helpfully, numbered 95, 95a, 95b and 95s. Whilst the new arrangements are complex, buses between Walkley and the city centre remain unchanged in route. 

Previously 95 and 95a, there are now four route numbers to baffle people.

But First Bus explains it all!

Indeed, so excited is the First Bus Management that they explain it TWICE as above. Note the helpful alphabetical order in the left hand panel. More details of the 95a and 95b are given in the right hand panel.

But the text above is very broad brush and is unlikely ro excite any passengers (Woohoo!) because it is totally inadequate.

But fbb, once again rejecting the use of a safety net, has begun to unravel this group of services.

95, 95a and 96b leave Sheffield via the Parkway ...

... with the city centre bottom left and, initially, runing due east.

It is a road built to carry vehicles direct to the M1 without the anguish of a grind via the suburbs of north east Sheffield. Instead there is now the grind via the Parkway traffic jams!

What we really need is a well written timetable. What may come our way, if we are persistent, is a badly written timetable from First Bus.

In passing, we note that route 95 serves the Parkway Markets which used to be the city's huge wholesale fruit and veg market and is now much reduced in market space and more an industrial area.

In fact, the 95 cannot use the first stretch of the Parkway and has to wiggle via ordinary roads - but you cannot really tell that without expert knowledge.

The text tells us that all three variants serve the ASDA store at Handsworth adjacent to the Parkway roundabout with stops on the "traditional" route east.

Of course, as we shall soon see, the actual timetable makes no mention of ASDA - good information consistency eh? But the text's right hand panel mentions the next stop along, Richmond Park Road but, obviously, the buses do not go via Richmond Park Road, they just stop at the end.

But where might you find this timetable?

"here" takes us to here :-

After vainly prodding any or both of the headers in blue, up pops the current 95/95a timetable not the upcoming major revision.

Eventually a more likely and very different list appears.

Only one and a bit of these headings appears in the box on screen, so fbb has had to scroll, screen shot and paste to give you all the options. Note (with some unease) he different city centre stops on offer!!

Two different 95s?

But when you click on any of the above service 95 collection, this page appears.

It is obvious (NOT!) that what First is giving you is a full list of every bus route (with timetables) from 1st September. 

Quite why you can't be just shown the 95s up front is a mystery of First's web site incompetence. 

But scroll away and you eventually get there.

And a click here confirms that all the 95s in their confusion and profusion are on one gurt big baffling timetable.

fbb will extrapolate but only in the privacy of his living room!

Everything, we see, runs to Handsworth ASDA or thereabouts ...

... with the 95s continuing to Rotherham via Treeton and Brinsworth.

Until 1st September this second half of the route 95 is a service 73 (LIGHT BLUE) ...

...  although the 73 follows a very different route between Sheffield and Handsworth.

Confused,com?

But worry not, perplexed passenger. From September 1st the evening and Sunday service between Handsworth and Rotherham  is still the 73.

Why? Why not a 95?

Should you be interested you can click to enlarge the above extract. But it is not worth the effort unless you are unfortunate enough to live on the daft evening and Sunday route.

Totally Confused.com!

And First Bus improvements? Here is the current 95/95a SATURDAY timetable running every 15 minutes.

And the upcoming timetable ...

... REDUCED TO EVERY 20 MINUTES.

But what about Sundays? Present ...

... every 30 minutes.

The new Sunday timetable shows ...

... an increase to every 15 minutes!

Even more Confused.com!

Something doesn't look right.

And what about the 95a and 95b running from Handsworth via two very different routes to Crystal Peaks shopping hell - sorry that should read "mall"? 

These DO appear to be brand new links! but fbb has yet to find out why.

So more to come after a good intake of tranquillisers.

Tomorrow will be a much needed intermission from the huge heap of large and confusing reorganisations (YET AGAIN) in sunny Sheffield. Tomorrow's Sheffield changes will be simple to follow but baffling in other ways.

And undoubtedly difficult for the average Sheffield Bus passenger to grasp.

 Next Sheffield Snippets blog : Thurs 15th Aug