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Trivia: Long or unusual route numbers

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6Gman

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In NBC years and earlier, Crosville used to have routes in sequences A1, B1 and so on - the initial letter being an area (C was Chester, L Liverpool, K Crewe) - this led to occasional variants with a prefix and suffix.
The Crosville alpha-numeric system started c.1958 and the last examples only disappeared quite recently.

Incidentally Liverpool was H ; L was used for Limited Stop services, such as the L1 Chester-Caernarfon Cymru Coastliner.

Some of the prefixes were logical (such as C for Chester) but most were just what was available.
 
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Statto

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York there's route HSB.

London had an RV1 for a few years too, & London has EL1, EL2, & EL3.

Back in the day Merseyside, Fareway had a few FxX numbers, the X were used for Industrial routes.
 

6Gman

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There is a school bus service in Nantwich where the vehicles (D&G Bus; Solos usually) display 71194 (the contract number).
 

Dai Corner

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In Newport schools services (which are registered as public services) start with two letters indicating the relevant school. e.g. JF1 for John Frost School or SJ5 for St. Joseph's School.
 

railwaytrack

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Up until the mid 2010s a company called J R Dents in Lincolnshire ran a route "9811" which was a once a week rural bus (normally a Dennis Dart SLF Caetano Compass was used) and this may possibly be the only four digit route number on an ordinary public route (excluding letters like 123A or A123 etc) ever to exist in the UK? Does anyone know of any other ordinary public bus routes (past or present) in the UK with four numbers? I can not think of any others?

For a short period in the early and mid 2010s First Bus had a route number "0" in Portsmouth which was a circular service around the city.

Brighton & Hove used to run an "I7" which was very easy to confuse with the Stagecoach "17" which also operated along part of the same route.
 

Darklord8899

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The Stirling Uni shuttle run by First is "numbered" UL

Outwith the UK:
In Innsbruck, city bus services are lettered*, whilst tram services are numbered (two notable exceptions were bus service 4 (Now 504 - Innsbruck to Hall in Tirol, former tram service 4) and the Stubaitalbahn, which is 'STB' (City running and overland Tram up the Stubai Valley to Fulpmes, formally a seperate system from the city trams and ran without any route number))

* Bus services that were lettered, which run outwith Innsbruck are now numbered
D - 501
E - 502
S - 503
(4- 504)
ST - 590 (Stubai Valley bus)

Vienna still has 2 of it's lettered Tram routes remaining the D and O
Vienna also used to have tram routes 5/31 and 31/5 (placement journeys which were part of routes 5 and route 31), likewise, 60/62 was another

I remember when I was in Rome many moons ago, all the suburban bus routes that didn't go into the city centre were all 0xx route numbers
 

daodao

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Some of the Warrington bus routes (5-9 inclusive) are preceded by CAT, e.g. CAT5 runs from Warrington to Altrincham via Dunham Massey (Rope & Anchor) [and passes over the former level crossing shown in my moniker].
 

Dai Corner

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Some of the Warrington bus routes (5-9 inclusive) are preceded by CAT, e.g. CAT5 runs from Warrington to Altrincham via Dunham Massey (Rope & Anchor) [and passes over the former level crossing shown in my moniker].
CAT5 means a type of computer network cable to me :lol:

Why CAT though?
 

Ken H

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Transdev have JAZZ l1eeds -York non stopper and WIZZ Skipton - Burnley.

Yorkshire Woollen used letters (some number suffixes) for services round Dewsbury. Became numbers around 1970
 

Mal

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The Crosville alpha-numeric system started c.1958 and the last examples only disappeared quite recently.

Incidentally Liverpool was H ; L was used for Limited Stop services, such as the L1 Chester-Caernarfon Cymru Coastliner.

Some of the prefixes were logical (such as C for Chester) but most were just what was available.
When the Runcorn Busway was opened Crosville started anew group of routes T1 -T12 Iseries
The Crosville alpha-numeric system started c.1958 and the last examples only disappeared quite recently.

Incidentally Liverpool was H ; L was used for Limited Stop services, such as the L1 Chester-Caernarfon Cymru Coastliner.

Some of the prefixes were logical (such as C for Chester) but most were just what was available.
When the Runcorn Busway opened Ctosville started routes numbered T1 - T12 and some Part Route eg. T11X.
 

Deerfold

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Up until the mid 2010s a company called J R Dents in Lincolnshire ran a route "9811" which was a once a week rural bus (normally a Dennis Dart SLF Caetano Compass was used) and this may possibly be the only four digit route number on an ordinary public route (excluding letters like 123A or A123 etc) ever to exist in the UK? Does anyone know of any other ordinary public bus routes (past or present) in the UK with four numbers? I can not think of any others?

For a short period in the early and mid 2010s First Bus had a route number "0" in Portsmouth which was a circular service around the city.

Brighton & Hove used to run an "I7" which was very easy to confuse with the Stagecoach "17" which also operated along part of the same route.
I mentioned earlier the D2000 - whilst there is a letter, this is in addition to the 4 digits.

Transdev have JAZZ l1eeds -York non stopper and WIZZ Skipton - Burnley.

Yorkshire Woollen used letters (some number suffixes) for services round Dewsbury. Became numbers around 1970
Leeds to York is City Zap or just Zap. Skipton to Burnley is Pendle Wizz or just Wizz. They also have the Otley Dash
 

JRT

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There is a school bus service in Nantwich where the vehicles (D&G Bus; Solos usually) display 71194 (the contract number).
School journeys in Kirkby Stephen seem to have a SIX digit number (letters and numbers), so guessing it's the contract number. Sorry forgot to note them down.
 

Statto

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The Crosville alpha-numeric system started c.1958 and the last examples only disappeared quite recently.

Incidentally Liverpool was H ; L was used for Limited Stop services, such as the L1 Chester-Caernarfon Cymru Coastliner.

Some of the prefixes were logical (such as C for Chester) but most were just what was available.

Wrexham area routes originally started with E, & then renumbered to D, as E became used for routes in East Cheshire, after Crosville Brought most of the original North Western

First Kernow has a route ATLA, & First Norfolk have Excel, but routes are A, B, C, D rather than Excel.
 

padbus

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Stagecoach South West has some named routes in Exeter:
Red (Honiton Road P&R - City Centre)
Green (Matford P&R - City Centre - Sowton P&R)
UNI (University main campus - City Centre - University St Lukes campus)

Also, there are Fox (Paignton Bus Station - Foxholes Estate) and Falcon (Plymouth - Bristol).

Berry's Superfast services between Somerset and London have some complex alpha-numeric numbers starting with SF eg SF1R1.
 

Dai Corner

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Another one I've just remembered is the services across the Severn Bridge between Bristol and South Wales.

These have been the straightforward X7, 'Severn Express' 7XP and now the boring T7 under different operators. Last time I was at Cribbs Causeway on the T7 it was still advertised there as the 7XP.
 

dazzler

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The Campus (Free) bus service around the University of York Campus is numbered UB1. There was a UB2 for a couple of years pre-Covid which duplicated the 66 & 67 routes on the heavily used campus free travel zone. The UB2 has yet to return after Covid.
 

mb88

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Outwith the UK:
In Innsbruck, city bus services are lettered*, whilst tram services are numbered (two notable exceptions were bus service 4 (Now 504 - Innsbruck to Hall in Tirol, former tram service 4) and the Stubaitalbahn, which is 'STB' (City running and overland Tram up the Stubai Valley to Fulpmes, formally a seperate system from the city trams and ran without any route number))

* Bus services that were lettered, which run outwith Innsbruck are now numbered
D - 501
E - 502
S - 503
(4- 504)
ST - 590 (Stubai Valley bus)
The Stubaitalbahn makes for a really stunning journey. Must be up there with the most scenic tram journeys in the world.
 

railwaytrack

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The Campus (Free) bus service around the University of York Campus is numbered UB1. There was a UB2 for a couple of years pre-Covid which duplicated the 66 & 67 routes on the heavily used campus free travel zone. The UB2 has yet to return after Covid.
Brighton has both a UB1 and UB2 too. Originally they were operated by Big Lemon then they switched to Compass Bus then they switched to Worthing Coaches who are part of Lucketts Coaches who are part of National Express who are the current operator. However the UB1 and UB2 in Brighton are private contracts only for Brighton University (not Sussex University though) staff and students. Also i think the UB2 has been withdrawn so only the UB1 still operates. It is basically an hourly free service for staff and students that duplicates the public 25 bus which runs at least every five minutes.
 

dazzler

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Brighton has both a UB1 and UB2 too. Originally they were operated by Big Lemon then they switched to Compass Bus then they switched to Worthing Coaches who are part of Lucketts Coaches who are part of National Express who are the current operator. However the UB1 and UB2 in Brighton are private contracts only for Brighton University (not Sussex University though) staff and students. Also i think the UB2 has been withdrawn so only the UB1 still operates. It is basically an hourly free service for staff and students that duplicates the public 25 bus which runs at least every five minutes.

I forgot to mention that the UB1 (and UB2) in York are/were operated by First York under contract to the University and are available for anyone to use, not just University staff & students. The UB1 operates every 30 minutes during the day using one of the Park&Ride electric single deckers (apart from one journey early afternoon when they charge the bus!). The UB2 was operated as part of a 66, 67, UB2 circuit (when a 66 terminated at the Sport Village, it became a UB2. When that got back to the Sport Village, it became a 67, etc.)
 

61653 HTAFC

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In Huddersfield, the "free town bus" service is simply called that- though on displays that have to show something as a "route number" (on both vehicles and next bus displays at stops) it is displayed as "FTB".
However this service is the successor to the old WYPTE/Yorkshire Rider 333 "Shop Hopper" service from the 1980s. As a result of this, when it was operated by K-Line, vehicles would sometimes show up displaying "333".
 

Roger1973

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Incidentally Liverpool was H ; L was used for Limited Stop services, such as the L1 Chester-Caernarfon Cymru Coastliner.

oops. I remembered that bit wrong.

London had an RV1 for a few years too, & London has EL1, EL2, & EL3.

Contractually and administratively, the night service on the EL1 is NEL1 (although in common with most London '24 hour routes' the public facing bits show EL1 to match the day service.)

There are of course some London night routes that are N then 3 numbers.

One other former operator who used route letters not numbers was Reading Mainline - I understand this broadly followed a sequence of route letters used (but not shown on vehicles) by Reading Corporation before they adopted route numbers in the 1960s.
 

Dai Corner

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Bristol had the 'City Centre Circle' which did what it said on the specially made boards mounted over the destination blinds, linking Temple Meads station, the shopping areas and major car parks.
 

67thave

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The Stirling Uni shuttle run by First is "numbered" UL

Outwith the UK:
In Innsbruck, city bus services are lettered*, whilst tram services are numbered (two notable exceptions were bus service 4 (Now 504 - Innsbruck to Hall in Tirol, former tram service 4) and the Stubaitalbahn, which is 'STB' (City running and overland Tram up the Stubai Valley to Fulpmes, formally a seperate system from the city trams and ran without any route number))

* Bus services that were lettered, which run outwith Innsbruck are now numbered
D - 501
E - 502
S - 503
(4- 504)
ST - 590 (Stubai Valley bus)

Vienna still has 2 of it's lettered Tram routes remaining the D and O
Vienna also used to have tram routes 5/31 and 31/5 (placement journeys which were part of routes 5 and route 31), likewise, 60/62 was another

I remember when I was in Rome many moons ago, all the suburban bus routes that didn't go into the city centre were all 0xx route numbers
Similarly, many American cities opt for route letters instead of numbers. Examples include Tallahassee, Davis (California), and State College (Pennsylvania).
Two major cities have both numbered bus routes and lettered bus routes - Philadelphia and Miami. In the case of the former, this is because the PTC (the city's former transit operator) used letters for bus routes and numbers for streetcar routes and some bus routes managed to somehow avoid having their letter replaced with a number after SEPTA took over. In the case of the latter, it is because the previous operator in Miami Beach used letters for its bus routes and Miami-Dade Transit kept the letters after it took over (though they also use numbers in the 1xx series on these routes alongside the letters).

WMATA (Washington) has possibly the most confusing numbering scheme of any American agency. The rough breakdown is as follows:
Numbered routes - Old streetcar lines
Alphanumeric routes starting with a letter (example - N2) - Other bus routes in DC and Maryland
Alphanumeric routes starting with a number (example - 38B) - Bus routes in Virginia
Sometimes, all routes starting with one digit or letter share an alignment (examples include the N-series buses along Massachusetts Avenue and the 7x series buses along Georgia Avenue). In other instances, routes with similar alphanumeric codes are nowhere near each other (the best example of this is the B-series buses, which are mostly concentrated in the suburb of Bowie, but there is also a B-series route within the district proper).

The most interesting scheme for naming routes, however, has to be Rapid City, South Dakota. Here, bus routes do not have numbers or letters - they're named after famous people connected to Mount Rushmore.
 

Mal

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oops. I remembered that bit wrong.



Contractually and administratively, the night service on the EL1 is NEL1 (although in common with most London '24 hour routes' the public facing bits show EL1 to match the day service.)

There are of course some London night routes that are N then 3 numbers.

One other former operator who used route letters not numbers was Reading Mainline - I understand this broadly followed a sequence of route letters used (but not shown on vehicles) by Reading Corporation before they adopted route numbers in the 1960s.
Reading Mainline operated routes A, B, C, D, E, F, H, J and X.

One oddity was Gt Yarmouth Corporation who operated routes 1 - 8 to the north and west of the town and routes A, B, C, D, E and F to different parts of Gorleston. Route G was a circle route, more a tour of Gt Yarmouth.
 
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Statto

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Lothian night routes start with N, even they mostly follow the exact day route, but Lothian night routes have separate fares, although you can use Lothian Late ticket & network ticket on the Lothian night routes
 

Jordan Adam

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Perhaps not exactly what the original poster is looking for but First Aberdeen's Service 1B has the destination displays programmed to show "1-B", this was done after people started mixing up the 1B and the 18!

 
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