Bus route numbers

TheGrandWazoo said:

Sadly, it was NYCC pulling the subsidy that meant the X84 was axed on evenings and Sundays as happened over much of the county.

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If Kirkby Lonsdale can run a commercial service between Settle and Skipton, including on Sundays, then surely First should be able to do the same Skipton - Ilkley (where there is no railway competition)

Ken H said:

If Kirkby Lonsdale can run a commercial service between Settle and Skipton, including on Sundays, then surely First should be able to do the same Skipton - Ilkley (where there is no railway competition)

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It'd be nice to see the X84 extended to Grassington (a town that use to have its own railway station) via the current 72 route between Skipton and Grasington, considering that there are no low bridges in the way which would jepodise the useage of a decker. I'd imagine that a direct Grassington to Leeds service would be popular both with walkers as well as with shoppers, it could work with five round trips running roughly every 2 hours.

NorthernSpirit said:

Hasn't that restriction since been removed, therefore the First Day is valid to Skipton?

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It has, but only once the service had reduced to be impossible to commute to a 9-5 job from North of Ilkley.

Ken H said:

If Kirkby Lonsdale can run a commercial service between Settle and Skipton, including on Sundays, then surely First should be able to do the same Skipton - Ilkley (where there is no railway competition)

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Is it commercial or does it receive any external funding (e.g. Dalesbus)?

buslad1988 said:

Up until the mid 2000’s Ipswich Buses ran pretty much an entirely inter-worked town network. Only recently in the past few years have routes been split up due to increased congestion and delays (resulting in increased PVR or reduced frequency).

I’d imagine it was quite confusing for visitors but the locals were used to it - although usually once a year they’d change some route inter-workings.

For example you’d take a 5 or 11 to the Hospital but coming back you’d take a 7 or 15. Most people’s buses to/from home were different numbers too. You might of caught a 8 to town and a 13 home. All quite complicated... and none of the destination blinds would say via Town Centre either!

But still... the good old days! (sigh)

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In tram days, Ipswich Corporation had an ingenious way of displaying eleven single-digit route numbers. As well as using 0, they also used X - the Roman numeral for 10.

Ipswich expanded rapidly in the 1920s and 1930s, a mixture of slum clearance and of agricultural workers moving in from rural Suffolk as farm work became increasingly mechanised. The trolleybuses continued to use single-digit numbers, but as the network grew, particularly in the suburbs to the south-east, suffix letters were introduced (e.g. 2a, 6a/6b). Ironically many of the new workers found jobs with the manufacturers of the very agricultural machinery that had put them out of work in the first place!

It wasn't until after the Second World War that Ipswich went over to double-digit numbers, with new routes 11 and 12 introduced to serve large post-war housing estates at Northgate and Chantry respectively.

As all routes ran to or across the Town Centre, route numbers were effectively irrelevant on the inbound journeys. Buses which were terminating in the Town Centre usually showed a destination only (e.g. TOWER RAMPARTS).

TheGrandWazoo said:

Is it commercial or does it receive any external funding (e.g. Dalesbus)?

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i understand the 2 lancaster - skipton trips are commercial. Well perhaps only between Skipton and Settle.

Prepared to be proven wrong.

In the 1960's, Bradford City Transport used to have bus routes which showed different numbers depending on the direction they were travelling in. For example

75 Fagley - City Centre - Moore Avenue
81 Moore Avenue - City Centre - Fagley

75 Wrose - City Centre - Moore Avenue
76 Moore Avenue - City Centre - Wrose

There were also some workings which were unadvertised in the timetable, viz.

76 Fagley - City Centre - Wrose
81 Wrose - City Centre - Fagley

These were not circulars but cross-city routes travelling east, north and south-west.

A similar policy applied to cross-city buses between Greengates (67), Thorpe Edge (65), Ravenscliffe Avenue (68) (north of the city) and Haworth Road via Smith Lane (69), Haworth Road via Toller Lane (70), Sandy Lane (71) (to the west). When BCT tried to replace these with the bidirectional numbers 29, 32 and 33 passengers got very confused. West-bound passsnegers were told the new numbers reflected where the bus had come from, not where it was going to!

The City Circle was also 1 anti-clockwise and 2 clockwise.

In Hull the EYMS 29/29A/29B circular to Cottingham was numbered 92/92A/92B in the opposite direction.

Old Yard Dog said:

In the 1960's, Bradford City Transport used to have bus routes which showed different numbers depending on the direction they were travelling in.

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That's basically what Nottingham tried unsuccessfully some years later. What you had in Bradford was that buses. regardless of where they came from, to Moore Avenue were a 75, to Wrose a 76 and to Fagley a 81.

Indeed. Another set of cross-city routes was

24 Bradford Moor - Crossflatts
26 Bradford Moor - Bingley
25 Bradford Moor - Saltaire
27 Bradford Moor - Frizinghall
30 Crossflatts or Bingley or Saltaire or Frizinghall or City Centre - Bradford Moor

These trolleybus routes were in essence all the same, the numbers simply reflecting how far the bus actually travelled.

Later BCT timetables allocated the number 27 to football specials to Valley Parade, 47 to Park Avenue and 48 to Odsal Stadium. However I don't recall any of these numbers actually being displayed on vehicles.

Park Avenue had its own trolleybus branch, only used for football specials, with a turning circle outside Horton Park gates. The nearest turning circle to Valley Parade was at Lister Park gates. Odsal lost its trolleybuses in 1940 when the Oakenshaw trackless went.