Whisky Papa
Member
- Joined
- 8 Aug 2019
- Messages
- 395
The Hebden Bridge - Keighley service ran from at least the 1940s to the early 2000s as a joint venture with many different route numbers, finally settling on 500 by the late 70s (with 501 for extensions to Todmorden briefly). By the 90s it ran Wednesdays (3 journeys) and Saturdays (4 journeys) all year round, with (3) Sunday services being added in Spring and (3) daily services in high summer. There were services just an hour or less apart towards Keighley from the 2 different operators with a much larger gap in the other direction. Metro then tendered for an hourly daily daytime service. Transdev had the advantage as they already operated the commercial 663 which just needed extending so needing 1 extra bus an hour instead of 2. When they won they integrated the service (the 500s had provided a handful of extra journeys on the 663 route). Initially Transdev continued to run the short early and late journeys as 663s before renumbering them all as 500s. Then Transdev renumbered to the current B3.
If I may add a couple of further observations about the 500 service? First, there were some years in the 1990's that it did not operate to/from Todmorden, Metro apparently not being willing to provide a subsidy. Todmorden garage's journeys went dead to Hebden Bridge from the garage, with two dead journeys passing at around 1315 as the first morning trip and first afternoon trip were on separate drivers' duties. I believe Metro came under great pressure from local councillors at the Todmorden end to restore the link, although of course it has been long lost since.
Also, the period of operation did expand even when First were running the service, although I don't think it got to year round. Certainly it ran outside of the summer school holidays, as the two afternoon journeys had about an hour gap between them at the Hebden Bridge (or Todmorden) end, and this was filled by a school journey from Calder High School in Mytholmroyd. I'm sure it was the C88 to Todmorden at one point, and this meant that the service required a double-decker. It was dubbed "Britains highest double-deck bus route" by some journalist, I seem to remember.
However, Todmorden's last Leyland Leopard (8534 in Tod JOC commemorative livery) was a regular performer during school holidays. I also suspect the school changed its hours and the interworking in the afternoon was no longer possible, at which point the three return trips from Todmorden became a single bus working and driver duty on which 8534 became the default vehicle. Sorry I can't be any more specific on dates, but overall I am talking late 1980's through to early 2000's for the above comments.