Crystal Peaks Contact Problems Crystal Peaks is a small (by today's standards) shopping mall, part of the Mosborough "new town" development on the south eastern edge of Sheffield. It is not unpleasant but its emporia are definitely in the lower leagues of retail quality.  There have been a couple of contact problems recently and fbb does not mean phone or internet connectivity. Approaching from the north ... ... there is a left hand turn leading to the extensive car parks. ... while the buses have their exclusive bit of road leading to the bus station.  The car park access road ..read more

Wolf Cub Weird Connections? fbb used to be a Wolf Cub, carefully adjusting his woggle and chanting "dib dib dib" with enthusiasm and vitality! He even managed to win a few badges but cannot remember what they were. The UK version of the wolf ... ... and her cubs caused a bit of worry at Brighton Station recently as she had set up shop under a shed quite close to the side rail electrified lines. Where is this supposedly public transport blog going?  Well, what seems like a decade ago, fbb ordered a tank wagon for his collection. The manufacturer was Dapol and the wagon was an "A ..read more

45 Years Ago! In 1979 fbb was Head of RE at Hinde House Comprehensive School and enjoying almost every minute. The National Bus Company had settled down to to some sort of stability and privatisation was simply not on anyone's agenda.  The NBC had introduced a standard design of timetable book ... Even the former London Transport country buses had succumbed If your company followed the NBC guidance fully, you would include train services (on pale blue paper), express services on yellow and other operators' routes as well.  There was provision for a standard design of map to be i ..read more

We Go To 2 and 2A, Too Although the heading says its terminus is Newton, the last time point is Slade Road. Is that the same place? Even more confusing is the inbound route which seems to have some extra point times. Note that outbound the Oystermouth stop is at "Castle" whist inbound it is Mumbles Oystermouth Square. Is that the same as just plain Oystermouth Square? But then we turn to the much better timetables accessed via (helpfully) the "route maps" link; and we find outbound buses now terminating at .. ... Picketts Mead (W) and, again, the inbound timetable ... ... showing differe ..read more

It Seemed A Good Idea At The Time In 2017 bus routes to The Mumbles (area) were flashed yellow and (possibly) branded "Metro". Basically there was a 2 & 2A mixed up with a 3 & 3A with different destinations on different day sets, usually evenings and Sundays, Because of the yellow colour on the old map it is too much of a challenge for fbb to try and sort them out, especially without the timetables that have long since been replaced. But, to save you much investigation, the routes that replace the Mumbles Railway ... ... are still the 2 & 2A, 3 & 3A in 2024 - although there ..read more

  In yesterday's blog, fbb was pleased to recognise that First Cymru ... ... had not been tarnished by the dreaded "AI" timetables. Indeed you would be hard pressed, unless you knew, to see any evidence of First Bus in the city. The red is very striking compared with the old days ... ... or the older days ... ... or the much older days ... ... or the very very old days. Indeed the last bus fbb rode upon was a dark red one from the University to Mumbles Pier. He was a student at Sheffield Uni and attending a very boring National Union of Students annual conference. The time before ..read more

Abertawe Implies AI Actually Ignored Most sensibl bus peole are still reeling from the Absolute Insanity of First Bus' Appalling Investment of £4 million on Artificial Intelligence software to manage their timeables. The results were, as can be seen above, Astoundingly Incompetent an delivered Amazingly Impossible timetables. A recent glance at First Cyyru in Swansea (Abertawe In Welsh) found services running at sensible fixed intervals, but shown on weyord PDF timetable pages. So when fbb read that times were a-changing in May "to improve reliability", his heart sank! This was First's A ..read more

1955 - The Dawn Of A New Age It seemed a good idea at the time. After the damage and decay of the wartime years, it was obvious that omething had to be done with Britain's railway network. The Modernisation Plan was published in 1954 ... ... re-appraised in 1959 then reviewed in 1961 ... ... and reviewed again in 1962. finally came ... ... and its controversial but apparently necessary results. Part of the 1954 plan was to equip the network with diesels; and, to achieve this, fourteen different types were ordered "for evaluation". Then panic set in and more and more diesels were ordered ev ..read more

This Man Had A No(ta)tion! His name was Frederick Mathvan Whyte (1865 to 1941). He came up with a cunning plan to classify the wheel arrangement of every possible type of railway steam locomotive and it was a plan adopted world wide. Those of "a certain age" know it so well that it is hard to believe that anyone had to invent it. But he did. This particular list was distributed to locomotive builders in 1906. Whyte may well have come up with the names but only a few of those made it into general use, certainly in the UK. Even today steam loco aficionados still refer to Pacific, Mogul and ..read more

And There's More Near Millsands Around 20 years ago, the area to the west of Millsands was mainly warehouse businesses butt for most of the 20th century it had been small industrial manufacturing companies, eg Dixons.  The first bit of development was the building of Sheffield's new Crown Court building (above aerial shot, bottom left). This stood on a road called West Bar which runs across the bottom of the above view. Historically, this was narrow inner city clutter, boty residential and retail. Of course by the mid 1900s auch property was long-since condemned and demolished and th ..read more