tbtc
Veteran Member
What examples are there of modern bus routes that have a route number that once made a lot of sense but now stands out as a bit of an oddity?
Some networks have a nice and simple numbering system, with no oddities. The Xplore Dundee routes are all between 1-33 (ignoring School services/ tenders), nice and easy to remember. Other than the 100 to the Airport, Lothian Buses got things down to 1-49 (before their adventures into East/ West Lothian, and creation of the 200/300/400 for the suburban Airport routes).
But in other places, there’s one or two routes that have a number that made sense in the past but all the other routes have been renumbered, leaving them a bit out on their own.
Is there a town where all routes have numbers under fifty apart from one that is numbered in the nineties? Or a route like the 37A which retains its suffix even though there’s no 37?
For example, here in Sheffield, at deregulation, long distance bus routes generally used to be the “two hundred and something”. But over the years they’ve either been given an “x” (the 277/278 to Doncaster became the X78, the 205/216 etc to Dinnington became the X5) or lower numbers (the 238/239 to Penistone is now the 29, the 265/271 to Barnsley/ Wombwell is now the 2/2A, the 201/202/203 to Chesterfield is now the 43/44) or withdrawn as long distance/ cross boundary services became uneconomic (the 287 to Maltby, the 258 to Thorpe Hesley, the 240 to Bakewell, the 251/252 to Killamarsh). This leaves the 272 (Sheffield to Castleton) as a bit of an oddity, the one remaining long distance route that kept its number (there are a handful of other routes into the Peak District like the 218 to Chatsworth and the 256/257/258 towards Ladybower but these are “new” numbers, I’m only talking about long established unchanged route numbers here)
Similarly, in the late 1980s, local independent “sut” numbered most of their routes 1X0, so the 100 was City - Darnell, the 120 was City - Crystal Peaks, the 130 was City - Herdings. After they were bought by SYT, Yorkshire Terrier picked up some of the routes (although the 100 became the easier to remember 10), and over the years the 120 was slowly extended further west, so that by the time Stagecoach took over Yorkshire Traction (owners of ‘Terrier), the 120 was a flagship route (with a 123 paralleling much of it). So successful was the western link to the University/ Hallamshire Hospital that Mainline/ First tried a number of things to compete directly (extending the 41 cross city, renumbering the long established 60 to create a 40/41/42/44/49 cross city corridor) until First decided that “if you can’t beat them, join them” and withdrew their own services to run all east-west buses as the 120. Today, the two operators co-ordinate (“bus partnership”) and the 120 is the most frequent single service in Sheffield, but a bit of an oddity in a city where all other city routes have much lower numbers, and a number tinkered with in recent years to make Barnsley Road services single digit
A few years ago in Fife the St. Andrews - Leuchars - Tayport - Dundee service was the 42, which stuck out like a sore thumb given that other services from St Andrews to Leuchars were the 92/94/99 (and the 95/ 97/ 98 being other St Andrews routes). In organised 1980s Fife, forty-something numbers used to be for the triangle in between Leven/ Kirkcaldy/ Glenrothes (Windygates/ Markinch area), so the 40 was Kirkcaldy- Markinch- Cupar, the 41/46 were Kirkcaldy - Windygates - Cupar - Wormit - Dundee, the 43/47 were Leven - Windygates - Markinch - Glenrothes, the 45 was Leven - Windygates - Stratheden, the 48/49 were a Leven - Windygates circular). But around 1990 the 53 which ran Cupar -Tayport- Dundee was renumbered 42 to tie in with the 41/46 from Cupar to Dundee. Then, later, the 41/46 truncated at Cupar with the 42 increased in frequency to maintain the Cupar - Dundee frequency (nothing via Wormit). Changes on the St Andrews - Dundee corridor saw the frequency via Tayport reduced (more buses running direct instead) and the 42 became coordinated with the 96 (St Andrews - Tayport -Dundee). Then, to highlight the similar nature of the routes, the 96 was renumbered 42A. Until the time when the 42 was replaced by a faster Cupar- Dundee route that avoided Tayport, and the St Andrews 42A renumbered 42, meaning that it had no connection to any of the other forty-something services, but inherited the number through a series of changes over the years
Twixt Tyne and Wear, the Stagecoach services linking their urban networks in South Shields and Sunderland are the E1/E2/E6. At first glance that seems strange because neither the South Shields nor Sunderland networks use prefixes (other than a couple of “x” routes that are express). There’s not a 1/2/6 operated by Stagecoach in South Shields or Sunderland. But it’s the legacy of these being run by/ inherited from “Economic”, who started all of their services with an “E”. Not something your average Punter might realise in 2022.
What other routes appear to have unusual/ non- sequential numbers (but there’s a historic reason)? Is there a town that embraced the late ‘80s fad for changing all local routes to single letters, where everything has gone back to a proper number apart from the “C”? Or where a short route is the six hundred and something because it was once a cross border service, now truncated to a shadow of its former self?
TL;DR version: Oxbow lakes are former bends in rivers, where the river has taken a faster course over time, leaving a partly dried up/ stagnant pool behind. What examples are there of bus routes that once made sense as part of a logical network but now seem peculiar (because everything else around them has changed)?
Some networks have a nice and simple numbering system, with no oddities. The Xplore Dundee routes are all between 1-33 (ignoring School services/ tenders), nice and easy to remember. Other than the 100 to the Airport, Lothian Buses got things down to 1-49 (before their adventures into East/ West Lothian, and creation of the 200/300/400 for the suburban Airport routes).
But in other places, there’s one or two routes that have a number that made sense in the past but all the other routes have been renumbered, leaving them a bit out on their own.
Is there a town where all routes have numbers under fifty apart from one that is numbered in the nineties? Or a route like the 37A which retains its suffix even though there’s no 37?
For example, here in Sheffield, at deregulation, long distance bus routes generally used to be the “two hundred and something”. But over the years they’ve either been given an “x” (the 277/278 to Doncaster became the X78, the 205/216 etc to Dinnington became the X5) or lower numbers (the 238/239 to Penistone is now the 29, the 265/271 to Barnsley/ Wombwell is now the 2/2A, the 201/202/203 to Chesterfield is now the 43/44) or withdrawn as long distance/ cross boundary services became uneconomic (the 287 to Maltby, the 258 to Thorpe Hesley, the 240 to Bakewell, the 251/252 to Killamarsh). This leaves the 272 (Sheffield to Castleton) as a bit of an oddity, the one remaining long distance route that kept its number (there are a handful of other routes into the Peak District like the 218 to Chatsworth and the 256/257/258 towards Ladybower but these are “new” numbers, I’m only talking about long established unchanged route numbers here)
Similarly, in the late 1980s, local independent “sut” numbered most of their routes 1X0, so the 100 was City - Darnell, the 120 was City - Crystal Peaks, the 130 was City - Herdings. After they were bought by SYT, Yorkshire Terrier picked up some of the routes (although the 100 became the easier to remember 10), and over the years the 120 was slowly extended further west, so that by the time Stagecoach took over Yorkshire Traction (owners of ‘Terrier), the 120 was a flagship route (with a 123 paralleling much of it). So successful was the western link to the University/ Hallamshire Hospital that Mainline/ First tried a number of things to compete directly (extending the 41 cross city, renumbering the long established 60 to create a 40/41/42/44/49 cross city corridor) until First decided that “if you can’t beat them, join them” and withdrew their own services to run all east-west buses as the 120. Today, the two operators co-ordinate (“bus partnership”) and the 120 is the most frequent single service in Sheffield, but a bit of an oddity in a city where all other city routes have much lower numbers, and a number tinkered with in recent years to make Barnsley Road services single digit
A few years ago in Fife the St. Andrews - Leuchars - Tayport - Dundee service was the 42, which stuck out like a sore thumb given that other services from St Andrews to Leuchars were the 92/94/99 (and the 95/ 97/ 98 being other St Andrews routes). In organised 1980s Fife, forty-something numbers used to be for the triangle in between Leven/ Kirkcaldy/ Glenrothes (Windygates/ Markinch area), so the 40 was Kirkcaldy- Markinch- Cupar, the 41/46 were Kirkcaldy - Windygates - Cupar - Wormit - Dundee, the 43/47 were Leven - Windygates - Markinch - Glenrothes, the 45 was Leven - Windygates - Stratheden, the 48/49 were a Leven - Windygates circular). But around 1990 the 53 which ran Cupar -Tayport- Dundee was renumbered 42 to tie in with the 41/46 from Cupar to Dundee. Then, later, the 41/46 truncated at Cupar with the 42 increased in frequency to maintain the Cupar - Dundee frequency (nothing via Wormit). Changes on the St Andrews - Dundee corridor saw the frequency via Tayport reduced (more buses running direct instead) and the 42 became coordinated with the 96 (St Andrews - Tayport -Dundee). Then, to highlight the similar nature of the routes, the 96 was renumbered 42A. Until the time when the 42 was replaced by a faster Cupar- Dundee route that avoided Tayport, and the St Andrews 42A renumbered 42, meaning that it had no connection to any of the other forty-something services, but inherited the number through a series of changes over the years
Twixt Tyne and Wear, the Stagecoach services linking their urban networks in South Shields and Sunderland are the E1/E2/E6. At first glance that seems strange because neither the South Shields nor Sunderland networks use prefixes (other than a couple of “x” routes that are express). There’s not a 1/2/6 operated by Stagecoach in South Shields or Sunderland. But it’s the legacy of these being run by/ inherited from “Economic”, who started all of their services with an “E”. Not something your average Punter might realise in 2022.
What other routes appear to have unusual/ non- sequential numbers (but there’s a historic reason)? Is there a town that embraced the late ‘80s fad for changing all local routes to single letters, where everything has gone back to a proper number apart from the “C”? Or where a short route is the six hundred and something because it was once a cross border service, now truncated to a shadow of its former self?
TL;DR version: Oxbow lakes are former bends in rivers, where the river has taken a faster course over time, leaving a partly dried up/ stagnant pool behind. What examples are there of bus routes that once made sense as part of a logical network but now seem peculiar (because everything else around them has changed)?
