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Trivia: Major towns and cities with gaps in single-digit route numbers

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PTR 444

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Southampton does not have a 5.
As of January 1st (when Mini-Link to Ringwood is withdrawn).

Prior to the above service starting, the last route 5 in the city was the Bassett Green to Sholing route, withdrawn in 2014 IIRC.
 
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route101

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As of January 1st (when Mini-Link to Ringwood is withdrawn).

Prior to the above service starting, the last route 5 in the city was the Bassett Green to Sholing route, withdrawn in 2014 IIRC.

I see, I was thinking of Bluestar and First.
 

adrock1976

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What's it called? It's called Cumbernauld
In Birmingham, West Midlands Travel had the number range 1-199 (also duplicated in Coventry) for the former Corporation buses.

The only one in the 1-9 range that was missing with no lettered prefixes/suffixes I can think of was the Inner Circle 8A/8C (Birmingham Central).

1 - Acocks Green - Five Ways (Acocks Green).

2 Birmingham - Warstock via Stony Lane (Yardley Wood)

3 Birmingham - Woodgate Valley North (Six Acres) via Five Ways, Harborne, Court Oak Road, and Ridgacre Lane. In 1989/90, this got renumbered to and branded as 103 Centre Link, which broadly ran in an anti-clockwise loop from Paradise Circus as the 101 Centre Bus ran in a clockwise loop (before the 101 was incorporated with the 76 that ran to Oxhill Road/The Leveretts). (Quinton).

4 Birmingham - Cheswick Green via Stratford Road (later revised to run via The Baldwin taking over the S3 that ran to Shirley Station, one or two local minibus routes in the Shirley area, and running to Solihull Station via Tanworth Lane, Cheswick Green, Monkspath, Widney Manor Station, and Solihull Town Centre. There was reports in the local rag the Evening Mail in 1990/91 that the residents in the Hay Lane area of Monkspath kicked up a fuss as the 4 was double deckers, and that passengers on the top deck could see into the upper rooms of their homes. It was switched to the Leyland Lynx single decks, with the Monkspath residents not realising that passengers could see into the lower rooms of their homes. (Yardley Wood).

5 Birmingham - Monkspath (Cranmore Boulevard) via Stratford Road, which operated during shift times at the industrial estates there. (Yardley Wood).

6 Birmingham - Solihull Station via Stratford Road, Blossomfield Road, and Solihull TC. (Yardley Wood).

7 Birmingham - Perry Common via Six Ways Aston, Villa Park, and Witton (Perry Barr).

9 Birmingham - Stourbridge via Five Ways, Hagley Road, Quinton Church, Spies Lane, Halesowen, Colley Gate, and Lye Cross (Quinton and Harts Hill).
 

Trackman

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Currently, the only routes in the range 1-9 serving Manchester city centre are the free inner city shuttle services 1/2/3 and route 8 to Bolton. Routes 7/7A/7B from Ashton to Stockport also cross the Manchester City boundary.
Well, with the No.8 service they renumbered it to the 29 or something (anyone know?) in the early days of GMB. But due to public outcry is was renumbered back to the No.8.
 

DunsBus

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Sheffield:

We had quite a few missing for a number of years, before the "partnership" between First/Stagecoach saw a number of services renumbered and the 1/2/3/4 becoming the services from the City Centre to the Northern General Hospital (to replace routes with much higher numbers)

0. No current service, but we did have "Bus Zero" in the 1990 (Mainline's innovative attempt to compete with taxis in the Student areas, complete with condom machine on board and a route map that only showed pubs/nightclubs with nothing as boring as actual street names!)
1. Currently one of the major cross city routes (Stagecoach's High Green - Batemoor, with First operating a complimenting 1a over half the route) - in older days it was a less frequent service to Longley, always seemed a bit of a strange route to have the number 1
2. Sheffield - Barnsley (the old 165/265 corridor). Probably better known as the number for the long running "outer circle"
3. No. Was a ten minute service before being chopped into the 95 (northern end) and 56 (southern end)
4. The service from Sheffield to the big XPO "shed" near Grimethorpe, I think the only local bus service operating on Christmas Day - only a few journeys a day, to coincide with shift times, but also a handy way of linking Holyand etc with Sheffield (the bus services like the 271 dwindled away over the years, given the train competition, until the XPO place opened and enough people were "commuting" in the other direction to sustain a bus service (I don't know if it's subsidised though)
5. A fairly minor tendered route (City - Grimesthorpe - Firth Park) - Grimesthorpe is not to be confused with the old mining town of Grimethorpe by Barnsley where the 4 goes near. The 5 was the Sunday service to the Strines and other parts of the Peak District in older days
6. Once the Darnall - City replacement for the old 70/71... then became Darnall - City - Fulwood and then Darnall - City Millhouses, now just City - Millhouses (i.e. one of those routes which has continued in operation for decades but has completely changed the route and no longer serves any of the roads it used to)
7. Now a cross-city Stagecoach service (Ecclesfield - Crystal Peaks), once the "other" route that replaced the 70/71 circle
8. First's Ecclesfield - Crystal Peaks service that used to be co-ordinated with the Stagecoach route (until Covid cuts saw both companies tinkering around with their timetables and leaving gaps). For many years the 8 was the "inner circle", albeit one that ran through the city centre
9. Now the Darnall - City replacement for the 6 (i.e. running over the route that the original 6 ran), once the other version of the "inner circle" (although the number 8 was retained for longer)

Until the "partnership" of the last decade or so, we've not had many "frequent" single digit services, most of the higher frequency corridors had numbers between 51-100 - I'm not sure why - even the independent companies who competed with SYT/Mainline either chose services numbers that were identical to or similar to the routes they shadowed or (in the case of sut and Sheafline) went for three digit numbers





@DunsBus beat me to it - the 9 was similar to the 10 other than it ran via the Shore at Leith (instead of Great Junction Street - back in the days when that part of the Port was fairly quiet, before the Civil Service relocation and the 22 running every few minutes) and then later I think that the difference between the 8 and 9 was that one served Polton Mill whilst the other served Bonnyrigg (in the days before the 31 was split from the 33 and extended into Midlothian instead - I think that a lot of northbound journeys were "9A" to show that the service ran via Silverknowes beach after passing Muirhouse)

(Easter Scottish operated a C9 in the 1980s but that's outside the scope of this thread since it had a prefix)



I think that the 7/8 was the cross-city service, before being simplified into one route(?)

(or cross-town service, depending on what you classed Perth as at the time)



That's interesting, given that everything is centrally controlled (and it's not an "unlucky" number like 13 - in fact 8 is quite lucky in some countries)
The difference between the LRT 8/9 was that the 8 served Gilmerton, extending to Polton Mill and Rosewell at peak hours on Mondays to Fridays, whilst the 9 terminated at Hyvots Bank. As you say, the 8A/9A variation served Silverknowes Promenade during the summer on northbound journeys.
 

sk688

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First axed the 9 in both Bath and Bristol in 2020 I think , although not sure if it's count as a gap
 

40129

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Prior to Arriva tinkering and eventually doing it's best to destroy the service, in the 1990s, Shrewsbury town services had an almost complete series from 1-26 (for a short period the only gaps were 17, 23 and 25). At its full extent it was IIRC:

Operated by Midland Red (North) unless stated
1 Monkmoor Circular
2 Monkmoor
3 Belle Vue (Leamore Cresent) (Courtesy Travel)
4 Castlefields (Williamsons Motorways)
5/6 Monkmoor/Harlescott Circular (Minsterley Motors)
7 Litttle Harlescott via Greenfields (Boultons of Shropshire)
8 Sutton Farm
9 Battlefield via Harlescott
10 Harlescott (shorter version of #9)
11 Monkmoor Circular (revese of #1)
12 Kingswood (Williamsons Motorways)
13 Copthorne
14 Sundorne
15 Gains Park
16 Meole Village
18 Meole Estate (short version of #19)
19 Bayston Hill via Meole Estate
20 Radbrook
21 Belvidere
22 Shrewsbury College
24 Sundorne
26 Reabrook (previously Boultons then King Offa Travel)


The current sequence Arriva shambles AFAIK is:

1 Monkmoor
2 Castlefields (formerly 12 and before that 4)
3 Monkmoor/Harlesscott school service
8 Sutton Fsrm
11 Gains Park via Copthorne
12 Kingswood
20 Radbrook
21 Reabrook
23 Monkmoor via Belvidere
24 Sundorne
25 Hsrlescott
26 Meole Brace
27 Bayston Hill
 

berneyarms

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It's not quite a city/town (although it does have a population well over 50,000), but there is no route 8 in Northern Ireland's national Ulsterbus network and I don't think there has ever been one. Every other route number from 1 to 20 exists.

Dublin has no routes 2, 3, 5, or 8.

The following might not quite count as they were converted to 3 digits some time ago, as the real time passenger information system could not facilitate multiple different routes with the same number:

Cork has no (20)4 or (20)6

Limerick has no (30)7, (30)8 or (30)9.

Galway has no route (40)3, (40)6 or (40)8.

Waterford's routes are all prefaced with W (the National Transport Authority's latest fixation is prefacing routes with the first letter of the town/city they serve), but there are no routes (W)6, (W)7, (W)8 or (W)9.

All routes in Derry/Londonderry's Foyle Metro are suffixed, but the network has 13 corridors - numbered 1-14, skipping 7.
Limerick does have a 307 and 308 - they are operated by Dublin Coach. Route 309 is a limited route operated by Kelly Travel.
Waterford has a 607 operated by JJ Kavanagh.
 

AlastairFraser

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Counts for me, as they don't necessarily have to go into the centre. There was a route 2 into Liverpool until fairly recently, operated by both Arriva and Stagecoach, between Liverpool & Chester, but the last route 5 I'm aware of, was years back, in the days of MTL (possibly GTL too but unsure....).

HTH
Is X2 cheating? That is a Stagecoach Merseyside and Sth Lancs services extending from Preston all the way to Queen Square bus station via Southport.

Wycombe only has 1/1A to Chesham/Amersham/Hemel Hempstead (Carousel and Arriva the Shires), 5 to Tylers Green (school bus by Carousel) and the 8 to the High Wycombe Coachway out at M40 J4 Handy Cross (Carousel).
Most of Wycombe's town services are numbered in the 30s.
No 8/9 in Oxford either.
3, 4, 6 and 8 are missing in Swindon.
No 1 or 9 in Slough.
Only the lion 4 from Reading in Brackers' single digit numbering system. Most are in the 1xx series.
4,5 and 7 missing in Preston.
3,5,8 and 9 missing in Blackburn.
No 7 in Burnley.
 
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Fokx

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Counts for me, as they don't necessarily have to go into the centre. There was a route 2 into Liverpool until fairly recently, operated by both Arriva and Stagecoach, between Liverpool & Chester, but the last route 5 I'm aware of, was years back, in the days of MTL (possibly GTL too but unsure....).

HTH
Last #5 was the Arriva service that only lasted a short while around 2006.

Liverpool to Rainhill Stoops via Huyton
 

PTR 444

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Only one of which is actually used in Gosport nowadays - this being the route 9.
Just one example of how First’s fortunes have changed within the region. The 4, 5 and 6 all headed out to Lee on the Solent, but then the 6 direct to Fareham via Newgate Lane was axed and the 4 to Southampton was replaced with an extension of the 5 to Fareham via Stubbington, renumbered as X5. It’s now sometimes quicker to get an E1 or E2 to Fareham and change onto the X5 to Southampton there, rather than take it all the way from Gosport.
 

nw1

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Cambridge has no 1 and two each of 2, 3 and 8.

Norwich has no 7 or 9 and First high frequency routes are all double digit.

Is the 1 still a link from the station to the city centre?
I distinctly remember that from 1993 when Cambus was the local operator.

Also: Winchester?

Last time I took notice of the buses, 1-7 inclusive existed (Stagecoach city routes, plus the Bluestar 1) but I don't think there was/is an 8 or 9. This was from a 1994 renumbering which has remained in place more or less since.
EDIT: also the 6 became the 'Spring' some time ago so presumably there's also not a 6.
 

PTR 444

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Swindon is missing four single digit numbers (3, 4, 6, 8), but it does have an almost full house of ‘teen’ numbers since only an 18 is missing.
 

Gloster

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The Isle of Wight is not a town or city, but is a definable area. Southern Vectis’ main routes are 1 to 9 and 12: there may well have been a 10 and 11 at some time, but not for quite a while.
 

PTR 444

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The Isle of Wight is not a town or city, but is a definable area. Southern Vectis’ main routes are 1 to 9 and 12: there may well have been a 10 and 11 at some time, but not for quite a while.
There was a 10 and 11 until about a decade ago. The 10 ran direct from Newport to Brading via the Downs Road before taking a round-robin route to Sandown via Bembridge. The 11 ran from Newport to Freshwater and Totland via Calbourne and Chessell. Despite being the fastest route to West Wight, almost every village en-route was already adequately served so it made little sense to keep running it through otherwise sparsely populated countryside.
 

nw1

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There was a 10 and 11 until about a decade ago. The 10 ran direct from Newport to Brading via the Downs Road before taking a round-robin route to Sandown via Bembridge. The 11 ran from Newport to Freshwater and Totland via Calbourne and Chessell. Despite being the fastest route to West Wight, almost every village en-route was already adequately served so it made little sense to keep running it through otherwise sparsely populated countryside.

I'm sure I remember during a trip in 2006 that the routes were 1-10 inclusive, no 11 or 12 though I do remember the 11 from further back. The 1, 4 and 5 were single deckers IIRC while all the others were double deckers. Since (2015, last time I was on the island) the East Cowes routes (4 and 5) have also become double deckers, not sure about the 1.

Back in the early 90s there was a more varied selection of lowish numbers up to around 20, I distinctly remember a 16 in 1990 (somewhere along the east coast - operated that day by an elderly VR of around an L registration).

Also, didn't the IoW use an integrated numbering system through the whole island so other operators (Wight Bus was one I remember) used unique numbers rather than duplicate Southern Vectis numbers?
 

Gloster

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I'm sure I remember during a trip in 2006 that the routes were 1-10 inclusive, no 11 or 12 though I do remember the 11 from further back. The 1, 4 and 5 were single deckers IIRC while all the others were double deckers. Since (2015, last time I was on the island) the East Cowes routes (4 and 5) have also become double deckers, not sure about the 1.

Back in the early 90s there was a more varied selection of lowish numbers up to around 20, I distinctly remember a 16 in 1990 (somewhere along the east coast - operated that day by an elderly VR of around an L registration).

Also, didn't the IoW use an integrated numbering system through the whole island so other operators (Wight Bus was one I remember) used unique numbers rather than duplicate Southern Vectis numbers?
The 1 was a single-decker until Covid as the buses went through an arch to reach the Red Funnel terminal: they only just fitted and a double never would. Now the 1 is less frequent, terminates at Cowes Co-op and uses double-deckers. (I have kept paperwork for years that would have answered the 10 and 11 question, but it is still over at the old house.) I think that you are right that SV and the council-owned Wightbus coordinated route numbers. Latterly they were the only operators running on the island, with the possible exception of a couple doing school contracts (Gange’s, etc.).
 

PTR 444

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I'm sure I remember during a trip in 2006 that the routes were 1-10 inclusive, no 11 or 12 though I do remember the 11 from further back.
The 12 IIRC was introduced after the 11 was withdrawn. Before then it was another branch of route 7 which combined with the Shalfleet/Calbourne branches formed a continuous loop of West Wight which took in Brook/Brighstone/Shorwell as well.
 

nw1

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The 1 was a single-decker until Covid as the buses went through an arch to reach the Red Funnel terminal: they only just fitted and a double never would. Now the 1 is less frequent, terminates at Cowes Co-op and uses double-deckers.
Sounds like going back to the old days: the earliest pattern I remember was in 1990 when they left from a place called Carvel Lane (not sure if that's the same location?) and rather than just the 1, there was a 15-min interval made up of various 1s and 2s with A and B modifiers - all of which then extended beyond Newport to the southeastern resorts. These also were solid double decker, VRs mostly in those days.
 

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The 12 I believe was introduced after the 11 was withdrawn. Before then it was another branch of route 7 which combined with the Shalfleet/Calbourne branches formed a continuous loop of West Wight which took in Brook/Brighstone/Shorwell as well.
There was a 7 with an extremely complicated route. From Newport it took the back road to Wootton and on to Ryde, down the east side to Shanklin and then via Wroxall or Upper Bonchurch to Ventnor. Most circled round (the Wroxall buses were half-hourly, the Upper Bonchurch ones not) and came back to Shanklin (and on to Newport via Ryde), but a few went along the coast to Freshwater and Totland before returning to Newport direct: I think they went either via Shalfleet or via Calbourne. As the Freshwater-Newport-Ryde-Wroxall-Ventnor section was half-hourly regular interval, it mustn’t have involved some careful planning to fit the Ventnor-Freshwater section in.
 

PTR 444

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Sounds like going back to the old days: the earliest pattern I remember was in 1990 when they left from a place called Carvel Lane (not sure if that's the same location?) and rather than just the 1, there was a 15-min interval made up of various 1s and 2s with A and B modifiers - all of which then extended beyond Newport to the southeastern resorts.
The 1 used to extend to Ryde via Fairlee Road before the GSC takeover and the 2 in those days IIRC was a Cowes - Sandown/Shanklin service. I think today’s arrangement of changing at Newport is much better as it avoids importing congestion from multiple routes in and out of town.

A few years ago, SV experimented with an amended route 1 which saw both branches diverted via Three Gates Road before continuing via the route of the opposite branch (it looked a bit like a figure of 8 on the map). One of these branches was rebranded as RED1 and only used single deckers as it served the Red Jet terminal, while the other remained as 1 and used double deckers terminating at Carvel Lane. This change was reversed only a year after it was implemented but I’m not quite sure why.
 

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Sounds like going back to the old days: the earliest pattern I remember was in 1990 when they left from a place called Carvel Lane (not sure if that's the same location?) and rather than just the 1, there was a 15-min interval made up of various 1s and 2s with A and B modifiers - all of which then extended beyond Newport to the southeastern resorts. These also were solid double decker, VRs mostly in those days.
When I moved here in 2003 there were 2 and 3 (both Olympians?) which went from Cowes Co-op to Newport and then on to form the service up the east coast to Ryde. (Carvel Lane is an alternative name for the Co-op stop, but I don’t know if it has been moved due to rebuilding.) There was also another service, possibly 1, that was single decker as it went into the Red Funnel terminal and was semi-fast (only four or five stops?) to Newport and then a normal bus to Bembridge via Ryde.

The 1 used to extend to Ryde via Fairlee Road before the GSC takeover and the 2 in those days IIRC was a Cowes - Sandown/Shanklin service. I think today’s arrangement of changing at Newport is much better as it avoids importing congestion from multiple routes in and out of town.
At the time it was stated that the aim was to avoid late running extending across Newport.
A few years ago, SV experimented with an amended route 1 which saw both branches diverted via Three Gates Road before continuing via the route of the opposite branch (it looked a bit like a figure of 8 on the map). One of these branches was rebranded as RED1 and only used single deckers as it served the Red Jet terminal, while the other remained as 1 and used double deckers terminating at Carvel Lane. This change was reversed only a year after it was implemented but I’m not quite sure why.
The 1 has settled down, but there was a period around fifteen years ago when they seemed to muck it about at every timetable change.
 

ashkeba

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Is the 1 still a link from the station to the city centre?
It seems to be back now. Maybe it was just missing due to covid. It is Kings Hedges to Fulbourn. It could be used as a station to centre link but so can many others.
 
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