Further Sheffield bus numbering nonsense

I’ve previously written on this blog about oddities in the numbering of bus routes in the Sheffield area. That post focussed specifically on routes 271 and 272. But some recent service changes have introduced more oddities in how routes are numbered, predominantly concerning the application of suffix letters.

But first, let’s discuss a change which has actually removed a situation similar to the one with the 271/272 (in fact, arguably more ridiculous). In fact, I was considering writing about it in that previous post, but figured it was already long enough.

The 257…a - and b - and c

Until a recent the timetable change, the service number 257 was essentially used by Hulley’s of Baslow for all of their buses that leave Sheffield along the A57 through Broomhill and Crosspool towards the Peak District.

On Monday to Saturday this was just about acceptable - all 257s followed the same basic route from Sheffield to Bamford, then continued, by some route or other, to Bakewell. (There were three variations of the route to Bakewell, though, which is suboptimal).

On Sunday, though, the route was completely different, turning off before Bamford and crossing the Snake Pass to serve Glossop, Hayfield, New Mills, Whaley Bridge and Chapel-en-le-Frith - none of which have buses to Sheffield on any other day of the week - on a rather roundabout route to a terminus at Castleton (or, according to a previous version of the Travel South Yorkshire timetable leaflet, “Castleon”.)

This was an insane state of affairs, so it is nice to see that since 11th May, the numbering of the 257 has been split, with the three Monday-to-Saturday-only routes to Bakewell now called 257, 257a and 257b, and the Sunday-only route called 257c.I also note that the way that they’ve allocated the numbers means the 257b services Bradwell, and of course the 257c serves Castleton, which is reminiscent of how I suggested the 271 and 272 should be renumbered:

Buses on the “normal” route have route number 272, so I would expect related numbers for the detours. Perhaps “272a” and “272b”. If done in that order, the “B” for “Bradwell” even acts as a neat little mnemonic. (You could even have “272b” and “272h” if you wanted).

That’s not to suggest that someone from Hulley’s has actually read this blog post and then decided to renumber their bus routes off the back of it (though in the extremely unlikely case that is what happened, I’d love for those involved to let me know - my mailbox site-admin@thebowstones.net is open!), and I’m aware that the choice of letters may purely be a coincidence, but in any case it’s nice to see things lining up well like this.

It’s a shame Hulley’s hasn’t actually applied this treatment to the 271 and 272, but that will undoubtedly be harder if the aim is also to coordinate with First to make the route numbers match up.

It’s the 120. K?

The neighbouring county of Derbyshire has funded an extension of one bus per hour on First South Yorkshire route 120 to the village of Killamarsh. This service has been given the number 120k. “k” is not very common as a suffix letter, but it does make sense (presumably it stands for “Killamarsh”).

The 120 and now the 120k run through Sheffield, serving Frecheville, Manor Top, the city centre and university, Broomhill, Ranmoor and Fulwood, and I’d bet if it weren’t for the renumbering, most passengers would be unaware that the Killamarsh extension had even happened. As it stands, though, it’s been rather noticeable, as dozens of bus stops all through the city along the existing 120 route have had to be updated to include the 120k as an entry separate from the standard 120.

The major oddity here, though, is that the 120 already had two termini at each end - with the exception of evenings and Sundays, First runs from Fulwood to Crystal Peaks and Stagecoach runs from Ranmoor to Halfway. But none of these had suffix letters to indicate the variants - passengers were simply expected to check the bus destination. I would argue if Killamarsh gets its own number, then the other destinations should too.

What’s the deal with Loxley?

Stagecoach route 52 and First route 52a are essentially the same route, running from Woodhouse to Hillsborough. Their numbers are based on the fact that they take different routes at the Woodhouse end.

However, at the Hillsborough end, the routes also differ. On evenings and Sundays, 52s run all the way to Hillsborough Interchange, and at other times they turn off and do a short loop around Heavygate Avenue in Crookes instead. Buses on the 52a mainly run to Hillsborough Interchange - except as of a few weeks ago, some of them now continue to Wisewood and Loxley. This means that route 52a - a number which implies it is itself a variant of route 52 - has two separate variants.

I’m not sure why the Loxley services (and the Crookes ones for that matter) didn’t get their own number. I suppose the logic is that both routes serve slightly different parts of the same place, so a different number is needed, whereas at the other end, you can tell the variants apart by the name of the destination so it’s not needed. (I suppose that could also apply to the 120, at least to some extent). But the lack of consistency here is a little annoying.