Category: PUBlic Transport

1 September sees changes to some Sheffield bus routes following the public consultation last month previously featured in this column. There have been some tweaks following the consultation such as the 6 continuing to serve Greystones and the Walkley buses retaining the traditional 95 number. Some further changes are coming up in October which will be the Chesterfield based buses and at the time of writing this was still at consultation, the only proposals affecting Sheffield is a change to the X17 route near Meadowhall and a renumbering of the 43a to 42.

The biggest changes are in North and East Sheffield, all the details can be found at travelsouthyorkshire.com.

The summer rail replacement works on Supertram conclude on 1 September, however there will be some weekend engineering works in September and October, check their website for details.

So, what are the headlines in terms of going to the pub? Well, the Greystones pub becomes easier to get to with bus 82 (Stannington to Millhouses) changing its route to run via Greystones and this bus has an evening service! The buses serving the Harlequin near Kelham Island are changing, with the 95/95a replaced by the 75/75a (Jordanthorpe to Chapeltown/Fox Hill) – the 7/8 and 83 continue to serve the area with a revised timetable. Those travelling in an evening wanting to get to/from Worrall, Oughtibridge, Deepcar and Stocksbridge will be pleased to see an evening service introduced to route 57a. Travel to the Wisewood Inn on a Sunday becomes possible on the new timetables too with the 52a extended up beyond Hillsborough to Loxley 7 days a week although evening service remains limited to the rural bus 61/62.

There are still frustrations with the bus network and the mayor’s priorities with a lack of funding available for evening and Sunday tendered services, for example Bradway doesn’t have any buses in an evening whilst Nether Edge gets a bus once every 2 hours!

During July bus operators have been holding a consultation on proposed changes to bus timetables and routes from 1 September to reflect demand building back up differently post covid.

Bus route 8 from Ecclesfield to Birley will be split with some journeys running to Dyke Vale Road instead of Birley Lane tram stop, replacing route 41 which will be withdrawn. The 8/8a from Crystal Peaks is withdrawn and replaced by new local minibus services M44/M45.

The 1a and 11 Herdings to Chapeltown will be withdrawn with the 47/48 Herdings-Shiregreen making a comeback with changes to the 75 replacing the 1a to Chapeltown.

The 95/95a is also to be withdrawn with the Meadowhall end of the route replaced by changes to the 75 whilst Walkley will be served by new routes 54/55/55a which will run from Walkley to Handsworth via Sheffield Parkway then continuing to either Rotherham via Treeton (replacing withdrawn route 73) or to Crystal Peaks via either Aston or Woodhouse.

Greystones gets a better service with route 82 diverted that way with the 6 changed to run more directly on Ecclesall Road instead of via Greystones.

On route 52 buses will be extended beyond Crookes to Hillsborough all day whilst on the 52a there will be an improved Loxley/Wisewood service including the introduction of a Sunday service.

There are changes to the 88 Ecclesfield to Bents Green with increased frequencies and a different route in the Firth Park area.

Stocksbridge and Worrall see some improvement too with the 57a running later into the evening.

The 41, 42, X54 and X74 are both withdrawn and replaced by a new network of routes numbered 70/70a/71/71a.

South Pennine Community Transport will be running a series of one day a week buses from Holmfirth – Monday to Meadowhall, Wednesday to Castleton and Thursday to Hillsborough

More information at travelsouthyorkshire.com.

Meanwhile Supertram has a programme of rail replacement works over the summer holidays as follows:

• 20 July to 2 August: Blue route closed between Gleadless Townend and Halfway with trams running to Herdings Park instead of Halfway. Replacement buses to connect Gleadless to Halfway.
• 3 August to 11 August: Blue and Purple route closed between Sheffield Station and Herdings Park. The Blue route to operate in two parts with replacement buses running Sheffield City Centre to Gleadless to connect.
• 12 August to 1 September: Yellow route closed between Hillsborough and Middlewood with trams running to Malin Bridge instead of Middlewood.

There is also expected to be some disruption to Tram Train services to Rotherham at weekends from September onwards as work begins to build a new station at Magna, which the joint SYMCA/Network Rail project team are aiming to have ready for the summer 2025 National Rail timetable commencing next May.

More information at supertram.com.

Meanwhile on the Derbyshire buses there is some disruption caused by long term roadworks affecting bus 272 in Bradwell and bus 65 in Grindleford until September, altered timetables at derbysbus.info.

The weekend of 11-13 May sees some changes to Derbyshire buses.

In Killamarsh service 80 to Chesterfield has a change of operator and route, with First South Yorkshire replacing Hulleys of Baslow. A direct bus to Sheffield is once again introduced with First bus 120k – this is the existing 120 with one bus an hour extended beyond Crystal Peaks. Timetables are available from Derbyshire County Council at derbysbus.info

In the Peak District Stagecoach’s Peak Sightseer open top bus service makes a return for 2024, this time with two routes – Blue route from Chatsworth to Castleton on an hourly frequency and Red route from Chatsworth to Bakewell every half hour. There are also some feeder trips at the start and end of day with pick ups at Meadowhead, Woodseats, Ecclesall and Totley. The ticket price this year is £9.50 for an adult or £25 for a group of 5 people with discounts offered for concessionary pass holders and Wayfarer ticket holders. The ticket is a “Gold DayRider” offering all day unlimited hop-on-hop-off travel on the Peak Sightseer services plus all other Stagecoach buses in the area. More information online at stagecoachbus.com

Also in our area with less significant timetable or route changes are buses 65, 208, 257, 272 and X17 whilst on Supertram there is engineering work from 25 May to 2 June – details at travelsouthyorkshire.com.

A new Demand Responsive bus service has launched in North East Derbyshire called Travel Derbyshire On Demand, funded by the county council’s bus service improvement plan.

This is a minibus service operated by Derbyshire Community Transport that is open to all and is designed to cater for journeys not served by regular scheduled buses. The fare is a flat £4 per ride for adults (Derbyshire Wayfarer tickets also accepted) and you need to book your journey in advance either on their app or on the phone. The system then designs a bus route around all the passengers wanting to travel around that time.

This bus is available for pretty much any journey within North East Derbyshire and operates on weekdays between 7am and 7pm and on Saturdays between 8am and 5pm.

The area of operation stretches from Dronfield, Ridgeway and Eckington in the north down as far south as Alfreton. There’s some good rural pubs in that area this bus could be useful for getting to in an afternoon!

For more information, including a link to download the app, visit their website roadxs.com/travel-derbyshire-on-demand/ or phone 01773 317173.

In other news, the Sheffield City Centre “Sheffield Connect” bus service sees improvements from 8 April. The existing service will be numbered SC1 and operate longer hours – 7am to 7pm – and a second route, SC2 will be introduced running from Sheffield Interchange to the Moor then along Arundel Gate, down to Millsands (for Kelham Island) and back to the Interchange via Castlegate and Flat Street. At the same time the existing minibuses are due to be replaced with electric single deckers too.

Both the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA) and First bus recently consulted on changes to some bus services from 7 April. Routes in Sheffield affected include 10, 10a, 24, 31, 32, 52a, 58, 72, 72a, 73, 97, 135, 137, M92, X1, X5, X10, X78. If you use those services check before travelling!

Supertram changes operator from 22 March with Stagecoach’s operating concession coming to an end. A new publicly owned company (controlled at arms length by SYMCA) will take over as the new operator. There are no changes to services planned initially but there will be some changes to ticketing with it no longer being a Stagecoach service. Supertram runs on four routes – Blue route from Halfway to Malin Bridge, Purple route from Herdings Park to Sheffield City Centre, Yellow route from Middlewood to Meadowhall and Tram Train from Sheffield to Parkgate via Rotherham Central. The maximum single fare is currently £2.80 and various unlimited travel passes are also available.

Although there has been plenty of talk recently about cuts to bus services in South Yorkshire that happened in the last year or two, mainly due to the South Yorkshire Mayor not having sufficient budget to support as many non-commercial bus services and subsidised fares that he’d like to it is worth reminding there has been good news when it comes to buses into Derbyshire with the County Council implementing their Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) they successfully won government funding for. From Sheffield this includes route X17 with more buses to Matlock, an hourly extension via Matlock Bath to Wirksworth and an evening service between Sheffield and Chesterfield; route 218 gaining an evening service between Sheffield and Bakewell; route 272 gaining a later last bus from Sheffield to Castleton on Fridays and Saturdays; extension of Sunday journeys on route 257 beyond Yorkshire Bridge to Glossop and Castleton; extension of evening and Sunday journeys on route 44 beyond Dronfield to Chesterfield. Other buses from Sheffield into Derbyshire include the 65 to Buxton, 43 to Chesterfield via Dronfield, 50/50a to Chesterfield via Eckington and 53 to Mansfield via Clowne.

The majority of buses in our area continue to have the £2 maximum single fare offer funded by the government, there are also various unlimited travel passes available.

For public transport information in South Yorkshire visit travelsouthyorkshire.com, for Derbyshire visit derbysbus.info.

Those of you planning on using buses, trams or trains to get to pubs and brewery tap rooms in the coming weeks have some discounted ticket offers to take advantage of, with all the adult tickets in the Travelmaster range discounted.

Travelmaster tickets are accepted by all operators and includes CityBus for all buses in Sheffield and CityWide that includes trams too along with SY Connect that includes all buses and trams in South Yorkshire and SY Connect+ that also includes trains.

For more information and to buy tickets online visit sytravelmaster.com. Day tickets can also be bought from bus drivers and tram conductors or on the First and Stagecoach apps. Be aware that railway stations and train conductors cannot sell the discounted tickets, so if you want a train inclusive ticket buy from a bus or tram company or online!

Alongside the Travelmaster summer sale there are a number of ongoing offers from individual operators, for example Stagecoach Yorkshire are running a five travel for a fiver deal every weekend. Check out operator websites for the latest information.

Timetables and maps can be downloaded from travelsouthyorkshire.com.

You can track buses operated by Stagecoach, First, TM Travel and Hulleys of Baslow live on a map at the independently run bustimes.org website.

The long-awaited tram-train connecting Sheffield with Rotherham finally comes into operation on Thursday 25 October 2018, so it seemed like the logical choice for this month’s PUBlic transport article. Running between Sheffield Cathedral and the Parkgate shopping centre in Rotherham, the tram-train is the first of its kind in the UK. Conveniently for us, it also opens up a new route for exploring some of the real ale pubs that Rotherham has to offer! Starting off in the city centre, we have a number of pubs featured in the recent Cathedral Quarter article: the Church House, Dove and Rainbow and Bankers Draft are among the selection of pubs offering real ale close to both Cathedral and Castle Square tram stops.

As we head out of town on the existing tram line towards Meadowhall, the first real ale stop we come across is the Carlton (563 Attercliffe Road, S9 3RA). Roughly equidistant from both Woodbourn Road and Attercliffe tram stops, this is a lively traditional pub with two changing guest beers, mainly from local and regional breweries. Just a couple of stops further along, alighting at Valley Centertainment will bring you to two pubs offering cask beer. The Wentworth House Hotel (26 Milford Street, S9 2LD) is a former Ward’s pub which was renovated and reopened in 2015, serving up to three real ales from local breweries. Just over the road is the Eighteen Ten (3 Arena Court, S9 2LF), a Marston’s food-led pub offering Pedigree and the occasional guest beer. At Meadowhall South/Tinsley you can find the Steel Foundry, a Wetherspoon pub located in the Meadowhall centre offering the typical range of cask ales and reasonably-priced food. After this stop, the tram-train deviates from the usual tram route and begins the “train” part of its journey.

The train line brings us to Rotherham Central, which has a nice selection of real ale pubs nearby, including the Angel, the Rhinoceros (Wetherspoon’s) and the Bridge Inn, the original home of the Rotherham branch of CAMRA. This pub offers five hand-pulled beers, with regulars from Old Mill Brewery and Timothy Taylor’s along with a couple of changing guests. Our last port of call on the journey is a newly-constructed terminus at the Parkgate shopping centre. The Little Haven micropub is the pick of the real ale outlets here. Rotherham’s fourth micropub, which opened in June this year, offers four cask beers with Chantry and Exit 33 often featuring. We are running a branch social to Rotherham on Sunday 18 November to explore some of the pubs on the tram-train route and further afield. We will be meeting at the Devonshire Cat at midday, then taking the tram to Valley Centertainment for the Wentworth House Hotel. From there we will take the tram-train to Rotherham Parkgate and the Little Haven micropub. We will then go by bus to the Something Brew Inn at Rawmarsh, the Wath Tap at Wath-upon-Dearne and the Arcade Alehouse in Barnsley before getting the train back to Sheffield. It would be great if you could join us!