Topless In The Peaks 2!-18/6/24

Chatsworth House

Last year, regular readers may recall that Derbyshire County Council used some of it’s Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) money allocated by government to finance a new open top service around the Peak District, known as the Peak Sightseer and contracted to Stagecoach. 

The aim of this service was to try and reduce car dependency for tourists visiting the first of the UK’s National Parks, formed in 1955 and covering the incredibly scenic Peak District in North Derbyshire.

My friend Phil Tonks and I took a trip out to ride the network,  as recorded in the blog “Topless In The Peaks!” and so were delighted to hear that the service would, not only return this year but include an additional service, covering the extreme northern side of the National Park. Therefore, we decided to venture that way again and ride both services, with our mutual friend Paul Collins also joining us.

The Journey There

So it was a peak time trip on CAF 100 38 into Birmingham on the West Midlands Metro, the queue on the platform making me expect that it was standing all the way but, upon 38’s arrival, it was to find it half empty, making me suspect that had just commenced service from Wednesbury Parkway, where trams coming from Depot commence. A smooth trip into Birmingham was had, getting off at Grand Central, right next to New Street station, where I met up with Phil & Paul who had had a much longer journey in from Stourbridge. I then bought an anytime day return to Burton On Trent, which came to £21.30, Paul & Phil having already sorted out their tickets and we then descended to platform 10A, where a short wait produced 170 398, one of the two Class 170s (170 399 being the other, now a prototype hydrogen train being tested by Chiltern Railways) that were originally purchased by ROSCO (a railway leasing company) Porterbrook for spot hire before passing to Central Trains (then operator of the Cardiff-Nottingham service that the unit was running today) and thence to Cross Country Trains when that franchise took over the Cardiff-Nottingham and Birmingham-Leicester-Stansted services when Central Trains was broken up in 2007.

So a smooth trip was had out through Tamworth before reaching the brewing town of Burton On Trent, where we got off. Readers of earlier blogs, including last year’s “Topless In The Peaks” will know the reason why we had just booked to Burton but, for the uninitiated, it’s my usual method of avoiding paying Cross Country’s frankly extortionate walk on fares for anywhere further north than Burton, for the brewing town is the southern boundary of the Derbyshire Wayfarer ticket, which offers unlimited bus & rail travel throughout that county and also to certain places outside, such as Burton On Trent and, in the other direction, Sheffield, which was our next intended destination, the combination of £21.30 anytime Birmingham-Burton return and £29 for a Derbyshire Wayfarer Group ticket (which is valid for a maximum of two adults, plus up to three kids) for Phil & myself (Paul, being of more mature years-or an old git!-was able to purchase the concessionary version of the Derbyshire Wayfarer) being cheaper than even an off peak walk on Birmingham-Sheffield Return!

We had a good forty minutes before the first train after the Wayfarer’s 09.00 validity began (in fact, it was the next train north, I’d deliberately chosen the closest train to that time to arrive in Burton. Last year, Phil & I had caught the 08.28 to Newcastle but the recent timetable change has seen this service lose it’s Burton call as part of a Cross Country plan to reduce overcrowding on it’s longer, Voyager operated services) so we went for a little wander, noting how the larger breweries here were closed and abandoned, the big breweries, in my opinion, sucking the life out of these places by producing bland beer and then abandoning them to continue production elsewhere. Fortunately, Marstons Brewery is still active on the outskirts and the local Tower Breweries keeps Burton’s brewing tradition alive, reminders of that tradition being a couple of rather fine pubs that we passed, one of which advertised the sadly long gone Burton brewing stalwart of Ind Coop, reminding me of a 1988 visit here where I quaffed a pint of this sadly now gone brew!

We visited a local Sainsburys for supplies and then made our way back to the station. My original plan was to actually hod back for the 09.28 Voyager to Edinburgh but a glance at the publicity for the Derbyshire Wayfarer the previous night reminded me that the ticket was only valid for journeys outside of the county if the journey either started or finished within, so we decided to get the 09.21 Notingham train instead, formed of 170 113, which took us swiftly to Derby, where we changed platforms for the Edinburgh train, formed of Voyager 221 125.

Sobering to think that Voyagers are now over twenty years old but, to be honest, I’ve never been a fan of them, finding them rather cramped and really too small for the loads carried on the Cross Country routes that they operate, with this trip being a case in point. Phil & I discussed this at some depth and he concurred with my opinion, with us both concluding that we really wouldn’t want to suffer this train’s Standard Class accommodation over this journey’s full length from Plymouth-Edinburgh! Of course, being in the East Midlands, you can find identical trains operating with East Midlands Railways in the form of the Class 222 Meridian class but these have a much more civilised seating arrangement, showing that it can be done! The Meridians are due to come off service soon, as bi mode Class 810 Hitachi IET units are set to take over. Unfortunately, there are no plans to replace Cross Country Voyagers, with examples now coming from Avanti West Coast to allow the Cross Country units to begin being refurbished.

Despite it’s less than optimal comfort, 221 125 whisked us quickly and efficiently to Sheffield.

The 272

The reason that we had come to Sheffield was that the new “BLUE” Peak Sightseer route (the original service now being branded RED) calls at the small Peak District town of Castleton, a popular spot with walkers which has traditionally been linked to Sheffield by the 272, regarded by many as one of the UK’s most attractive bus routes!

The route has it’s origins as the 72, originally a joint service between North Western Road Car, who had a small garage in Castleton, a minor outpost of it’s North Derbyshire & Cheshire territory and the Sheffield C fleet, one of the joint boards that existed, owned by the railways (originally London North Eastern Railway & London Midland Scottish, then British Railways upon nationalisation in 1948) and various municipal transport undertakings, this being a peculiarly unique Yorkshire phenomenon, with such joint boards existing in Todmorden, Halifax, Huddersfield and, the largest of them, Sheffield. This was down to the railways deciding to purchase shareholdings in major bus companies in the late twenties, normally purchasing controlling shares of large territorial companies like North Western. Generally, the tram networks of the various undertakings (replaced by trolleybuses in Huddersfield, whilst Todmorden, which never had trams, was completely owned by the joint board) and their eventual bus replacements, would remain in the total control of the municipalties, whilst developing bus services, especially those beyond the municipal boundaries, where what the railways were interested in, getting some control over this upstart new competitor, the bus!

In Sheffield’s case, that lead to three distinctly separate operations, even down to ordering their own, different buses but all using the same cream & blue livery. The A fleet evolved from the former tram fleet and was wholly Corporation owned whilst the B network covered services heading a fairly short distance beyond the boundary which were jointly owned by the Corporation and the Joint Board. The C network, however, covered much longer routes, heading way beyond the city boundary, even reaching Manchester (see blog “Snake X57”) and was wholly owned by the Joint Board. The creation of the National Bus Company (NBC) on 1st January 1969 saw all of the railways bus interests pass to the new organisation but NBC would soon relinquish control of the Joint Boards to the various municipal fleets (with Halifax & Todmorden then merging as Calderdale) including all of the Sheffield fleets.

North Western would be broken up in 1972, the majority of it’s now Greater Manchester based operations passing to SELNEC (later Greater Manchester) Passenger Transport Executive, with other operations passing to fellow NBC subsidiaries Trent & Crosville, with Trent taking over the North Western share of the 72, keeping what had by then become the 272 until 1988, when Trent withdrew it’s tendered services in the area, with Trent’s share of the 272 passing to Baslow, Derbyshire based independent Hulleys. Meanehile, the 1st April 1974 saw Sheffield become the largest constituent of South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive (SYPTE, the other two surviving former joint board fleets being absorbed into the West Yorkshire PTE at the same time) which became famous for it’s subsidised cheap fare policy, though those services, like the 72, which would be renumbered 272 during this time, that headed beyond the South Yorkshire County Council, would have to charge higher, more commercial fares outside of that county. Very few of these services would survive up to deregulation , but one of these was what was now known as South Yorkshire Transport’s (the arms length company created to take over SYPTE’s bus operations) share of the 272, this company becoming known as Mainline in 1989, which was bought by First in 1998.

I would first encounter the route around 2013, when a two hourly service was provided by two buses, one provided by First, the other by Hulleys, a more complete history of which features in the original “Topless In The Peaks” blog, but is now the main bus operator in the northern half of the Peak District, quite challenging bus territory with a thin population, and heavy car ownership which is further compounded by tourists visiting the area, creating heavy congestion in places, which seems to regularly create issues for Hulleys in accessing some of the remote villages that the company serves.

Back in 2013, again with a Derbyshire Wayfarer ticket, I’d reached Sheffield on the Derby-Matlock line, then caught a Stagecoach Gold double decker on the X17 to Sheffield via Chesterfield, then caught the next 272, which was a First journey, then, as now, operated by a Wright Gemini bodied Volvo B9, giving me a nice double decker ride across this most scenic route. The Hulleys bus on that occasion had been a single decker, but subsequently, on the occasion of my trip on the sadly short lived Hulleys X57 to Manchester in 2021, I’d noticed a Hulleys 272 operated by an E400 double decker, so I was hopeful that this could be repeated today, with the service now running hourly with an extra Hulleys bus providing the extra journey. Unfortunately,  the sight of Hulleys E200 saloon 8 parked in an adjacent bay of the Transport Interchange, Pond Street bus station being conveniently over the road from the railway station, meant that there would be no double decker for us this time.  Never mind!

There was only a few of us boarding at the Interchange, allowing us three to spread out at the back. As we headed around the City Centre, though, more people got on, many of them obviously looking as though they were heading out for a hike in the Peaks or similar such pleasures! So it was a well filled little bus that left the city through the pleasant, stone built building filled suburb of Ecclesall, the main road out this way gradually climbing ever higher, until the houses came to an end and we were out on the moors, beginning one of the most breath taking bus rides in the UK!

The city of Sheffield, hence the county of South Yorkshire, heads surprisingly far out along this moorland scenery, this section presumably becoming part of the city and the then Metropolitan County of South Yorkshire in the April 1974 local boundary changes, the same time that SYPTE was created. After a few miles though, we encountered a sign saying “Derbyshire” and the design of bus stops changed from the rather bland South Yorkshire affairs to Derbyshire’s fairly detailed flags, this being a County Council that has always been fairly pro bus and have always encouraged individual operators to feel free to place their own flags below Derbyshire’s to enable said operators, such as Trent Barton and it’s Wellglade subsidiaries who dominate the county and have a renowned reputation for branding. The 1st May this year saw Derbyshire and neighbouring Nottinghamshire become part of a combined authority, under the power of an elected Mayor, Claire Ward who, like most of the elected mayors now, represents the Labour Party. Unlike many of her colleagues though, including in South Yorkshire’s Oliver Coppard, nothing has yet been proposed regarding the introduction of a franchised bus network here, as explained by an excellent article in the latest issue of “Buses” magazine. But then, as I’ve explained in some of my recent blogs, the future of the British bus industry, to an extent, depends on who wins the General Election on Thursday 4th July!

Our fellow passengers started to alight at various points along the route, including at the small town of Hathersage, followed by a call at Bamford Station, on the Sheffield-Manchester Hope Valley Line, where we needed to wait for time, allowing the casually dressed driver to stretch his legs for a few minutes. He got into a conversation with an elderly lady who was seated near the front of the bus, it emerging that he’d been driving for Hulleys for around a year, having previously worked for First at their Olive Grove garage in Sheffield, where he lived. He’d left First because he’d got fed up of the behaviour of passengers in the urban area (as a Birmingham bus driver, I can relate to this!) and found that Hulleys was a far more relaxed operator to work for, with no on bus cameras and other devices to, quote “catch the driver out!” Of course, the area he droves through with Hulleys was also much nicer and he didn’t like doing routes like the 272, which entered Sheffield, such is his disdain for his home city.

Onwards we went, first getting stuck with some of the bus driver’s ultimate nemesis,  temporary traffic lights, then passing the First Wright Gemini bodied Volvo B9 on the route today, which wasn’t the usual branded bus in a green variation of the blue Sheffield and red Doncaster liveries that First have been using in South Yorkshire in recent years, but the previous off white and violet corporate Olympic livery that once dominated First fleets. Phil & I had discussed in Sheffield that it was a shame that First are currently introducing a new corporate scheme, admittedly more attractive than the earlier Barbie & Olympic hues but what will inevitably wipe away the myriad of local liveries that were introduced during Giles Fearnley’s reign as the CEO of First. Still, with franchising likely in many First centres, including South Yorkshire, it’s likely that many First buses will carry the liveries of those franchises, like the Bee Network yellow currently spreading across Greater Manchester.

We then called at the next station on the Hope Valley line, Hope itself before climbing slightly to enter the small town/large village (you choose!) of Castleton, where we met yet more temporary traffic lights, right next to what is rather grandly described as Castleton bus station but is really little more than a rather charming yard!

….which was currently full to capacity with two buses, the other being an open top Stagecoach E400 on the Peak Sightseer Blue service, which we’d come here to ride on…..;

……but decided to spend an hour here and get the next departure.

Castleton

This delightful place seems barely to have changed since my last visit here in 2013, which is exactly how I expected it to be! Our first stop was the Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese pub, which I’d visited the last time I was here, a charming, timbered kind of establishment. We thought about getting something to eat but food didn’t start until twelve, some twenty minutes away, which would affect our ability to get the next Peak Sightseer departure, so we settled on a pint instead, Paul & I having a pint of Bradfield Brewery’s Farmers Brown, whilst Phil had a Farmers blonde (BEHAVE!) We then popped into a bakery that I also remembered visiting in 2013, which sold superb sausage rolls and the like, so we bought some goodies, plus a fine, local clotted cream flavoured ice cream to start off!

Very definitely the sort of town where you simply can’t go wrong for food & drink!

Peak Sightseer Blue

Last time I was here, I left on board a Hulleys Optare Solo on board the two hourly 173 to Bakewell, a service which still runs today but of course, today, there was the option of an open top ride out of Castleton into the Peaks!

Readers of last year’s “Topless In The Peaks” blog, may recall that I had intended riding another open top service on that day too, for before the Peak Sightseer had been announced, Hulleys had announced a commercially operated service known as the Peak Breezer, from Castleton to Chatsworth House & Bakewell, using an open top ALX400 bodied Dennis Trident that the company had bought but, although we saw this bus running private on that day, the company had decided that it was unable to manage to run the daily service that was originally planned for the school summer holidays, presumably due to staffing issues. The service had operated daily during the late spring holiday but then resumed to weekend working, so Phil & I were unable to partake. This year, that open top Trident has been sold to Viscount Travel, an operator who have introduced a third open top sea front service in Scarborough this year, competing with the established Scarborough & District and Shore Line Sea Cruisers services, initially using an ex Portsmouth Leyland PD2, with the Trident seemingly used instead or as a spare for this services, which uses the 109 number that this service traditionally uses. I’ll hopefully write some more about this service later this summer, when I visit Scarborough on holiday!

I wasn’t surprised that Hulleys hadn’t re-introduced this seasonal service, when the Peak Sightseer was really BSIP financed competition for it, but I was glad to see that, not only had the Peak Sightseer returned for a second run but that an second route had also been introduced that largely covered the path of that Hulleys service, this being designated the BLUE service, running hourly, whilst the original service continues to run half hourly and is designated the RED service. Another improvement is that, whereas last year, the Sightseer only ran at weekends until the school summer holidays, this year has seen both services commence daily from 11th May, continuing to run as such until Sunday 6th October, after which, both services run at weekends only until Sunday 26th October.

So we returned to the bus station in plenty of time, eating our ice cream and savoury pastry goodies from the bakery whilst we did so and during which time, Hulleys second turn on the 272 appeared in the form of this MMC E200;

The next BLUE service, however, appeared slightly late, open top ALX400 Dennis Trident (actually, very similar to the Hulleys bus used on the similar Breezer service last year) 18186 arrived at the temporary lights just before the Hulleys Optare Solo on the 173 from Bakewell (same type of bus still in use on the route since when I last rode this route back in 2013!) arrived just behind it!

Now, I never realised this at the time of the trip, but subsequent researches have revealed that I’ve been on 18186 before! For it was the oldest of six open top Tridents allocated to Stagecoach Devon’s Torquay garage in 2017 for use on new open top service 122 (Babbacombe-Paignton Zoo) which I would encounter when on holiday in Paignton in 2018 (see the “Buses For Fun” blog “Adventures In Devon 2021-Part One-Topless In Torbay And Other Stories!”) These open toppers would all be named after especially created cartoon animal charecters, with 18186 being christened Swash Buckler The (friendly) Pirate Parrott!

Due to it’s late running, the driver of 18186 didn’t pull into the bus station but alongside, the driver beckoning us to board, which we did. The fare last year was the very reasonable £6 for a day ticket, with holders of a Derbyshire Wayfarer (or it’s Wayfarer equivalent, which allows travel within the Peak District over to Greater Manchester and various areas alongside) able to pay just £4. This year, there has admitadly been increased fairly heftily to £9.50 but valid on both routes but the Wayfarer/Derbyshire Wayfarer discount has been increased from a £2 to a £4 reduction, with Phil paying £5.50 for each of us, in partial return for me buying the Group Derbyshire Wayfarer. The concessionary fare is also £5.50, so Paul paid this.

Tickets bought, we went upstairs and grabbed the back seat! Unfortunately, boarding in Castleton means that you miss the one way loop that the route does to serve the Blue Rock Caverns, as this serves Castleton bus station on it’s return, so now we were following the route of the 272 back towards Hathersage, so it wasn’t necceserry that we’d failed to get a double decker on that service, because we were able to enjoy the views now, totally in the open!

It seems that three buses are required to operate the hourly BLUE route, with us passing this E400 bodied Scania in the attractive Peak Sightseer livery on the third bus;

Considering we were quite early in the season, loadings were extremely positive, with a fair few enjoying the fresh air from the top deck, in fact, despite most of this month of “flaming June” being unseasonably cold so far, today had dawned quite warm, though not warm enough for Phil & Paul from having to use the hoods of their cagoules to keep out the chill of the bus’s, at times, reasonably paced speed! I though, am ,made of sterner stuff, my jacket not containing a hood! I had bought my jumper with me in my bag, just in case I’d needed it but frankly, I didn’t!

After a delightful run of around an hour, having left the course of the 272, we arrived at the route’s Chatsworth House terminus;

…..soon pulling up to the bus terminus there;

We had around a twenty minute wait for the next RED service so, whilst our fellow passengers headed into the splendour of Chatsworth House and Paul, an architecture expert by both profession and passion, went to explore a nearby outhouse, Phil & I went to look at some buses that were parked up, including two Wright Gemini 2 bodied Volvo B5s, of Wellglade (Trent Barton’s holding company) Notts & Derby subsidiary, which generally runs tenders (the vast majority of Trent Barton’s mileage being commercial) contracts and Private Hire, these obviously being on the latter;

These two soon pulled off, allowing me a clearer shot of the Stagecoach Open Top Trident behind, I suspect parked there as a spare for either the RED or BLUE routes, should it be needed. I was pleased to see that this bus was 18303, dating as a closed top bus from 2005, when it had been allocated to Stagecoach Devon’s Torquay operation for use on trunk route 12 from Newton Abbott-Brixham, a route I discovered whilst on holiday in Torquay that year.

Twelve years later, with the regular fayre on the 12 having been upgraded to E400 Scanias in 2012, 18303 would be one of the five to be converted to open top to join 18186 on the 122! 18303 was named Chirpy The Cricket and was actually the last one that I got to ride on my 2018 holiday (the year, incidentally, that the 12 was upgraded again, with new MMC E400 bodied Scanias taking over the route) having been unable to get a ride until our final Friday on holiday, with me purposely heading out on that morning to track it down!

2021 would see the 122 diverted from it’s Paignton Zoo terminus to the Hoburne Holiday Park, but according to my friend Richard, a big Paignton fan, the service has this year, hopefully temporarily been cutback to a one bus shuttle between Paignton bus station and Hoburne, due to extensive roadworks in Torquay affecting route reliability in the area, hence Stagecoach having spare Tridents to assist the growing Peak Sightseer network.

As can be seen from the above photo, 18303 differs from 18186 by retaining the front part of it’s roof, should the climate prove unsettled, this being the case with the other four 2005 buses that were converted for the 122.

Such a configuration has now become popular on open top conversions, with the E400 bodied Scanias that have converted especially for the Peak Sightseer also featuring this, including 15717, which would be our bus on the RED service;

These buses weren’t ready when Phil & I rode last year’s service, so it was nice to get one in the book now! Again, we headed straight to the back seat upstairs, with Paul and soon realising that the seat was damp! So he went down to tell the driver, who came back with a paper towel! I would eventually notice that the seat below me was damp too, but I am a veteran of the original Blackpool Pleasure Beach Log Flume, so I am immune to such minor incursions of dampness!

So we left for more open top wonderment over the original Peak Sightseer route, which I recognised from last year’s trip, with, like the BLUE route, an encouraging number of fellow passengers enjoying yet more gorgeous scenery. Phil & Paul both decided to make use of the covered section after around ten minutes of breezes but I sm made of sterner stuff, staying in the open as we made our way to Bakewell;

Bakewell

Here, there was one place where we simply have to have a repeat visit from our trip last year, the Olde Pudding Shop, where we returned to the restaurant that we visited last year for a traditional Bakewell Pudding (not tart, they have icing on them! Phil had to be corrected about this on Twitter-sorry Elon, X-that night!) which was absolutely perfect with custard! Paul certainly agreed with our hypothesis that this was a place worth visiting!

To leave Bakewell, we had a choice of two routes heading to Derby. The fastest is the TP, standing for Trans Peak, which is operated by the jointly owned by Wellglade & Centrebus of Leicester High Peak Buses, based in Dove Holes at the former Trent garage that replaced the former Buxton North Western garage. The TP starts in Buxton and mainly makes it’s way along the A6 through Bakewell & Matlock to Derby but Phil & I had ridden this route before, back in 2017, just before around three journeys a day which extended to Manchester were withdrawn (see “Buses For Fun” blog “Manchester Trans Peak Farewell”) so I suggested that we ride the other route, operated by Trent Barton itself from it’s quaint combined bus station and garage at Belper, also served by the TP but diverting from the A6 via Wirksworth to reach there. This is numbered 6.1 and yes, there is a decimal point between the numbers, this being one variation of the trunk service branded in a nice yellow livery as “The Sixes” providing a frequent service from Derby-Belper along that A6 corridor.

We had around half hour before the next 6.1 was due, so I treated myself to fish & chips from the Bakewell Fish Bar, Paul & Phil both being too full to do this, but I have a bus drivers stomach, ready to be filled at any time just in case circumstances preclude the possibility of a meal later on! We then made our way to the 6.1 stop, just around the corner from the main square where, despite it only being about ten minutes before the bus was due, the bus stop’s very commendable real time information told us that we had 23 minutes to wait! And as we waited, that figure resisted the temptation to go down!

It was then that we found some inconstances with the timetable! For I’d looked on busimes.org to confirm an hourly frequency but the timetable at the stop, specailly produced publicity by Trent Barton for the route said that it was half hourly! Then, a look at the general Derbyshire County Council timetables inside the shelter confirmed the bustimes.org version! Trent Barton had gained a reputation as one of the finest bus operations in the UK but, since the pandemic, that reputation has slipped, with the much publicised driver shortages that the industry faced a couple of years ago hitting the company hard, leading to much reduced reliability.

Phil decided to contact Trent Barton’s Twitter page, which replied around ten minutes later with an apology, as the bus concerned had suffered from over heating but a replacement had been sourced and was on it’s way, this being confirmed by my looking on bustimes.org’s map as to it’s location.

The 172

It was now around 16.00 and various school buses were taking their charges back to their homes in the rural landscape of the peaks, illustrating that buses are more than just for the tourists around here. Amongst these, Phil noticed that a Hulleys 172 was due, heading via a roundabout route to Matlock, from where we could take the train to Derby. Therefore, we decided to board Hulleys E200 11 when it appeared, despite being full with school kids. Paul manged to grab a seat but Phil & I initially had to stand before a couple of the kids commendably gave up their seats for us! Mind you, I’m not sure if this was genuine good manners or whether they’d been shamed into the move by Paul’s rather loud statement that, when he was a boy, a notice on the Midland Red buses in his Stourbridge hometown stated quite clearly that half fare payers were to give up their seats to standing adults!

We headed out along the A6, following the TP & 6.1 routes until turning right to begin to climb a very steep hill, into the village of Stanton On Peak, which reminded me a little of Crich, to the south of Matlock and, of course, the home of the National Tramway Museum, full of quaint, stone built buildings on such a steep hill that neither really had any hope of being served by a railway line, meaning that they had to wait for the bus to come along before they could experience mechanical public transport! The school kids started to get off here, illustrating how even remote communities like this need the bus, the sparsity of the 172 timetable (running roughly every two hours twenty minutes) suggesting that high car ownership is a prerequisite for those living around here!

The hill climbing continued, including along a very narrow road, a hedge just separating us from quite a severe drop. We were about to turn a sharp corner only for our driver to have to suddenly apply the brakes as a lorry came the other way. Any hesitation in the driver’s actions would have seen us possibly descend over that drop, although the presence of a crash barrier may have slowed us down suffciently to avoid us re-enacting the last scene of the Michael Caine film “The Italian Job!” But our driver successfully allowed the lorry to thread it’s way past us, before both of us were able to continue on our journeys! Like our driver on the 272 that morning, I’ve often looked enviously at the life rural bus drivers have in such surroundings, compared to the urban West Midlands that is my natural bus driving habitat, but that last event illustrated to me quite effectively the challenges that such drivers face in traversing narrow roads that had their origin long before motor traffic!”

We then served the similar villages ofBirchover & Elton, the bus having to pass a builders van in the latter, just squeezing past, as we made our way to a point where we had to reverse……so thus having to squeeze past the builders van once again! Our driver was certainly facing some challenging conditions this afternoon!

We then headed through Winster & Wensley, dropping off the last of the school kids as we descended the hill that we’d earlier climbed up further north, heading back into the valley of the River Derwent, which was passed over, as well as the preserved Peak Railway that covers the Rowsley-Matlock section of the former Midland Railway Derby-Manchester line, closed in June 1968, as we headed back onto the A6 at Darley Dale, from where we followed the A6 into Matlock, a pleasant town that’s rather let down by it’s rather grim Imperial Road bus station;

The Derwent Valley Line

We then made our way through Matlock to the rather more delightful railway station, maintained in a nice condition by the aforementioned Peak Railway but also housing the National Rail service along the remaining stretch of the Manchester-Derby line from here into Derby, which is today operated by local franchise holder East Midlands Railways, with us having around twenty minutes to wait until the arrival of the 17.13 train to Nottingham, which we would take to Derby, formed of 170 512;

This was a number that I instantly recognised as belonging to a 170 of West Midlands Trains before being replaced there by new CAF built Class 196s, this being further emphasised by the green seats of West Midlands Trains franchise predecessor London Midland. These are amongst several Class 170s recently cascaded to East Midlands from the likes of Anglia and Southern (the Southern units being originally classed as 171s) to replace Class 153s that have gone to Transport for Wales and Class 156s that have gone to Northern.

Interestingly, I had actually travelled on a Class 170 over this branch in the very early years of their life, in 2000, when those that have come from West Midlands Trains, plus a fair few of those currently with Cross Country, entered service with the Central Trains franchise that was split up in 2007, the operation being split between London Midland, Cross Country, what was then East Midlands Trains and what was then Arriva Wales, with the 170s being split between London Midland and Cross Country. I remember travelling on one along this line in the class’s very early days, around 2000!

This is one of my favourite lines, heading along the charming Derwent Valley, calling at Matlock Bath, Cromwell & Whatstandwell, where both Phil & I shuddered at the thought of the climb from here to the Crich Tram Museum, this being up as steep a hill as you can climb without the need for climbing gear and oxygen! The next call was Ambergate, where we joined the Sheffield-Derby line that we’d whizzed up on 221 125 that morning, though the journey now was much slower and more relaxed, calling at the Belper and Duffield stations that are exclusively served now by Matlock branch trains.

At Derby, we decided to head to the Brunswick, the charming, railwayana filled pub that Phil & I had visited on our last trip out this way. Phil & Paul both had a Railway Porter brewed by the pub’s own, on site brewery, whilst I had a pint of Leicestershire brewer Everards Tiger, which I’d not quaffed in a while. Hunger pains were now catching up with Phil & Paul, so they succumbed to a couple of chip butties but my bus driver discipline in consuming fish & chips in Bakewell meant that I was fine with a bag of scampi fries to go with my pint! For a second pint, I opted for one of the pubs own brews, called White Feathers!

We then headed back to the station in good time to catch Cross Country 170 122 on a Nottingham-Birmingham New Street train back to Birmingham, happy after a lovely day riding buses in the Peak District.