Tuesday 8 May 2012

Driver you have passed the stop !


Certainly in the area, There are some stupidly placed bus stops. Mainly i find in the Barnsley reigon which is under SYPTE control. Some Of these block junctions, Roads and in one case until recently have been located on blind cornors. The offending stop was to be found on Saville Rd In Gilroyd near Dodworth just after the junction of The Link (The stop on the other side isn't in a much better place). Anyway Bus Stop locations are for another day. This problem lays with Stagecoachs M.A.N 18.240 ADL Enviro 300 vehicles in Barnsley, Rotherham, Sheffield & Chesterfield. When passengers push the stop bells these can be missed by the driver, Who may not have heard the bell tone, fair do that happens however there is always the light warning the driver to stop in the cab right.... Wrong ! This light on the offending vehicles is in a bad place and if oftern missed by the driver, If its bright enough to see or working in the first place which it sometimes isn't. This was evident on a recent trip on Route 229 (Barnsley-Wombwell-Wath-Rotherham) operated by The Dearne Link Branded vehicles of the type at Rawmarsh depot, Rotherham. I was travelling towards Barnsley on 22555 (YN57MXY) and as we came into Wath-Upon-Dearne the driver missed a stop but was able to stop furter down the road. Then the bus filled up (15:03 Ex Rotherham) and as we came down out of Wombwell towards Barnsley the driver missed a stop again, However in this case the passenger just pushed the bell again for the next stop... Which we also missed so she knocked on his assult screen and he pulled over said sorry and the something allong the lines of Its this bus thats acting up !. For the rest of the trip he checked the mirror before every stop so must not have been able to see the in cab light. Ovcourse this isn't the only case ive experianced of this issue this year. Wakefield Rd Depots arn't any better 22630 (YN08JFK) at Stairfoot Mc'Donalds & 22544 (YN57MXL) at Green Rd, Penistone of the top of my head. The problem first came to light early 2010 and Stonegravels Depot, Chesterfield started to move there passenger Stopping signs onto the front panelwork where the interior fleet number is normally located from the rear of the cab behind the driver. This was after drivers complaned about the issue and now they can check if there passengers wish to leave the vehicle at the glace of the head, Without taking both eyes of the road ahead. This is very noteable when onboard the Chesterfield bacth of vehciles, They look completely different inside and better in my view.
 This has solved this problem in Chesterfield and drivers seem to like it If anything as a backup. The question is Why Don't Barnsley, Rawmarsh & Holbrook do the same with theres ? I mean how hard can it be to move a sign. Then Again rumour has it Holbrooks small bacth are likely to move to Chesterfield shortly so i guess they would be done before going into service. These vehicles are in general nice and work quite well on longer routes like the 35/46 between Barnsley-Hemsworth & Pontefract and the 43 between Chesterfield & Sheffield and the 52 in Sheffield Crossing the city between Hillsborough and Woodhouse. All the above services have a selection of these buses operating them aswell as others on the networks. Overall there very good buses and are well suited, The Scania K230 veriant of the ADL Enviro 300 been better however would be nice to see Stagecoach purchase more of these MAN bodied veriants over the awful Alexander Dennis Veriant as they favor currently. Same with the ADL Enviro 200 with the favored Alexander Dennis veriant been terrible in my view and the MAN 14.240 veriant quite a good little bus indeedy.

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