FRIDAY 26th JUNE 2009

As I intended to concentrate on TM Travel, I decided to save money by trying out one of their £5.50 "Day Ranger" tickets which seemed very good value.

However, the first buses that I saw as I headed to the bus stop, were two Leyland Olympians owned by Linburg Travel operating school contracts from Tideswell to Lady Manners School. Considering that Linburg are based near Sheffield, the dead mileage required to operate these contracts must be more than that operated with passengers on board, although one of the buses is often parked at Lady Manners during the daytime.

Service 241 - 0850 Bakewell to Sheffield
On Schooldays, this journey is always rostered for a double deck and today was no exception, with TM Travel providing Leyland Olympian H784 PVW for a scenic tree bashing trip via Hassop to Calver and then direct to Bamford. Indeed the buses hit so much foliage that when I descended from the top deck on a previous trip, the driver asked me if there were any windows still intact ! On this occasion I thought that I ought to sample this route in its entirety before someone realises that it isn't suitable for deckers, so I boarded the Olympian on what I hoped would be a fairly quiet journey. However, the peace of the top deck was shattered at Bamford when we were joined by the local playschool on a day trip to Weston Park and as this caused quite a delay, I therefore bailed out at Moorfoot in Sheffield to catch...

Service 214 - 0955 Sheffield to Baslow
... which was operated by well loaded Optare Versa YJ57 EHU, still in its silver demonstrator livery. This gave a very smooth ride - much nicer that the Solos that seem to operate most of the journeys on this route on weekdays - and we arrived in Baslow in plenty of time for me to catch...

Service 66 - 1058 Baslow to Buxton
This is another regular decker working on schooldays but instead of the usual Olympian, East Lancs bodied DAF YN54 SYG was my steed for this scenic trip. En route, we passed unusual Alexander ALX100 bodied Mercedes T455 HNH which had operated empty to Tideswell to work the 1128 service 65 to Sheffield. On arrival at Buxton, I had the chance to return on the same bus but instead opted for...

Service 218 - 1200 Buxton to Baslow
... which was operated by Plaxton Centro YJ07 JNN. On weekdays this journey always seems to be operated by a single decker, but it gave me the chance to arrive in Baslow in time to see what was operating service 214 at 1240. However both journeys were being operated by Solos so I hailed YN54 SYG again for a swift ride on service 66 into Chesterfield, where my plans changed when I saw a double decker waiting to operate...

Service 14 - 1250 Chesterfield to Dronfield via Apperknowle
Whilst not a Peak District route, service 14 is quite hilly and scenic and always worth a trip in a double decker. Today it was being operated by two of them and my trip was in former Nottingham Scania L351 MRR which despite the hot weather, seemed to have its heaters going full blast ! Having alighted in the less than scenic surroundings of Dronfield Civic Centre. I was glad to board...

Service 293 - 1427 Dronfield to Sheffield
operated by Plaxton Centro YJ07 JWW. We arrived at Sheffield Moorfoot just in time to see Optare Excel R211 DKG heading to Castleton on service 242 (I hope this was big enough for the school journey!). I decided to hang around for a while and witnessed Hulleys number 7 (Y293 HUA) heading towards Castleton on service 272 (its usual duty), plus numerous TM buses on the 293 and the City Centre "Freebee" service. However I ignored Tesco liveried Centro YJ07 JVC heading towards Bakewell on the 1530 departure on service 218, in the hope that there would be a decker operating...

Service 218 - 1640 Sheffield to Buxton + 1805 Buxton to Bakewell
Success ! My observations had suggested that the last 2 trips to Buxton on the 218 were often decker worked on weekdays and today was no exception. R974 KAR is one of the latest batch of buses recently acqured from Dublin Bus which are easily identifiable by their "boy racer" style tinted windows ! These seem to be regularly allocated to peak district services, particularly at weekends as the damage to their fibreglass domes will testify, and the 218 route has more than its share of low trees, mainly around Ashford and Taddington where serious damage would have been done had the driver not crawled under them at about 10mph. However it is still a lovely run and well worth sampling on a decker if you get the chance.