Wafted by a Favouring Gale
29 January 2022
ABOVE: Arriva Yorkshire’s ‘Sapphire’ 1968 is about to start its return journey from Pontefract Bus Station on route 140, on Sunday 9th January 2022. Note the “via Junction 32” display on the destination that so intrigued me. Note also the route branding for routes 163 & 166.
Sunday morning in Harrogate, and the sun is shining brightly. It’s still quite breezy, but what a contrast to the day before.
I’m half-way though my ‘Buses and Gilbert & Sullivan weekend’, and am once again heading down to Leeds. There isn’t much to do from Harrogate in any other direction as far as I can tell; not on a Sunday anyway. I could head into Ripon on the 36, but then where?
Or there’s a bus to a place called Pateley Bridge. But it only runs every three hours on a Sunday, and I can’t see anything that is likely to be able to occupy me there for that long. Yes, it’s in an Area of Outstanding Beauty, but there don’t seem to be any other buses to try out. I could wander out to the nearby village of Glasshouses, but I might want to throw some stones and they say you shouldn’t do that there.
I take the number 7 to Leeds at 0900. The driver has an excellent rapport with his customers and it’s a lovely ride. The only downer is that there’s a sizeable pool of water right in the middle of the gangway towards the front of the bus. It was raining yesterday but it’s not raining today, so shouldn’t someone have just mopped the vehicle out before putting it on the road?
From Leeds I catch an Arriva 140 to Pontefract. I am aiming to buy an ‘Adult Day West Yorkshire’ ticket for £4.90, as per the website, but end up with an ‘Adult Day West and South Yorkshire’ instead, for £5.00. To be honest, I suspect it’s the same ticket, subtly rebranded and increased in cost, or maybe the £4.90 is a special online price? Three weeks later, it’s still £4.90 on the Arriva website and I can’t find the £5.00 ticket listed – nor a ‘West and South Yorkshire’ ticket.
The 140 is a nice ride – fairly quiet as one would expect at 1100 on a Sunday morning. The only curiosity is the via point on the destination display: “via Junction 32”. Is another motorway ride on the cards?
It turns out that Junction 32 is a Shopping Outlet on the outskirts of Glasshoughton, to the north-west of Pontefract and adjacent to, you’ve guessed it, junction 32 of the M62.
I’m impressed by the clever marketing name that doubles as a location indicator. But I always do fall for a clever marketing name. (There used to be a hardware shop on the outskirts of Tunbridge Wells called “Hinges and Brackets”, presumably named after the hilarious Hinge & Bracket, a double act of female impersonators who came to prominence in the early 1970s. Dr Evadne and Dame Hilda loved Gilbert & Sullivan too!)
Pontefract is closed. I have arrived at 1141, on schedule, and there’s no-one much about. I can’t see a coffee shop, and even Boots is shut. I’m back at the Bus Station in 25 minutes’ flat, to catch the 140 back to Castleford, from where I am intending to use a different route back to Leeds.
ABOVE: Pontefract Market Place, just before 12noon on Sunday 9th January 2022. Not much going on! Hopefully the Christmas Tree and lights will be removed shortly!
There’s one drawback to having a day ticket that you won’t see written down anywhere other than here… It should be in the small print, but there is a severe risk with a day ticket that your planned day will be significantly disrupted. The reason for that being that I’ve spotted a service 147A, due imminently, on what looks like it will be an interesting drive to Wakefield. I’m not going to turn that down. Castleford, I’ll see you another day!
Only two of us board the 147A at the bus station, and it doesn’t get especially busy at any point during the 55 minute journey. It’s quite unusual in being a Sunday-only service; I’m not sure how many of those exist nowadays.
Around half-way, in a built-up area somewhere near Normanton, we pass what I assume is the only other bus on the route today (the journey time of 55 minutes on an hourly frequency suggests a two-bus operation). Annoyingly for me, the other bus is a double-decker (mine isn’t). So is the route a single-decker service or a double-decker service? No way of knowing!
From Wakefield I take the 117 back to Leeds. I have already discussed the most notable feature of this ride in a very recent article about windows (real ones, not the Microsoft kind). It’s a nice ride and I’m back into Leeds City Bus Station a couple of minutes early at 1455.
I catch the 1500 departure from Leeds on route 36 back into Harrogate. I am severely tempted to stay on to Ripon, but the light is fading fast and I have a later trip to Titipu scheduled for the evening (that’s the setting of the last show of my Gilbert & Sullivan gala, 'The Mikado'; which will turn out to be another magical evening).
Actually, I should have gone to Ripon. I would have had time and would probably have got most of the way before sunset.