On Trains & Buses

One way to lose a mirror

Posted on December 20, 2018

Reading time: 2 minutes.

Last Saturday, I headed off to Sheffield for a spot of Christmas shopping despite the ongoing Northern Rail strikes that are now set to continue into 2019. To avoid any busy CrossCountry or Virgin trains, I had designs on catching one bus to Buxton followed by another to Sheffield. My own clumsiness defeated that plan by only just missing the Buxton bus.

Instead, I caught service 391 to Stockport and was greeted by new 68 registered Alexander Dennis Enviro 200. However, the route goes via a load of narrow lanes as it serves such places at Kerridge, Bollington, Pott Shrigley and Poynton along the way. It was on one of those lanes that the nearside bus mirror broke off while it negotiated its way past oncoming vehicles. Thankfully, it continued the rest of the way but I suspect that it was taken out of service given the mishap.

After that, a return train journey took me from Stockport to Sheffield on East Midlands Trains four carriage services. On those, I was seated unlike some experiences on three carriage trains operated by Transpennine Express. The last stretch of the return journey to Macclesfield was less busy than I might have feared. It was very different from a similar experience some weeks earlier on my return from a trip to Ireland when the train was packed with people.

That was just as well given the weather and that may have kept services less busy. The same could not said for Sheffield city centre but my shopping excursion was a success and Sheffield station was a quieter place with less Northern train services available. Maybe people are travelling less on Saturdays now but I do hope the industrial unrest is resolved in 2019. It does feel as the sides are not coming together so it seems that we have a while to wait before that happens.