A 'Day out with Dennis' to Sheffield

For the past year or so, I have been writing articles for a community magazine based in the Derbyshire village of Kilburn. The magazine called 'all Things Local' is distributed free to 9,000 homes in Belper and Ripley. Apart from advertisements it carries all manner of general interest articles and information. It is widely read and indeed, copies of it can be hard to come by if you do not live in the two towns.

My contribution is to describe a variety of days out more or less locally that can be undertaken by anybody of any age. The purpose is to get folks out and about to enjoy the beautiful part of England in which they live.

I have provided a link from the articles to illustrations of the vehicles used that can be found here on by blog. So here goes !!

First bus of the day is a ‘trentbarton’  (tb) ‘red arrow’ to Chesterfield. Here we see a Swedish built Scania chassis carrying a Spanish built body by Irizar arriving in Chesterfield.

The ‘Stagecoach’ service to Sheffield is usually in the hands of another Scania chassis with a Scottish built body by Alexander Dennis Ltd. (Although they also have a manufacturing plant in Scarborough).

From Sheffield to Bakewell recently ‘Hulleys of Baslow’ have been using an all white single decker. This is another bus produced entirely by Alexander Dennis Ltd.

 

‘Hulleys’ are a long established company with a history dating back for over a hundred years. Being smaller than either ‘trentbarton’ or ‘Stagecoach’, they operate a varied fleet and it might be that another bus other than the white one turns up which will normally be in the fleet livery.

 

It might be this which is another product of Alexander Dennis Ltd. 

 

Or possibly one of the double decker buses in the fleet like this earlier Alexander product built on a Dennis Trident chassis. This particular bus spent many years working in London before coming North.

 

The journey from Bakewell will be aboard one of ‘tb’s Scania’s this time carrying a body produced by ‘Wright’s of Ballymena in Northern Ireland. The buses on the ‘sixes service have recently been refurbished and given a much brighter coat of yellow paint than they had before.

 

Passengers returning to Ripley from Matlock will probably do so on one of these which is another bus built by Wright’s. This particular model is called the ‘Streetlite’ although like Hulleys, ‘yourbus’ by virtue of being a small company a different type could be substituted.