Bemused By Border Buses (1)

It was back in 2010 when TrentBartonKinch operated Skylink services via East Midlands Airport were withdrawn from East Midlands Parkway railway station. Now fbb vaguely remembers that publicity for this relatively new station made much of its bus link to the airport. But with the farewell to Skylink came a replacement but “dedicated” taxi service.

But fbb started digging into that poor quality link as he read Roger French’s latest experience on yet another Demand Responsive minibus service which took him from the Parkway station to Clifton tram terminus.

So let us first look at geography. East Midlands Parkway as designed to provide a railhead for the almost contiguous area of Greater Derby and Greater Nottingham.

Parkway station is the red blob on the A453, a much upgraded road from Nottingham to the M1. It sits in the shadow of the Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station.

The airport is on the continuation of the A453 (RED) just west of Kegworth. The complex junctions with the M1 are a joy to behold! Well, they are if all you have yo do is behold them; they can be baffling if you are negotiating them at road level!

The M1 is running north to south (and vice versa!).

The A50 comes in from top left from Derby; the A453 approaches from top right and joins at the roundabout. The A453 the disappears centre left with the airport runway just peeping into shot. Bottom left we see the A42 (further south to become the M42) branching off the M1.

Adjacent to the A453 a short beep towards Nottingham we can see the eight colling towers of the power station and the location of Parkway.

The dominant operator today is still TrentBartonKinch and a recent route map explains all.

This map (now superseded) shows Skylink Nottingham (BLUE) running from Nottingham via Long Eaton to the Airport then continuing to either Coalville …

… or Loughborough. 

These routes are very much the stopping service to the Airport.

From Nottingham, this 20 minute service (plus extensions) is supplemented by a half hourly Skylink Express shown in a rather boring grey on the network map.

These run non-stop from Clifton along the aforementioned A453. The route has high-spec vehicles also in grey!

The other Skylink runs between Derby, The Airport, Loughborough and Leicester. It appears on the above map in ORANGE and is shown in isolation below.

Liveries for the Derby and Nottingham services have varied iver the years. The latest is a dark and distinguished black and blue.

There is another service which appears as Sky 15. 

It runs from Ilkeston and, again, is very much a 15 minute frequency local service with just an hourly extension to the airport.

Being Trent, the uses are well branded as well.

But none of these routes go to Parkway station although Skylink Express goes close by …

… but does not stop – indeed cannot stop on the fast road. Buses could, of course, wiggle in to the station buildings …

But they don’r.

There are pictures of service buses at Parkway …

… Which no longer run.

A development at Peterville Castle …

… the top of fbb’s latest vat of shaving foam.

Such recognition!