L5 L6 Leading to Linslade

fbb’s latest appointment for Maculae eye-stabbing was yesterday 0945 at Axminster Hospital. The letter arrived at fbb mansions yesterday at 1145! Thank fully Mrs fbb had contacted Axminster Hospital on Friday last who confirmed the unannounced appointment.

Yesterday was also the second of the monthly duplicate Fellowship meetings.

If this blog is inexplicably curtailed, you now have an explicable reason!”

An 1860 map shows Linslade at the top and the village of Surecot lower left. Just about visible at the crossroads is the name Chelsea and the designation Brick Kilns.

Roll in to 1901 and below is a map of the main area of Linslade between the railway and the canal just south of the main road labelled “Chelsea” (?).

To the west of the railway is very little apart from the village of Surecot, now named Southcott.

By the inter war period, the original Linslade, home of Linslade Manor …

… had vanished from the map.

Rapid expansion happened from the 1960s leading to todays’s general plan.

The Manor has reappeared with the name Old Linslade – possibly because it had gained additional (and doubtless expensive) housing!

We can now, mentally, superimpose the 1979 minibus routes to Linslade on the present day map.

… but broadly serving the same areas. Knaves Hill (former 4) and Chelsea Green (former 1) still appear on the map but the Bideford Green (former 2) roads have been abandoned and replaced by the wider sweep of Derwent Road. 

On the right thereof there is still open country!

A now-defunct timetable exists on-line showing Grant Palmer as the operator.

The estates have a half hourly service, hourly in each direction (36A and 36C). 

Smart motors!

Note that both routes run “cross town” to serve Billington Park, of which more anon.

Also note that, on Saturdays, only an hourly service 36C  was operated.

And The ‘Improved” L5/L6 ?

The route is nearly identical with just a little snip-snip bottom right. But the timetable is reduced to hourly Monday to Friday and the layout of the times is far less informative. Details of the schedule give too much of a summary to guide the bemused possible passenger.

It still runs cross-town, honest.

Contrast and compare with Grant Palmer’s offering above! 

And some notes …

So no Sunday buses cross-town! And …

…  we have an L6. Why?

Presumably there is a good reason?

Chelsea Green gets a mention in the “outrage” reports in the local press. The co-ordinator of a petition writes:-

Certainly services to the two areas examined so far by fbb are neither new nor improved. In fact they are the same but reduced.

Maybe the residents of Linslade, Sandhills and Roman Gate are looking with unparalled envy at better services to the east of the Leighton Linslade. Or maybe not?

More tomorrow.

We all know about buses being “wrapped” in Blue Peter style sticky backed plastic for advertising purposes. But How is it done? It would seem unlikely that bus-sized panels could be manipulated into place.

You would guess that the really clever bit is doing a design on a computer; and that would require detailed plans of the vehicle in question to be imported.

But having got the design done, the process is surprisingly simple. Using “tiling” – splitting the design into manageable chunks – you print out the sections on a special colour printer.

And there are the pieces …

… which constitute a giant jig-saw puzzle …

… but without the wiggly edges. Get the bits in the right order and … tada! …

… you have a “wrapped” bus. That particular driver is doing an Andy Murray after negotiating a particularly difficult road junction!

It must be tricky getting around the curved bits! On the bus as well as at the road junction!!

Clever stuff!

 Next Leighton Buzzard blog : Wednesday 7th June