news
Christmas success
Monday, January 04, 2010
Keighley Bus Museum Trust (KBMT) said it was “proud and very pleased” to have successfully operated its unique "free-to-users” heritage local bus services in Keighley and the Worth Valley for the 15th consecutive year despite fears earlier in the week that adverse weather conditions might prevent buses from running on Dec. 25th.
Trust Chairman Graham Mitchell, who was on duty throughout the day, said:- “I’m very pleased indeed that KBMT was able to operate its entire advertised Christmas Day timetable for the 15th year with every journey on time. We kept faith with our sponsors and with the very many local people who have come to rely upon us being there for them, and that is a source of great pride to the Museum Trust.
“Thankfully the Christmas Day weather dawned unexpectedly bright and sunny across the Pennine hills although 24 hours earlier road conditions on the steep slopes around Keighley had been very tricky with even commercial bus operators having a difficult time. We checked all the bus routes by car late on Christmas Eve and again on Christmas morning to make sure that every road we used was ice-free and safe to run on.
“Our 9-mile-long route 19 was quite surreal to drive because Airedale Hospital in the River Aire floodplain was shrouded in thick mist all day whilst the upland villages of Oxenhope & Haworth at the other end of the route were bathed in quite brilliant ‘Alpine’ sunshine !”
To be as economical as possible with both vehicle and human resources, KBMT used 2 traditional open platform double decker buses – London Transport Routemaster RM736 and Halifax Corporation Daimler 119 - on 4 routes, connecting Keighley Town Centre hourly to Fell Lane, the Guard House & Braithwaite Estates and to the Worth Valley villages of Oakworth, Haworth & Oxenhope.
Buses connected twice each hour outside the Keighley Campus of Leeds City College in North Street from where an hourly bus departed north to the Airedale General Hospital at Steeton.
Bus Museum Volunteers – 4 qualified PCV Drivers and 3 Conductors - manned the buses in shifts to provide 6 hours of continuous operation. Financial assistance from Keighley Town Council and commercial firm Double i Pressure Cleaning Ltd. enabled KBMT once again to provide the bus services absolutely free-to-users.
KBMT knows of only one other Transport Museum operating buses on Christmas Day; and whilst the passenger numbers involved in Keighley are not huge - a healthy 497 persons traveled this year (less than in 2008 but more than in 2007 or 2006) – it is an operation which has become a special Christmas tradition in the Town, providing for an important social need for lots of obviously genuine local passengers, each making relatively short journeys by bus across the area.
KBMT houses, restores, maintains and operates a collection of over 60 historic vehicles at Riverside Depot, behind Dalton Mills in central Keighley. For details of the collection and how to arrange a visit, see the museum website www.kbmt.org.uk or ring the Trust Secretary on 01282 413179
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