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Is this the old Pond Street bus station??


Sheffield History

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1 hour ago, Sheffield History said:

Pond Street Bus Station Sheffield.jpg

Great photo here of buses working through a very snowy situation

Is this the old Pond Street Bus Station?

yes bottom end 

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My earliest recollections of Pond Street bus station would be of the late 1940's when all there was seemed to be tubular steel and corrugated steel, open-sided shelters...a bleak and dreary place with little street lighting, as I recall

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On ‎15‎/‎11‎/‎2017 at 11:52, midge said:

The national travel offices, did that used to be SUT buses?

You are quite correct, the building on the left-hand-side used to be the old SUT offices.

I am not quite sure of the exact circumstances, but I suppose that SUT were at some stage, amalgamated into National Travel.

Someone on here, I am sure, will know the exact circumstances.

I remember this platform well (was it Platform G?) - a bleak place - especially on such a day as that portrayed here - where folks wanting to catch any of the infrequent, out-of-town services were banished to await the start of their hourly (or sometimes more than hourly) journey home.

As Private Frazer used to say - "a wild and lonely place you understand".

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On ‎15‎/‎11‎/‎2017 at 17:08, lysander said:

My earliest recollections of Pond Street bus station would be of the late 1940's when all there was seemed to be tubular steel and corrugated steel, open-sided shelters...a bleak and dreary place with little street lighting, as I recall

You are indeed correct - even on a warm, sunny day in August 1952, it still appears as a bleak and dreary place.

The shelters were certainly not designed with the intention of keeping awaiting passengers warm and dry.

PT156-Sheffield Transport No.457 & No.A558-(Reg No.JWE858) at Pond Street, Sheffield-09-08-1952.jpg

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9 minutes ago, Unitedite Returns said:

You are quite correct, the building on the left-hand-side used to be the old SUT offices.

I am not quite sure of the exact circumstances, but I suppose that SUT were at some stage, amalgamated into National Travel.

Someone on here, I am sure, will know the exact circumstances.

I remember this platform well (was it Platform G?) - a bleak place - especially on such a day as that portrayed here - where folks wanting to catch any of the infrequent, out-of-town services were banished to await the start of their hourly (or sometimes more than hourly) journey home.

As Private Frazer used to say - "a wild and lonely place you understand".

Sheffield United Tours was owned by BET (British Electric Traction Group) which sold its transport businesses to the state controlled THC (Transport Holding Company) in 1968. In 1969 the bus & coach part of the THC became the National Bus Company, and in the early 1970s SUT was one of the coach operating subsidiaries which were amalgamated to form National Travel (North East)

A history of SUT can be found on Peter Gould's website

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What a wonderful picture , unitedite returns. We must have been a tough lot in those days...no doors on trams ...open back loader buses, draughts everywhere and minimal heating on either of them. Drivers wrapped up like eskimos and passengers like wise...No wonder as kids we all suffered with chilblains in winter! Nice to see an AEC bus...as I recall most were Leylands with the odd Crossley.

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Just now, lysander said:

What a wonderful picture , unitedite returns. We must have been a tough lot in those days...no doors on trams ...open back loader buses, draughts everywhere and minimal heating on either of them. Drivers wrapped up like eskimos and passengers like wise...No wonder as kids we all suffered with chilblains in winter! Nice to see an AEC bus...as I recall most were Leylands with the odd Crossley.

Thank you for the compliment, but you are right, even in this photograph, which must have been taken, nigh-on midday in August - look at the shadows, nearly everyone is wearing a topcoat. As for the bus-shelters - they were clearly designed by some southern-softie - who had no concept that in northern cities such as Sheffield, that the rain rarely falls vertically, but most frequently, from the side, and often with some force.

EDIT - Good heavens - after all these years, I had managed to forget about the tortures of chilblains!!!!! :o

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2 hours ago, rover1949 said:

I remember an eccentric old lady (Nora?) who used to stride around the bus station shouting at all and sundry.

 

Pond Street Nora has her own topic on here, as well as sundry mentions in other topics.

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Unitedite returns...Along with chillblains , for many of us, the accompaniment to cold freezing weather would often be "hot aches"...a painful condition brought on by blood beginning to circulate in the bodies extremities...caused by poor diet and insufficient warm clothing!

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14 hours ago, lysander said:

Unitedite returns...Along with chillblains , for many of us, the accompaniment to cold freezing weather would often be "hot aches"...a painful condition brought on by blood beginning to circulate in the bodies extremities...caused by poor diet and insufficient warm clothing!

Ahh! now I understand, thank you for explaining.

However, in answer to your question, I don't think that I ever had the misfortune to suffer from 'heat aches'. Chilblains, yes, and they were painful enough, at least for me they were, but 'heat aches', no.

That might have been down to good fortune, or it may have been down to some other reason.

When we were kids, my brothers, and I, both, my mother and my step-grandmother, (my own grandmother died of T.B. in Winter Street Hospital as long ago as 1928), imposed upon us a ritual, which had to be endured in freezing weather.

The ritual was rigorously enforced and I suspect it had been passed down to them by their own forebears, so I suspect that this family ritual was at least 100 years old, even when it was first imposed upon me.

If the weather had been bad, and your feet were cold, then on returning to the house, you were not allowed to warm your feet by the fire until after you had removed your shoes and socks, and until after you had vigorously rubbed your feet and toes in order 'to restore circulation'.

I do not know, even to this day, as to what precisely constituted sufficient vigorous rubbing, but certainly, you weren't  allowed to sit by the fireside beforehand. That decision wasn't yours, obviously.

Maybe the ritual prevented 'heat aches', maybe not, or just maybe, it was all just down to good fortune.

Did anyone else have to endure any similar cold-weather rituals?

 

I know that we are going off on an entirely different tangent now, but isn't that what is brilliant about this site?

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As well as being a platform in the bus station, I think this was officially a road called Harmer Lane as that was always given as the address of the SUT booking office.  I remember queuing there on Saturday mornings to get the last available tickets on the United awayday coaches.

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It had the last 'bus stop before Pond Street - a request stop which was convenient if you wanted to nip back round the corner and catch a 54, 55 or 60, as I did when going to King Ted's.

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On ‎17‎/‎11‎/‎2017 at 09:18, rover1949 said:

I remember an eccentric old lady (Nora?) who used to stride around the bus station shouting at all and sundry.

 

Yes I remember very well ,and her rather colourful language.

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I drove a bus in Sheffield for ten or so years in the seventies  S.U.T for six months,and then for Andrews till they sold out to Traction,i remember  my first whistle bus from Pond street to Dinington  Sat-day night think of a F1 race start but with buses pretty frightening.

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10 hours ago, butterill said:

I drove a bus in Sheffield for ten or so years in the seventies  S.U.T for six months,and then for Andrews till they sold out to Traction,i remember  my first whistle bus from Pond street to Dinington  Sat-day night think of a F1 race start but with buses pretty frightening.

Its just a pity no one thought to record that sight and sound of all the 11.15s leaving Pond Sreet in one mad rush. We did the 11.15 service 49, the only route to turn left out of the bus station. There was not a 'cat in hells' chance of crossing the path of those right turning buses, nor would you want to. How times have changed. I was in CBS one day last week, there were just three buses in the entire station, how sad.  W/E.

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Blimey, I counted 13 of them (though I didn't notice any turning left).

Would it have been beyond the wit of the timetable department to stagger the departures by a couple of minutes each?

11.15 sounds rather early for last departures in a major city.

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When I started drinking beer Pubs last orders were 10 pm.... with 10 minutes drinking up time...and PC Plod made a show of policing these hours. There were no night clubs either and we all had jobs to go to with starting time, for some. at 6.00 am!

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