Service 420 - Knightsford Bridge bypass

Bus and Coach operations, and timetables for The Birmingham and Midland Motor Omnibus Company Limited (BMMO — Midland "Red" Motor Services).
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AdamH
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Service 420 - Knightsford Bridge bypass

Post by AdamH » 09:41 Wednesday 12th October 2016

Found this newspaper cutting on the internet. It came from Berrows News and is dated 18th July 1958.

It shows the building of the new part of the A44 that bypassed the village at Knightsford Bridge near Knightwick. The road was built to provide a new bridge as the old one was thinking about falling down and had a 7-ton weight limit. Imagine the chaos that would cause these days with lorries having the divert via Bransford. :o

If you look very closely, you can see a large vehicle outside the Talbot Hotel. It looks a bit like a bus and as the Talbot was the timing point in the village it could well be a Service 420 waiting time or loading passengers. The old road looks narrow so maybe it is waiting for the one from Hereford (in DP livery) to pass before crossing the bridge? Or that could just be a lorry ignoring the 7-ton weight limit!

The timetable during this period was quite sporadic but buses towards Worcester departed the Talbot at between 14 and 29 minutes past the hour, while ones to Hereford were mostly at 26 minutes past the hours, so these could be two buses about to pass.

Either way, by the end of 1958 the old bridge was closed and partly demolished and the village lost their bus forever. The local shop closed having lost all their passing trade and the villagers had a long walk to the new bus stop at Suckley Turn... Once a new footbridge, which is still there today, was built next to The Talbot.

There was some good news for bus users... BMMO were able to reduce the running time by one whole minute after the bypass opened!
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Knightsford Bridge 18_07_1958.jpg

MattW
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Re: Service 420 - Knightsford Bridge bypass

Post by MattW » 23:08 Thursday 13th October 2016

Great find mate 8-) 8-) 8-)

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AdamH
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Re: Service 420 - Knightsford Bridge bypass

Post by AdamH » 09:44 Friday 14th October 2016

Maybe bmmoboy could answer this as he used to work in the trade...

Would that photograph still be on file with the newspaper? We have an exact date for when it was published so hopefully it wouldn't be too hard to trace. What sort of cost would it be? I'd be happy to pay a few pounds of my hard earned for a higher quality copy, but I wouldn't be willing to go into double figures.

bmmoboy
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Re: Service 420 - Knightsford Bridge bypass

Post by bmmoboy » 13:55 Friday 14th October 2016

The photo might just still be in the archives, but I very much doubt that the negatives are. I'll try and find out with one of my contacts (mind you there aren't many left now).

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AdamH
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Re: Service 420 - Knightsford Bridge bypass

Post by AdamH » 12:31 Friday 21st October 2016

I was told today by one of our members who has a very long memory that while the old bridge had the 7 ton weight limit buses were not permitted to cross with passenger on board.

As a young boy, our member was taken to Bromyard on the bus, an SOS type, by his grandfather. At the bridge all the passengers had to get off and walk over. Once they were clear the empty bus followed them very slowly. They then queued up to get back on for the rest of the journey!

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