travel

The photo above kindly sent in by David Culley and courtesy of Fred Bailey it is of a family outing on a charabanc one of the earliest modes of transport to Silverwood Colliery. It looks as though the photo may have been taken at Dalton. Back then the Skellams had a chippie in Dalton (I think it's now a Chinese) on the same side of Doncaster road as the Grapes Hotel, The Skellams, also used to run buses to the pit (charabancs) Jim Wroe nicknamed Lat (because he was thin) used to be the conductor.

Prior to the charabancs Miners would simply walk to the pit, hitch a ride on the back of a coal lorry, or ride a bicycle, gradually Rotherham Corporation Transport introduced bus routes that provided services to the mine.

Greens of Rotherham also ran a bus service to Silverwood from Rotherham until 1935 when the route was taken over by Rotherham Corporation. Later in 1935 in November the Corporation also took over routes to Silverwood and Ravenfield from Barkers of Rotherham. Warringtons of Bramley also ran a bus route from Bramley to Silverwood this too was taken over by Rotherham Corporation in July of 1939

Despite the bus services many miners still opted to walk to and from the pit from the surrounding villages even in the 1960's and 70's you would see them making their way home or going to work on good old Shanks Pony, the walk home possibly being enjoyed more by the men of Thrybergh and Dalton as it was all downhill! The men from Sunnyside, Bramley etc would simply cut across the fields of Woodlaithes, whilst the men of Ravenfield would walk down the hill and back up when their shift was finished.

Although the trackless or trolley bus system had been in use within the Rotherham area for several years it was 1931when the first trackless made it's way to Silverwood, these were single deck buses, due to economy and providing a improved service many of these single deck buses were converted to double deck buses like the one below in the photo kindly provided by Mick Carver..

Photo courtesy of Mick Carver

The photo above looks to be circa 1960, the trackless being removed as a system of road transport during October 1965. The Silverwood route being the last run of the last trackless in Rotherham. It would be around 1960 when smoking was banned on the lower deck but not the top deck.

For the people living at the top end of Thrybergh they would have to walk to the end of Vale Road to Hollings Lane to catch a trackless up to the pit as the wires did not go that way. The Silverwood trackless route through Thrybergh was along Oldgate Lane and Hollings Lane, the Thrybergh trackless route ended at Park Lane at the junction with Vale Road.

As can be seen from the photo there are several cars parked outside the mine and would also be quite a few parked in the car park on the other side of the bath house on the right of the photo. Car ownership by the working man being one of the major reasons of the great reduction in bus services in the area.

Amongst the bus services that ran past the colliery were:-

Rotherham to Worksop this route I believe finished around 1960.

Rotherham to Ravenfield No 22

Rotherham to Silverwood No 37

Rotherham to Braithwell No ?

Bramley to Silverwood No ?

Footnote

So what happened to all the drivers and conductresses well I located one conductress who lives about a 1/4 of a mile away from me here in Sydney Australia, a wonderful Irish lady named Mary who remembers well her times on the old 37 and No 6.

Many thanks to David Culley, Fred Bailey and Mick Carver for the photos.

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All information on this site is correct to the extent of my knowledge, should you spot an error please let me know and that error will be corrected.
All text and pages as formatted and presented on this site Copyright John Doxey, and may not be reproduced without consent
Photos, and information Copyright to Primary Sources where applicable

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All information on this site is correct to the extent of my knowledge, should you spot an error please let me know and that error will be corrected. All text and pages as formatted and presented on this site Copyright John Doxey, and may not be reproduced without consent Photos, and information Copyright to Primary Sources where applicable