So I drove the
Baker Street to Wembley Park Jubilee Line replacement service.
The routeThe service was supposed to run every 3 minutes (20bph) between Baker Street and Willesden Green, with 12bph running through to Wembley Park.
All Jubilee Line stations were served. The bus stops closest to the stations were used in most cases. The exception was Baker Street. Passengers were set down at the stand on Park Road, just north of Baker Street, but picked up outside the station.
There were dual changeover points - Baker Street, Park Road and Wembley Park, Yellow car park. In the past buses stood in Perimeter Way, often hitting
the max headroom sign on Olympic Way which is inaccurate because of where it is positioned! This road was closed off however.
It's a complicated route. Pick up was on Baker Street outside the station, set down as described earlier. Routed round Melcombe Street onto Gloucester Place then following the 113 through St Johns Wood and Swiss Cottage before diving off at Finchley Road to serve the Broadhurst Gardens stop. Then, followed the C11 to West Hampstead, West End Lane. Towards Kilburn, buses ran direct via Iverson Road. Towards Baker Street, buses ran via Kilburn High Road and Quex Road to West End Lane.
From Kilburn it was straight up the A5 to Cricklewood Broadway before following the 266 along Chichele Road and Walm Lane to Willesden Green, served on Station Parade. This was a pick up stop, set down stop and hesitation point for the Willesden Green terminators.
From Willesden Green, it was back down Walm Lane then following the 226 through Dollis Hill to Dudden Hill Lane. The route doglegged past AC (Willesden Garage), through to Church End then followed the 297 through Neasden all the way to Wembley Park. The stand was down the far end of Engineers Way.
Almost as interesting as the live route was the dead running routes. Great pains were gone to stop drivers going into the ULEZ. Baker Street to QB/WL for example - drivers were not permitted to go down Baker Street and skirt round the ULEZ by hooking around York Way to Gloucester Place then down the Marylebone Road towards Edgware Road. Instead, it was line of route as far as St Johns Wood Road then down there to get to Edgware Road! I haven't really been to the area since the two way schemes on Baker Street and Gloucester Place went in. On the dead run back to the garage I went to great pains
not to enter the ULEZ. I've seen the reactions at the garage when drivers have inadvertently entered it with a non-hybrid and didn't wish to get into trouble for such a transgression.
Rarely for TfL rail replacement, I consider this to be a difficult route. I'd issue a recommendation that drivers go through specialist route learning before driving it. Any rail replacement route which has lots of left turns, right turns, dog legs, roundabouts, gyratories, one way workings and
road closed signs on the line of route which drivers are required to go past is likely to result in buses getting lost. Furthermore there were some significant hazards to watch out for. That
traffic island at Cricklewood Broadway was once again a source of considerable grief for southbound buses. Whilst a 10m bus
can go around there with care and caution by a driver that knows that turn, some of the LTs had a trial getting around. Even towards Willesden Green it was less than ideal.
The Willesden Green hesitation point had 40bph serving it. Booked hesitations of 20+ minutes meant buses were pushed further down Station Parade, requiring 3 point turns to be executed to get back out.
The one way routing between West Hampstead and Kilburn was a good idea. You wouldn't want 20bph in both directions conflicting on Iverson Road. Pot luck would have it that there were two unplanned diversions due to incidents on Sunday. One required Iverson Road to be used in both directions, including by the 16, 32, 332 etc southbound. The other required the route via Quex Road to be used in both directions!
I have never done so many Code Blues and Code Reds over the course of a weekend as I did last weekend. I genuinely lost count. At one point I caused all southbound buses to be diverted away from Kilburn High Road thanks to a car parking next to a traffic island, obstructing the road and bringing traffic to a standstill. The traffic management is diabolical on Kilburn High Road thanks to parking restrictions being so lax that cars can routinely reduce this major strategic corridor to a bottleneck that cannot support two way traffic.
LoadingsI've seen busier replacement services for sure. The 113 looked to be under severe pressure from Baker Street, but I didn't really see any packed 13s or 139s oddly. A good job was done of redirecting passengers to the Bakerloo Line.
People at Wembley Park were asking for a Metropolitan line replacement bus to Baker Street. It was unfortunate for them that such a thing did not exist and were redirected to use the Met Line replacement service to Stonebridge Park for the Bakerloo into London. I had to do this at the end of my shift. Stonebridge Park station was interesting - the trains were shown on the board with a destination of London Road Depot and signs and announcements said these were out of service passing trains and that passengers must stand clear and not board. However in my days as a LU timetabler I did write part of a WTT for the Bakerloo Line and know that the information at the station was a very misleading of saying that the train was actually in passenger service as far as Waterloo. There are three trains that have to go to empty to London Road every evening but quite a few that run in service to Waterloo. I got on the train which was very much in service and others were left on the platform. Someone should let the Overground know.
Running timesSunday late morning there was a lot of running time northbound and the service was being strictly regulated at Willesden Green. This meant Wembley Park bound buses being emptied and parked up to await the correct departure time, which was anything up to 20 minutes after arrival.
Otherwise there was a fair amount of resilience and I found the diversions didn't result in late running - provided the buses followed the correct diversion route. Kilburn High Road in the evening screwed things up however.
Vehicle ChoiceAll allocated buses. I had Euro 4 Enviro 400 9406, which has a tachograph and has finally had the speed limiter set at a level that makes it useful for private hire work. Also had 9420 from the same back and had Euro 5 Enviro 400 9525. I don't think I've ever driven a Euro 5 with such responsive acceleration. Better still it had working
passenger saloon heating. This bus is a garage favourite. More's the pity this one and 9526 are the only nippy 12 plates left at QB.
SummaryEntertaining for many reasons I can't post about, but I think I'm tiring of spending my Sundays on traffic choked roads. I yearn to do the nice suburban National Rail routes. The enjoyability was enhanced by having fun buses to drive. Had I been allocated LTs I think that would have sent stress levels right the way up.
The complicated route in addition to the need to pull three point turns, deal with tight clearances on Canfield/Broadhurst Gardens and drive through road closed signs on Engineers Way earn this route a difficult rating.
Route difficulty rating - 3/3 (difficult, specialist route learning recommended)
Enjoyability - 3/5 (moderate)
Next route review - Hammersmith to Heathrow Terminal 5!