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Post by thesquirrels on Jun 5, 2022 20:48:11 GMT
My early memories are Leaside Ms ruling the roost in Tottenham on the 279, 259 (being a through route from Ponders End to Holborn Circus), 149, 67, 243, 171A, 29, 41.. it was pretty uniform. Occasionally sighted a GG Volvo on Green Lanes working the 141. Occasional oddities appeared with London Siberian* Ts on the 41 and the later encroachment of Capital Citybus on routes west of the Lea such as the 67 with their droning Voith gearboxed Olympians, and Stagecoach bringing bona-fide East London Titans across on the 230. Trips across into Walthamstow from the late 90s onwards were an education, I'll never forget needing to pull a rope cord draped along the saloon ceiling on an ex-Stephensons Metrobus on the 158 in order to ring the stopping bell! I'd say the mid-late 1990s was probably the snapshot with the most interesting variety in London, with ex-LT garages rubbing up against independents and the the low floor era starting to show promise. As the tendering system has matured and rules have tightened up a lot of those very obvious signifiers of variety have been weeded out.
The old Leaside garages continue to hold sway in and around Haringey and Enfield, through Cowie and later Arriva. The routes themselves haven't changed a huge amount, with the 349 (temporarily, it turns out) taking some of the weight from the 149, the ends of the 149/259/279 being fiddled with but the core Tottenham sections remaining as they were. Go-Ahead have a keen toehold too as a legacy of Capital's incursions, of course, with the late 1990s awarding of the 76 and 259 to First Capital with ELC Pyoneers bringing the first real signs of how the tendering system might alter the Tottenham landscape. There was also the little yellow Optare Metrorider Haringey Council funded on the then-hourly 318! Capital took a garage site near the LU depot at Northumberland Park; I'd often walk from secondary school at lunchtime to peer through the gates at the yellow and red oddities found within.
* A mis-label by a young me which sort of stuck in our household
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Post by thesquirrels on May 29, 2022 12:21:08 GMT
Carousel Buses are withdrawing the 103 between Watford and Amersham from July. Source: Intalink website, upcoming changes section. Leaves the A404 between Little Chalfont and Rickmansworth without a regular bus service for the first time, though the Met does shadow the majority of it. Guessing Herts CC have pulled their funding for that end of the route. The section between Amersham and Wycombe via Beaconsfield remains. There is some schools traffic to the Chorleywood area which the Met won't be able to replace directly so I'm guessing something will be put in to replace that. I travelled on that route a couple of times a few years back, the Amersham to Rickmansworth section was not well used even then. Sad to see it go though, it was a continuation of the former London Country route 336 which ran between Watford and Chesham. The 336 also had a localised 336A variant that linked Rickmansworth with the Loudwater Estate and was the last route to be operated by the diminutive 26-seater GS Guy Vixens. The buses were nominally allocated to Garston Garage but one was outstationed at the home of the route's regular driver. He would drive over to Garston once a week to swap the vehicle over and pay in the week's takings. The service ceased in the early 1970s. It is technically my 'local' route now, but other than a recent use-in-distress following a suspension on the Met line I haven't used it since it's 336 days (with an ex-LT M, when Carousel had them grizzling up the hillsides of High Wycombe). I see it a lot though and outside of school peak times the buses rarely carry more than a few people. This is it's problem; nobody uses it. East of Little Chalfont there isn't much for it to serve - the housing running off the Amersham/Rickmansworth Road through Chorleywood Common and past the M25 towards Rickmansworth is some of the most expensive in the country. Rickmansworth to Watford is well covered by Arriva's Watford routes anyway. Some of the roads off White Lion Road between Amersham and Little Chalfont are more 'bus friendly' and will miss the service, I think - the Amersham 'Town Bus' 71/73 provides the necessary links but is very infrequent, to the point where you need to plan your day around it, and doesn't run at weekends.
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Post by thesquirrels on May 29, 2022 7:37:15 GMT
Carousel Buses are withdrawing the 103 between Watford and Amersham from July. Source: Intalink website, upcoming changes section. Leaves the A404 between Little Chalfont and Rickmansworth without a regular bus service for the first time, though the Met does shadow the majority of it.
Guessing Herts CC have pulled their funding for that end of the route. The section between Amersham and Wycombe via Beaconsfield remains. There is some schools traffic to the Chorleywood area which the Met won't be able to replace directly so I'm guessing something will be put in to replace that.
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Post by thesquirrels on May 15, 2022 21:09:34 GMT
So what are our favourite areas of London? I find Kingston lovely, and I’ve always really liked Bromley and Greenwich too. The areas themselves not the boroughs as a whole obviously. I'm a sucker for the bits of LBRUT that hug the Thames - Richmond, Twickenham, Teddington. Further east, Forest Gate, even before it started getting the craft beer drinkers and Walthamstow overspill turning up. Wanstead, South Woodford. Chislehurst. Blackheath. Always half-fancied the furtherest flung extremities of the Met line (Northwood, Pinner, Croxley etc) and beyond but ruled out ever getting out that way on cost grounds. Then I met my now-wife, an Amersham resident, and those areas are now daily sights as my fast Met line to/from work sails by. As a son of Haringey I'm obliged to give honourable mentions to Muswell Hill, Crouch End and Highgate but three decades of familiarity has bred a sort of disdain there. Highgate Village is lovely, though, as is Hampstead, which is probably my stand-out favourite area. Highbury Barn and Canonbury have always had more of an appeal to me than my in-borough neighbours. On reflection I feel like these answers have changed a lot in the last 10 years - I did a lot of enjoying life in inner London and my answers back then reflected what I enjoyed doing in those days. Now I want space to push the buggy and somewhere outside to have a pub lunch. And good charity shops. And no crackheads.
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Post by thesquirrels on May 13, 2022 21:45:40 GMT
Peckham is gentrified now frankly- after my midnight bus trip (to do the 345 end to end and then get the last 360!) have been there several times late in the evening and is as good as it gets Harlesden was dodgy for sure. Mercifully the 266 was in the day although 18 was at 8pm ish and 260 at 11pm!) The scariest from a desolation perspective was Dagenham dock - proper post apocalyptic area! I find Erith spooky for similar reasons as Dagenham Dock. The whole area feels like what a post nuclear war town would like like. The thames being so wide compared to further west into London gives it a weird vibe for me. I got this sense big time in my early days of crossing the London boundary into Thurrock. 372 around Aveley, buses beyond Lakeside to Grays, Chadwell, Tilbury There are some housing estates in Thurrock where I get the heebie jeebies as a grown adult and I spent my formative years in such exciting places as Broadwater Farm and North Peckham. Seabrooke Rise, Broadway Estate, the Brentwood Road flats. There's a certain bleakness out there, the towers on the latter estate border straight onto ploughed fields.
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Post by thesquirrels on May 13, 2022 21:36:57 GMT
Catford and Lewisham are scary, especially at night. I do a lot of night cycling, and I literally don’t feel safe with all the gangs hanging about. Woolwich and Plumstead as well, and Croydon obviously. Bexleyheath is getting very rough as well, especially when all the gangs of teenagers are hanging about. There’s always community police at the bus stops by the clock tower in the afternoons. Don't forget that buses didn't serve Bexleyheath clock tower on weekend nights for many years because of the crowds and aggro that occurred there. And this was 20 years ago! But that was more of a booze thing than a gang thing. Romford had similar arrangements.
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Post by thesquirrels on May 13, 2022 21:00:22 GMT
Biggest problem as I see it is Thamesmead north of the Spine Road (the loop working around Crossway/Bentham Road. South of the Spine Road is close to Abbey Wood station for Lizzy Line/SE trains, West Thamesmead (Broadwaters - where the 244 and 380 go) is close to the new Woolwich station and also Plumstead. The trouble really is the the Goblin line is effectively ruled out in probably all of our lifetimes now, and the Waterfront Transit bus/tram line is also now impossible because of building work : so that just leaves the DLR - and with that you potentially are robbing Beckton of part of its current service, which will not be popular. DLR is, however, the only way I can even remotely see Thamesmead getting trains in anything like short order. The positioning of the new Barking Reach pier also seems to make serving Thamesmead from that in the future very difficult. Lots of problems, and no really effective solutions apart possibly from the DLR. Bus services (and let’s assume post changes, so with extended 472 etc) are ok from the loop - most obvious connections are catered for (Woolwich, Abbey Wood, Erith, Bexleyheath all served, and served well). Major gap is Thamesmead to the west side of Bexley borough. And finally, the dear old 180 - in my experience, from the east it mainly empties at Woolwich and then refills with Charlton/Greenwich bound passengers. I would guess that end to end passengers may marginally increase in its new form of Erith to North Greenwich, but not by a huge amount. In recent years, of the 177/180 pairing, the 177 is much the stronger partner. Fact fans : with these changes it will mean that only Woolwich to Charlton will remain from the original 180 when it started. I do question sometimes how useful the DLR will actually be going to Thamesmead. It's something, but it's not what's going to be ideal. It'll be a branch off an already relatively infrequent branch. The options are to either double the service down the Beckton branch or half the service to Beckton. Doubling the service would be fine heading towards Thamesmead, although probably not as much heading the other way as I believe the line into Central London is pretty much at capacity. There'd need to be mass changes at somewhere like Canning Town and I'm not sure if the DLR service into Central London, or even the Jubilee Line can take that additional strain. Likewise even the Overground, there'd need to be mass change at Barking as I don't think many from Thamesmead will want to head to Tottenham. The Elizabeth Line going to Thamesmead sounds like the best scenario. It'd probably not have huge impacts on already existing services, along with providing the residents of Thamesmead a link towards Central London along with points on the way such as Custom House or Canary Wharf to change for other lines should they need to go elsewhere. Very much a side point in all of this but I wouldn't rule out the usefulness of a link from Thamesmead to the western end of the Goblin. The Whittington and the Royal Free lie near Upper Holloway and Gospel Oak respectively and there is plenty of need for health care staff - Thamesmead is one of the last relatively affordable areas of London for family accommodation and a zone 2-4 commute (cheap) of less than an hour would appeal to plenty. The GOBLIN has thrived providing those odd along-the-top links and I think plugging Thamesmead into that would be a good fit. It would also be about 25 minutes from the Victoria Line at Blackhorse Road and all the onward links that provides. It isn't even particularly far - I recall visiting my late father in an upstairs ward at the RFH on one of his many inpatient stays and seeing the Lintons flats in Barking on the horizon from the upper floor windows.
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Post by thesquirrels on Mar 13, 2022 18:53:16 GMT
Because TfL have form for cutting existing links when introducing a express route in current times (X140) and are not interested in Inner London anyway hence why most reductions happen there. The X53 idea isn’t the issue - the issue is TfL have already said more cuts are coming and it would be easy to introduce a X53 and use that to cover up any cut to the 53 or 453. A X176 in comparison falls into the category of how poor Inner London is set up for express routes hence why a number of suggestions in this thread have good intentions but they all rely on a lot of priority being set up as well as the regular routes alongside not being slashed in comparison and bus priority has been talked about constantly but the level of action only usually matches the actual conversation - until that changes, Inner London express routes are a pipe dream unless you have a unique situation like the X68 The X68 was quite similar to the old X53 running with the flow only Monday to Fridays and I think the X53 had an express section aswell or was it just limited stop throughout? Limited stop, but with no stops between the Elephant and New Cross, and again between Woolwich and Thamesmead.
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Post by thesquirrels on Mar 12, 2022 19:40:43 GMT
X149 from London Bridge stopping at Bank, Liverpool Street, Shoreditch, Dalston Junction, Stoke Newington, Stamford Hill, Seven Sisters, Bruce Grove, Silver Street, Edmonton Green then continuing to Ponders End via route 349 (and previous route 149). I think an express 149 would see a high level of use, in principle, but with the plan document indicating a wish to avoid duplicating rail links I doubt it would happen in practice, especially as the rail service it duplicates is one of TfL's own. There is also the road layout to consider - lots of multi/bus lane running to facilitate overtaking stopping buses between Shoreditch and Tottenham Green but north of there you'd get stuck behind stopping buses wherever you find them (and on a 30bph corridor that Will be at most stops). The time advantage would be limited. Pretty sure also that the 149 is one of those routes that puts a surplus back into the TfL pot so I don't think they would be in a rush to change the setup to the detriment of that.
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Post by thesquirrels on Mar 11, 2022 21:02:37 GMT
I think the major zone 5/6 town centres win out here as they have good major trunk roads in and out to faciltiate lengthy and decent services.
Uxbridge is worth a mention for managing to have a range of routes - TfL and commercial - fanning out far beyond the border into Bucks/Berks/Herts, as well as a comprehensive local U-route network and decent routes to Heathrow, Hounslow and well towards Central London along the A4020.
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Post by thesquirrels on Mar 1, 2022 22:41:55 GMT
Tube strike today - buses absolutely rammed full. Passengers left at stops. Seems much worse than on previous tube strike of the past and many worked at home today. I suspect that the 300 PVR bus cuts have made today as much of misery for many as the tube strike itself. It has been really noticeable. With the spare capacity stripped out the buses have been absolutely hammered today. Extras have been laid on but not to the same extent as in the past. I assume spare drivers are harder to come by now. Went out on a lunchtime walk around Holborn and even in the middle of the day buses were absolutely stuffed and sitting in gridlocked traffic. It has felt more like the strikes of the 1990s and early 2000s, pre con charge, when information on alternative/still running services were not readily available, and everyone surged for the buses and brought their cars in. With the various road closures in Central London today and associated spillover traffic today has easily the highest level of disruption I've seen on a strike day in 20 years. Not looking forward to Thursday at all.
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Post by thesquirrels on Mar 1, 2022 9:46:33 GMT
Ensignbus operating extra shorts on the 29 between Wood Green and Finsbury Park - regular fleet rather than any vintage excursions.
Single doorway setup on the bus I caught was struggling with huge numbers this morning!
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Post by thesquirrels on Jan 23, 2022 22:41:40 GMT
I’ve been hearing from some bus enthusiasts at how a certain bus type suits a bus route? How does a bus type suit a bus route I don’t understand can some explain? It's a subjective thing rooted in sentiment and personal experience. It is heavily rooted in sound for me. A Euro II Trident will always make me think of growling round the B roads of Newham on a 147 in the noughties, the sad song of an engine and transmission labouring under a full and standing load; so it goes that I find Euro II Tridents to be suited to built up slogs of routes elsewhere - the early TPs on the 43 and 134 growling up the Archway Road, the 472 and 177 through Charlton. Everyone will have their own interpretation- It's a tough one to measure.
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Metroline
Jan 20, 2022 20:47:08 GMT
via mobile
Post by thesquirrels on Jan 20, 2022 20:47:08 GMT
No one is in a position to confirm or deny this at the moment. Wow. To go from a 4bph commercial service - one of the most intensely bussed in the London periphery - to withdrawn in a couple of years would be astonishing. Will wait on some sort of formal announcement. Sure Uno or Sullivans would be straight in with some sort of replacement between Potters Bar and St Albans. Have my doubts about the Barnet end though.
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Post by thesquirrels on Dec 15, 2021 19:45:12 GMT
And the ending of TfL's participation in the travelcard scheme. Less of a big deal than it in the contactless era, but still feels huge. Will have cost ramifications for those of us in the Home Counties who commute in or use the train for leisure journeys to London.
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