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Post by riverside on Oct 17, 2019 15:02:29 GMT
I think that they should make this bridge but make it permanent rather than temporary since double deckers would be able to go over it and close Hammersmith Bridge permenanently but only allowing pederstrians and cyclist I.e like it is now. I hope that TfL will look into it. I agree This proposed bridge would be extremely unfair on residents of the Queen Caroline Estate. I do not think Hammersmith and Fulham Council would be prepared to subject tenants to such an increase in traffic. To make the piece of Queen Caroline Street from the gyratory to the river suitable for such an increase in the volume of traffic would require significant reengineering of the road and removal of parking. The original route from the gyratory to the bridge was via Blacks Road. The present Hammersmith Bridge Road that runs from the gyratory by the side of St. Paul's Church was a completely new road built at the time of the flyover construction. When I was a boy growing up in Hammersmith in the 1960s the road was still officially called New Hammersmith Bridge Road. The 'new' was eventually dropped. When an alternative to Blacks Road was being considered I am pretty sure the stretch of road through the Queen Caroline Estate was never considered a viable option then and is not one today.
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Post by riverside on Oct 12, 2019 12:05:22 GMT
If only somebody had been able to video the rows and rows of withdrawn RT/RTL/RTW buses stored at the side of Poplar(PR) Garage in the late 1960s. Thanks for posting a very intriguing clip.
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Post by riverside on Oct 3, 2019 16:56:49 GMT
I thought it went beyond Dulwich back then. I'm sure it was still going as far as Penge in the early '90s. I've posted this before, sorry if I'm repeating myself. The 12 ran in two overlapping sections, 1) Willesden to Dulwich Plough, 2) OX to ElmersEnd Garage/South Croydon Garage Back in the '70's(I'll stand corrected if I'm wrong), the 'bottom bit' of the route south of Dulwich? was divided into the 12A & 12B Maybe someone younger than this old halfcab can enlighten us? According to the LT Allocation of Scheduled Buses (October 1969), the 12 had these scheduled sectional workings in the AM peak Mon-Fri: Figures below are buses per hour. Harlesden and Dulwich 7 Harlesden and Park Royal(Trading Estate)12/8 Park Royal Trading Estate and Shepherds Bush 3 Oxford Circus and Norwood Junction 4 Oxford Circus and Forest Hill 4 Peckham and South Croydon Garage 4 Norwood Junction and South Croydon Garage 4 In addition to the above there were also scheduled odd journeys such as between Addiscombe and Croydon(Katherine Street). Shepherds Bush buses did not operate south of Dulwich and TC buses did not operate past Oxford Circus. Elmers End buses could quite regularly be seen at both Croydon and Harlesden as they had the biggest allocation of 47(TC 8, PM 25 and S 11), giving a total of 91. The longest through journeys operated on a Sunday between Shepherd Bush(Wells Road) and South Croydon Garage. At that time terminating buses at Wells Road used to reverse onto the designated stand outside the administration block as S, but for some reason on a Sunday the 12 would terminate inside the garage, despite there being no workings from S on that day of the week.
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Post by riverside on Oct 3, 2019 16:28:28 GMT
Ian Paisley (DUP MP) is reporting there are still 2 companies looking to buy Wrightbus Also claiming a part of the Governments £220m bus improvement grant is allocated to the Northern Ireland bus builder (sounds more like a political fix to me, but with their recent financial revelations, rulebook seems to be different when DUP involved) Meanwhile Companies House shows their 2018 accounts as overdue On Last night's BBC Newsline programme it was reported that Unite, the union, had held a meeting with the Wrightbus workers claiming that there were still 4 parties interested in the business. 2 from Great Britain, 1 from China and 1 from the EU. Not sure how the union would be privy to such information but hopefully they would not be wanting to give false hope to their members. It would be nice to think that there still is out there a buyer, but only time will tell.
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Post by riverside on Sept 28, 2019 17:32:38 GMT
Thank you - my body may be failing me, but my mind's all there still, or so I kid myself. Maybe the Dominion Theatre in Tottenham Court Road will decide that their current production needs a refresh. Responding to looming rumours that the present round of bus cuts have not been enough and with financial pressures continuing to mount at TfL a new musical will open called 'We Will Shock You'. Queen songs will be reworked so Killer Queen becomes Killer Queues; Under Pressure can stay as it is and Seven Seas of Rye becomes Seven Routes Must Die after TfL confirms that in addition to more frequency reductions seven routes in the central area will be totally withdrawn.
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Post by riverside on Sept 28, 2019 8:20:48 GMT
The former employee says that the demise of Wrightbus will make a good 'Spotlight' programme. 'Spotlight' is the BBC Northern Ireland investigations unit and I would be very surprised if they are not already researching a programme on Wrightbus. If made the programme will probably only be shown on BBC Northern Ireland but any revelations they may come across should hopefully get wider press coverage. The workers and InvestNI need answers.
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Post by riverside on Sept 27, 2019 18:25:22 GMT
Let me start by saying that I have not been on the waccy baccy! According to BBC North West Tonight, tomorrow at the Manchester Art Gallery there will be a performance of Bus Regulation: The Musical. Taking inspiration from Starlight Express performers will be whizzing around on roller skates telling the history of bus regulation in the Greater Manchester area from the 1960s to the present day!! I am sure more creative minds than mine on this forum would be able to come up with some good suggestions for the title of a musical or play telling the story of the current state of the London bus network.
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Post by riverside on Sept 26, 2019 18:24:44 GMT
Last night's BBC Newsline programme at 6.30pm had a very detailed report on the collapse of Wrightbus and its effect on Ballymena. Possibility that Invest NI might look into how Wrightbus were using some of their funding. The programme seemed to suggest that they were receiving grants from InvestNI, but at the same time Wrightbus was handing out considerable amounts of money to build a large evangelical church on the outskirts of Ballymena. Despite quite a large amount of work on the church being completed, work on it has also halted. If the build quality of the church is anything like the buses, probably the parishioners should wear hard hats for the first service It does seem odd, but one poster who mentioned this on the BBC about the collapse said :- "The highly successful Glider buses in Belfast are from a Belgium company Van Hool. The buses aren't fully electric but a low emission hybrid diesel
Belgium is in the EU
Van Hool isn't closing down, Wrightbus was a dinosaur compared to this company.
Darwin said those who survive are those most adaptable to change.
But they don't believe in Darwin or dinosaurs in Ballymena"So a lot of it boiled down to being a little out of touch. Whilst they were fiddling about with Transit engines and batteries, the world had moved on. The tech in the LT is very dated. Another BBC quote in the comments section I hear JCB tried to buy this company at the start of the week but the Wrights family would not sell the land because they wanted to rent it out instead. They could have saved the workforce but wanted to be greedy wanting 1million rent a year instead of just selling upSo it doesn't sound great. It's like buying a Lamborghini with your redundancy money at the expense of paying your mortgage and service charge Starting a religious charity (Green Pastures) and building a church near to the factory seems a little odd. Aside from this incompetence is the bus market contracting 30%, and even when it was good, no one was really buying their products. I guess Arriva Southern Counties bst prder some E400 MMC's if those StreetDecks haven't arrived yet. I guess we may never see Go NorthEast's Citaro engined Streetwreck now Tonight's BBC Newsline programme also led with the collapse of Wrightbus. The organisation of the company has played a part in the failure to secure a buyer. The land that the factory occupies is owned by the Wright organisation but is completely separate from Wrightbus. Apparently the Wright organisation would not sell the land to a potential buyer of Wrightbus. Seems a pity if the sale of the land could have helped clinch a deal. One of the workers said last night that he was a fully qualified coachbuilder but there wasn't much call for his skills in County Antrim now that Wrightbus have gone. All very sad. I know there have been many questions about the quality of their recent products but from their humble origins to considerable expansion and penetration of the bus market since the 1990s, Wrightbus have provided an interesting chapter in the history of British/Irish bus manufacturing.
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Post by riverside on Sept 26, 2019 16:01:27 GMT
Last night's BBC Newsline programme at 6.30pm had a very detailed report on the collapse of Wrightbus and its effect on Ballymena. Possibility that Invest NI might look into how Wrightbus were using some of their funding. The programme seemed to suggest that they were receiving grants from InvestNI, but at the same time Wrightbus was handing out considerable amounts of money to build a large evangelical church on the outskirts of Ballymena. Despite quite a large amount of work on the church being completed, work on it has also halted.
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Post by riverside on Sept 13, 2019 17:53:52 GMT
If TfL is going to go ahead with the 218/266/306 proposals then your suggestion make sense, however, it would be better if the 218 rather than terminating at North Acton Station was routed direct via Park Royal Road to terminate at either Park Royal Asda or Central Middlesex Hospital. This would maintain much valued connections for passengers in the West Acton area. If passemgers from the Noel Road area wish to access the Central Line then I think most of them would do that from West Acton. What I cannot understand is an organisation that finally decides to grasp the nettle and truncates the 266 in the name of improving reliability because of the length of the route, virtually simultaneously proposes to extend a route a couple of miles away i.e. the 112 to North Finchley. The new length of the 112 added to the problems of congestion on the North Circular Road is bound to be a recipe for late running/uneven headways/curtailments. In my original post I forgot to include in my litany of woes inflicted on the West London bus network the withdrawal of the 10. A popular and longstanding connection between Hammersmith/Olympia/Kensington and Oxford Street replaced by the ultimate route designed by an organisation more concerned by operational convenience than passenger needs i.e. the reformed 23. Any 'new' links provided already better served by the 27/28/52/295/328 or 452. If TfL are really concerned about getting people away from Uber then they are not going the right way about it. Mind you an organisation that claims that it wants people to travel by bus and then in its own literature frequently cites buses as being a cause of congestion and pollution should not be taken too seriously. During the next mayoral election what is happening to the bus network should be a major issue but I doubt that it will happen. So sad to see the progress made at the start of the millenium being wilfully and systematically whittled away by the body authorised to provide Londoners with the best public transport possible. Financial constraints are making TfL's job difficult, but incompetence appears to be playing just as big a role in delivering a markedly worse bus service. That post was music to my ears. I agree with you completely about the 218. Asda actually helped to fund the 440 in the first place, but now TfL are meddling with it, and its scandalous. I went to a meeting about buses in Ealing/Acton which was fulling of West Acton residents lambasting Geoff Hobbs for the decision to ruin the 440, the rerouting via Horn Lane is an idiotic move, and breaks useful local links. West Acton residents use the 440 as their link to Asda in Park Royal, but of course that's now being needlessly broken, and extending the 218 on to Central Middlesex Hospital would've averted these problems but stupidly TfL didn't think to do it. One resident said 'We don't want to go to Hammersmith, all we care about is our link to the Asda.' Geoff Hobbs was clutching at straws at this meeting with weak arguments such as 'rerouting the 440 allows to connect Crossrail to Chiswick Business Park.' One resident had a brilliant rebuttle to this, and it was something akin to: 'What makes you think that someone would want to get of Crossrail at Acton Mainline, where only some trains will stop, and wait for the infrequent 440 bus which will take over half an hour to the business park, it would be faster to go to Ealing Broadway, where all Crossrail trains will stop, and get the District Line to Chiswick Park.' The 440 should certainly be kept running through West Acton, and on to Central Middlesex Hospital. Meanwhile, the 218 would be better off going up Horn Lane, then following the proposed 440 routing from North Acton on to Wembley, which would have created brilliant new radial links.
My comments are based on observations and could be dismissed as not telling the whole picture, but your report of the meeting you attended regarding these proposals is further proof that TfL wilfully ignore passengers flows if they do not match with their grand ideas. These changes are linked to Crossrail but as the attendee at the meeting clearly stated to the TfL representative it would make more sense for somebody to get off at Ealing Broadway and travel to Gunnersbury Station to access Chiswick Business Park. You are absolutely right, the proposed 218 should continue up Horn Lane to North Acton Station and be double decked, whilst the 440 should continue via West Acton so that passengers can get to where they want to go. What is it that is so difficult for TfL to understand? If they really are so perplexed about this then I am sure that there are many members of this forum who for free would spare their time and do them a drawing or two of the area and explain the needs of bus passengers in the area.
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Post by riverside on Sept 13, 2019 17:00:36 GMT
The much better idea would still be the new 218 every 8-10 mins with DDs from Hammersmith to North Acton. A simple split similar for the 2/432, 260/460, 149/349 etc. Simply localise the 266 and maintain the most popular link from Hammersmith to Acton with DDs. If TfL is going to go ahead with the 218/266/306 proposals then your suggestion make sense, however, it would be better if the 218 rather than terminating at North Acton Station was routed direct via Park Royal Road to terminate at either Park Royal Asda or Central Middlesex Hospital. This would maintain much valued connections for passengers in the West Acton area. If passemgers from the Noel Road area wish to access the Central Line then I think most of them would do that from West Acton. What I cannot understand is an organisation that finally decides to grasp the nettle and truncates the 266 in the name of improving reliability because of the length of the route, virtually simultaneously proposes to extend a route a couple of miles away i.e. the 112 to North Finchley. The new length of the 112 added to the problems of congestion on the North Circular Road is bound to be a recipe for late running/uneven headways/curtailments. In my original post I forgot to include in my litany of woes inflicted on the West London bus network the withdrawal of the 10. A popular and longstanding connection between Hammersmith/Olympia/Kensington and Oxford Street replaced by the ultimate route designed by an organisation more concerned by operational convenience than passenger needs i.e. the reformed 23. Any 'new' links provided already better served by the 27/28/52/295/328 or 452. If TfL are really concerned about getting people away from Uber then they are not going the right way about it. Mind you an organisation that claims that it wants people to travel by bus and then in its own literature frequently cites buses as being a cause of congestion and pollution should not be taken too seriously. During the next mayoral election what is happening to the bus network should be a major issue but I doubt that it will happen. So sad to see the progress made at the start of the millenium being wilfully and systematically whittled away by the body authorised to provide Londoners with the best public transport possible. Financial constraints are making TfL's job difficult, but incompetence appears to be playing just as big a role in delivering a markedly worse bus service.
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Post by riverside on Sept 12, 2019 17:47:27 GMT
The proposed changes to the 266 defy understanding and are certainly not in the interests of the bus passenger. I would be interested to see the data that TfL are using to justify the change.
Reliability problems at the southern end of the 266 are nothing new as I have stated before on this forum. In the late 1960s/early 1970s the Labour M.P. for Acton(Nigel Spearing),would regularly use the letters column of the West London Observer to harangue London Transport about the service provided by the 260 and 266 between Acton and Hammersmith in the peak hours. In those days the terminus was in the stretch of Hammersmith Grove between Beadon Road and King Street and it was not unusual to see an orderly queue from the stand in Hammersmith Grove tail back and then round the corner into King Street and stretch nearly to Hammersmith Broadway. Even in those far off days congestion would disrupt timetables but two other contributing factors were the length of the routes and the garage allocations. 266s operated shorts to Cricklewood Garage and regular journeys through to Edgware Station. On the 260 the Hammersmith journeys only went to North Finchley, although I think there were a few through journeys from Barnet on a Saturday when an all day service ran to Hammersmith. A combination of Cricklewood, Stonebridge Park, Willesden and Finchley garages ran the routes. The demands of facilitating crew reliefs meant that the central and northern parts of the routes received a better service with the southern portion often unavoidably starved of resources.
On June 13th 1970 as part of a large route reorganisation scheme in North West London LT made an effort to do something about the lengths of the routes. The 266 was withdrawn north of Cricklewood Garage except for some journeys continuing to West Hendon (Monday-Friday, evenings excepted) and a further extension to Colindale Station in peak hours. This replaced a facility that had previously been operated by the 245 which was converted to O.M.O. on the same day and diverted via the previous route of the 16 to Sudbury Town Station. With these changes the 260 no longer reached Hammersmith. No effort was made at this time to redress the geographical garage allocation imbalance so Hammersmith could still be starved of buses.
The withdrawal of the 255 in June 1972 provided an opportunity to improve the number of buses on the 266 reaching Hammersmith as a small Monday to Saturday allocation was introduced at Riverside Garage. The main allocation remained at Cricklewood with 22 buses compared to just 6 from Riverside. The new small allocation did slightly improve the flow of buses to Hammersmith but not necessarily from Hammersmith. If a bus departed from Riverside Garage it could not serve the busy terminal stop in Hammersmith Grove and crews were adept at swinging fast into King Street and to the stop outside Marks and Spencer and swiftly departing leaving behind passengers running from Hammersmith Grove. Another factor in the poor service on the 266 was the renowned militancy of crews at Cricklewood Garage who frequently went on strike for all sorts of reasons. In those days if there was a local dispute at a garage then that garage claimed an operating zone that other garages would not enter. Instead garages that were still working would operate what was called compensatory mileage. Many a time when Cricklewood went on strike the 6 Riverside buses provided a service between Hammersmith and the old Harlesden(Willesden Junction) stand. On some sites/books there can be found a picture of a rare working of freshly overhauled RT1641 on the 266. It is pictured on the old Hammersmith Grove stand and is blinded for Harlesden(Willesden Junction) as this was a day that Criclewood were on strike. That was the only day I had a ride on a RT on the 266!
In 1976 the 266 was extended/bifurcated to Brent Cross. Interestingly LT had intended the Brent Cross journeys to be numbered 266, with the Colindale journeys numbered 266A. As well as the Monday to Friday peak hour service to Colindale a service was also introduced on Saturdays(evenings excepted). The two routes would have been jointly scheduled and I presume the union at Cricklewood soon objected and so the parent 266 number was retained for all journeys. In about 1977 I remember a Riverside 266 arriving at Hammersmith in the evening peak to be greeted by a massive crowd. It was obvious that there had not been a departure for a significant amount of time. Immediately the passengers swarmed the arriving bus. Only problem the incoming crew were either going on their break or finishing. The inspector on duty was desperate and the passengers were extremely irate. The inspector had fear in his eyes as the passengers seemd to be on the point of lynching somebody from LT if a 266 bus did not leave soon. The reason I am recalling this anecdote is that when the crew appreciated that things were getting very tense they agreed to do overtime. When the crowd was consulted the consensus was that the 266 needed to go at least as far as Harlesden(note NOT Acton Vale!), if the needs of the passengers were to be met and so a very heavily overloaded bus departed for Craven Park. In October 1978 Stage 2 of Busplan saw the 260 return to Hammersmith, once again paralleling the 266 all the way to Cricklewood Broadway, but at the same time the Monday- Friday Riverside allocation was withdrawn leaving just a Saturday contribution.
LT, LRT and TfL all regularly looked at doing some more route surgery. The 260 got diverted over the old 12/short lived 255 to Shepherds Bush in the 1980s leaving Hammersmith again just to the 266. Every time they looked at the problem they backed away stating that there was no obvious place to divide the 266 without causing significant inconvenience. The present TfL regime can at least be given credit for actually trying to remedy a long running problem, however, as most people on this forum have already said their 218/306 solution for the southern end of the present 266 seems bound to cause inconvenience to passengers.
We are frequently told that TfL look at passenger flows rather than individual routes when planning changes. In the past that was true of the old LT and they used that information to tailor resources to demand along the busiest section of routes by scheduling short journeys. On the 260/266 apart from curtailed late running journeys there were regular scheduled journeys on the 260/266 to Acton Vale(Bromyard Avenue), but they were always from the north. There were never scheduled short workings from Hammersmith to Acton Vale because of the large flow of passengers wanting to at least reach Acton High Street if not points further north. Now as has been said frequently on here TfL propose to provide most seats only as far as Acton Vale with a far smaller number of seats on the 218 for central Acton bound passengers. It is just pure meanness because of TfL's current budgetary problems mixed with a worrying contempt for passengers that causes TfL to refuse to allow the 306 to carry on to the erstwhile 70 stand that still exists in Acton.
In general TfL are inflicting deliberate pain on passengers in West London. The 218/440 swop between Acton and North Acton once again disregards passenger flows. I presume the E4 when introduced was based on some sort of data/research that led to the H40 and the present 440. I am not on the route everyday but when I have travelled on it or observed it passengers in the West Acton/Noel Road area mainly want to go to Asda at Park Royal or the Central Middlesex Hospital when travelling north. This is a long established passenger flow created and maintained by LT/LRT/TfL that now is to be suddenly broken.
The Hammersmith Bridge fiasco has also been well debated. The failure of the bridge should not have come as any surprise to TfL. It was on the cards. TfL should have had a contingency plan. Such a plan should have been based on passenger flows and other data. You would not have thought it from the cack handed response. I am not going to go over the full details of the frequent route changes that have occurred since the bridge failure and the subsequent overbussing of parts of Barnes. Just one point, I still cannot understand why TfL will not just divert the 72 via Putney Bridge as they have done many times in the past.
The proposed 218/306 scheme involves the shortening of the 391. If TfL really did know local bus networks then they would see this as an opportunity to restore a longstanding passenger flow that they disrupted awhile back. The Wellesley Road area of Chiwick/Gunnersbury has had a bus service dating back to probably the 1930s even though it is not far from Chiswick High Road. Traditionally the service was provided by the 91 and then the H91. When improvements were made to the H91 with I think the help of some Section 106 money it was proposed that in order to speed up journeys the H91 would be diverted direct via Gunnersbury Station and replaced by an extension of the 440 from Turnham Green to Chiswick (Power Road). When consulted local passengers said that the 440 apart from Turnham Green,did not take them to where they wanted to go. They suggested that the 440 remain at Turnham Green and the 391 be diverted via Wellesley Road. TfL ridiculouly said it would cause too much inconvenience to through passengers. Although telling passengers they have to get off one bus to get on another using the Hopper fare arrangement obviously is not an inconvenience in TfL eyes!!! The result has been TfL paid for a new stand on Wellesley Road and the 440 had very light loadings on this section. Recent changes in the area mean that the 440 takes a circuitous route between Gunnersbury Station and Turnham Green. If the 391 went via Wellesley Road then residents would have restored to them bus links to where they want to go and the 440 could go direct from Chiswick Businees Park to Turnham Green, thus maybe tempting some of the office workers there to use it to do a bit of shopping or grab a sandwich or coffee on Chiwick High Road.
Basically this post is about not been able to understand the thinking at TfL. Local knowlege appears to be poor. Information about passenger flows is often ignored. Contradictory positions will be taken to suit the situation. As I said earlier I will give credit to TfL for trying to attempt to solve the long running problem about the length of the 266, however, the proposed solution is so appalling that the present situation is infinitely better. So TfL consider the 266 needs pruning in this part of West London, but then hold on surely such thinking would not come up with the extension of the 112 to North Finchley! If TfL think that the 112 can operate efficiently between Ealing Broadway and North Finchley then they should be allowing the 266 to continue to run between Hammersmith and Brent Cross.
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Post by riverside on Aug 2, 2019 11:28:55 GMT
The C1 terminal arrangement in Kensington was a loop via Camden Hill Rd, Phillimore Walk, Argyle Road, i think... Seem to remember there being an offside bus stand on one of those roads. The 33 had blinds for Kensington High Street when at FW, never saw it used, as pretty pointless as the stand was one block away from Queens Gate, You could get in / off Queens Gate on the 33. I had one lovely year of being able to catch a Metrobus from there all the way to Hampton Nurserylands on Sunday’s only. FW briefly assisted Shepherds Bush on the 9A , and some buses ended up running the evening service of the 9. Other than when the 33 ran to Kensington no other regular route ran into zone 1 from FW, other than special schedules on night buses on New Years Eve. From September 1971 till September 1982 FW buses regularly ran in Zone 1 as the garage had a Sunday allocation on the 27 during this time.
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Post by riverside on Jul 30, 2019 8:13:31 GMT
When the 33 was (re)introduced in the 1970s, basically as a replacement for the westernmost section of the 73 its terminus was variously described as Queen's Gate, Prince's Gate and Royal Albert Hall by L.T. (there's a theme there somewhere if only I could spot it ) In practice, were these all one and the same place? I think, possibly, the 'round the block' working may have gone from one direction to the other over time, which might have implications for the set down/pick up stops. The 33 returned to its original West London home(after a very brief foray into East London), as part of the massive service changes on 31/12/66. The Kensington terminus was always to my knowledge described as Kensington(Queens Gate) on bus blinds, using the current 360 stand. Short working 9s from the west used this terminus. Short working 9s and 73s from the east terminated at Kensington(Palace Gate) where they stood in the middle of the road in Queens Gate Terrace). 52s from the north also used this stand. Shortworking 27s from the west displayed High Street Kensington Station, where passengers alighted and the bus continued empty to the Palace Gate stand. Shortworking 27s from the Archway direction displayed Kensington Church. Passengers alighted at the final stop in Kensington Church Street and the bus then proceeded out of service to the Palace Gate stand. In the early 1980s Stamford Brook had regular shortworking journeys between Richmond and Kensington on Saturdays to cater for shopping traffic. These were a recent innovation as previously all journeys had been through workings. When Stamford Brook acquired the 9 after the closure of Mortlake Garage there were regular scheduled short workings in the PM peak between Mortlake and Kensington. The short working journeys between Richmond and Kensington referred to in the final paragraph of the above post relate to the 27 and not the 33!
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Post by riverside on Jul 30, 2019 8:10:07 GMT
It's more or less the current 360 terminus, but was referred to as "Kensington, Queen's Gate" rather than Royal Albert Hall. When the 33 was (re)introduced in the 1970s, basically as a replacement for the westernmost section of the 73 its terminus was variously described as Queen's Gate, Prince's Gate and Royal Albert Hall by L.T. (there's a theme there somewhere if only I could spot it ) In practice, were these all one and the same place? I think, possibly, the 'round the block' working may have gone from one direction to the other over time, which might have implications for the set down/pick up stops. The 33 returned to its original West London home(after a very brief foray into East London), as part of the massive service changes on 31/12/66. The Kensington terminus was always to my knowledge described as Kensington(Queens Gate) on bus blinds, using the current 360 stand. Short working 9s from the west used this terminus. Short working 9s and 73s from the east terminated at Kensington(Palace Gate) where they stood in the middle of the road in Queens Gate Terrace). 52s from the north also used this stand. Shortworking 27s from the west displayed High Street Kensington Station, where passengers alighted and the bus continued empty to the Palace Gate stand. Shortworking 27s from the Archway direction displayed Kensington Church. Passengers alighted at the final stop in Kensington Church Street and the bus then proceeded out of service to the Palace Gate stand. In the early 1980s Stamford Brook had regular shortworking journeys between Richmond and Kensington on Saturdays to cater for shopping traffic. These were a recent innovation as previously all journeys had been through workings. When Stamford Brook acquired the 9 after the closure of Mortlake Garage there were regular scheduled short workings in the PM peak between Mortlake and Kensington.
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