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Post by sid on Sept 26, 2018 17:38:54 GMT
1 I don't know how far back you want to go but the 146 was RT/RM until OPO conversion and it's been single decker ever since as the route is unsuitable for larger double deckers. 2 Not that I can think of. 3 I have suggested a Bexleyheath to Lakeside service before. It still amazes me that they ever managed to get RMs round the 146 route. The roads must have changed substantially in the intervening years as not even a long single deck can be used on it now. It was mostly RT which are slightly narrower but there were a few RM's evenings and Sundays. |
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Post by wirewiper on Sept 26, 2018 18:13:24 GMT
1 I don't know how far back you want to go but the 146 was RT/RM until OPO conversion and it's been single decker ever since as the route is unsuitable for larger double deckers. 2 Not that I can think of. 3 I have suggested a Bexleyheath to Lakeside service before. It still amazes me that they ever managed to get RMs round the 146 route. The roads must have changed substantially in the intervening years as not even a long single deck can be used on it now. A standard Routemaster is only 8.38 metres long (and 2.44m wide) - they are surprisingly small vehicles by modern standards. Crew operation was retained well into the 1970s as the capacity was needed at school start and finish times, and the RFs (and latterly BLs), the only driver-only vehicles considered suitable for the route, were deemed to have insufficient capacity. And at the time the TGWU would not have agreed to mixed crew and driver-only operation. |
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Post by sid on Sept 26, 2018 18:38:14 GMT
It still amazes me that they ever managed to get RMs round the 146 route. The roads must have changed substantially in the intervening years as not even a long single deck can be used on it now. A standard Routemaster is only 8.38 metres long (and 2.44m wide) - they are surprisingly small vehicles by modern standards. Crew operation was retained well into the 1970s as the capacity was needed at school start and finish times, and the RFs (and latterly BLs), the only driver-only vehicles considered suitable for the route, were deemed to have insufficient capacity. And at the time the TGWU would not have agreed to mixed crew and driver-only operation. Just to point out that RF's never appeared on the 146, it was converted to OPO with BL's in 1978. |
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Post by busaholic on Sept 26, 2018 21:16:28 GMT
It still amazes me that they ever managed to get RMs round the 146 route. The roads must have changed substantially in the intervening years as not even a long single deck can be used on it now. It was mostly RT which are slightly narrower but there were a few RM's evenings and Sundays. There have been quite a few misconceptions about the 146 over the years. I lived at Sandford Road in Bromley, just off Westmoreland Road, as a teenager/young adult, and could see all the routes passing Bromley South from my bedroom window. A little later I went to work for London Transport in the bus scheduling department. The 126 and 138 routes had been converted to one man operation by this time, with 36 ft Merlins, but the problem with converting the 146 was not only the width and length of omo buses, other than RFs, but the scheduling problems that arose with it being such a short route and only able to maintain an hourly headway to Downe at offpeak times by using two omo buses, rather than one crew, owing to the extra time that had to be allowed. At the time (late 1960s/early 1970s) the service used three buses in M-F peaks, also Sat shopping times, with two of those buses basically doing Keston (Fox) to Bromley North shorts. The Keston terminus required a reversing movement, so had to be crew operated. The service at those peak times was also unbalanced because it was impossible to maintain a 20 minute clockface headway between those two places in each direction, fitting the shorts in with the Downe buses. So you got the situation in the p.m. peak for instance of two buses within six minutes leaving Bromley South for Hayes and Keston and, watching from my bedroom window with the benefit of excellent eyesight  , I was able to see two thirds of the 146's allocation waiting to turn from Bromley High Street into Westmoreland Road, sometimes simultaneously seeing the missing third of the allocation going the other way up to Bromley North! The TGWU only allowed joint scheduling between routes in very limited circumstances, so when you only had one bus on the route, you couldn't even maintain the hourly schedule, on a Sunday for instance, because of the need for the crew to take breaks. In the end, I believe when the route was converted to BL an awkward 64 minute headway applied out to Downe, with further gaps.
By the way, there were NEVER RMs on weekday evenings - such practices didn't happen in RT days on any route, and would have been utterly unnecessary in the case of the 146 which probably never carried more than penny numbers in the evenings. The engineers had better things to do than sub buses for no good reason.
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Post by sid on Sept 26, 2018 21:22:46 GMT
It was mostly RT which are slightly narrower but there were a few RM's evenings and Sundays. There have been quite a few misconceptions about the 146 over the years. I lived at Sandford Road in Bromley, just off Westmoreland Road, as a teenager/young adult, and could see all the routes passing Bromley South from my bedroom window. A little later I went to work for London Transport in the bus scheduling department. The 126 and 138 routes had been converted to one man operation by this time, with 36 ft Merlins, but the problem with converting the 146 was not only the width and length of omo buses, other than RFs, but the scheduling problems that arose with it being such a short route and only able to maintain an hourly headway to Downe at offpeak times by using two omo buses, rather than one crew, owing to the extra time that had to be allowed. At the time (late 1960s/early 1970s) the service used three buses in M-F peaks, also Sat shopping times, with two of those buses basically doing Keston (Fox) to Bromley North shorts. The Keston terminus required a reversing movement, so had to be crew operated. The service at those peak times was also unbalanced because it was impossible to maintain a 20 minute clockface headway between those two places in each direction, fitting the shorts in with the Downe buses. So you got the situation in the p.m. peak for instance of two buses within six minutes leaving Bromley South for Hayes and Keston and, watching from my bedroom window with the benefit of excellent eyesight , I was able to see two thirds of the 146's allocation waiting to turn from Bromley High Street into Westmoreland Road, sometimes simultaneously seeing the missing third of the allocation going the other way up to Bromley North! The TGWU only allowed joint scheduling between routes in very limited circumstances, so when you only had one bus on the route, you couldn't even maintain the hourly schedule, on a Sunday for instance, because of the need for the crew to take breaks. In the end, I believe when the route was converted to BL an awkward 64 minute headway applied out to Downe, with further gaps.
By the way, there were NEVER RMs on weekday evenings - such practices didn't happen in RT days on any route, and would have been utterly unnecessary in the case of the 146 which probably never carried more than penny numbers in the evenings. The engineers had better things to do than sub buses for no good reason.
I can assure you that there were RM's on weekday evenings even if it was only occasionally. |
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Post by busaholic on Sept 26, 2018 21:28:18 GMT
There have been quite a few misconceptions about the 146 over the years. I lived at Sandford Road in Bromley, just off Westmoreland Road, as a teenager/young adult, and could see all the routes passing Bromley South from my bedroom window. A little later I went to work for London Transport in the bus scheduling department. The 126 and 138 routes had been converted to one man operation by this time, with 36 ft Merlins, but the problem with converting the 146 was not only the width and length of omo buses, other than RFs, but the scheduling problems that arose with it being such a short route and only able to maintain an hourly headway to Downe at offpeak times by using two omo buses, rather than one crew, owing to the extra time that had to be allowed. At the time (late 1960s/early 1970s) the service used three buses in M-F peaks, also Sat shopping times, with two of those buses basically doing Keston (Fox) to Bromley North shorts. The Keston terminus required a reversing movement, so had to be crew operated. The service at those peak times was also unbalanced because it was impossible to maintain a 20 minute clockface headway between those two places in each direction, fitting the shorts in with the Downe buses. So you got the situation in the p.m. peak for instance of two buses within six minutes leaving Bromley South for Hayes and Keston and, watching from my bedroom window with the benefit of excellent eyesight , I was able to see two thirds of the 146's allocation waiting to turn from Bromley High Street into Westmoreland Road, sometimes simultaneously seeing the missing third of the allocation going the other way up to Bromley North! The TGWU only allowed joint scheduling between routes in very limited circumstances, so when you only had one bus on the route, you couldn't even maintain the hourly schedule, on a Sunday for instance, because of the need for the crew to take breaks. In the end, I believe when the route was converted to BL an awkward 64 minute headway applied out to Downe, with further gaps.
By the way, there were NEVER RMs on weekday evenings - such practices didn't happen in RT days on any route, and would have been utterly unnecessary in the case of the 146 which probably never carried more than penny numbers in the evenings. The engineers had better things to do than sub buses for no good reason.
I can assure you that there were RM's on weekday evenings even if it was only occasionally. In which case it (the RM) will have been on the route all day. My parents continued to live in Sandford Road until after the 146 was opoed, so I used to visit them, and never saw one. Also, no reports in the LOTS newsletter were ever forthcoming as 'strange visitors'. |
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Post by TB141 on Sept 26, 2018 23:23:11 GMT
It was mostly RT which are slightly narrower but there were a few RM's evenings and Sundays. There have been quite a few misconceptions about the 146 over the years. I lived at Sandford Road in Bromley, just off Westmoreland Road, as a teenager/young adult, and could see all the routes passing Bromley South from my bedroom window. A little later I went to work for London Transport in the bus scheduling department. The 126 and 138 routes had been converted to one man operation by this time, with 36 ft Merlins, but the problem with converting the 146 was not only the width and length of omo buses, other than RFs, but the scheduling problems that arose with it being such a short route and only able to maintain an hourly headway to Downe at offpeak times by using two omo buses, rather than one crew, owing to the extra time that had to be allowed. At the time (late 1960s/early 1970s) the service used three buses in M-F peaks, also Sat shopping times, with two of those buses basically doing Keston (Fox) to Bromley North shorts. The Keston terminus required a reversing movement, so had to be crew operated. The service at those peak times was also unbalanced because it was impossible to maintain a 20 minute clockface headway between those two places in each direction, fitting the shorts in with the Downe buses. So you got the situation in the p.m. peak for instance of two buses within six minutes leaving Bromley South for Hayes and Keston and, watching from my bedroom window with the benefit of excellent eyesight , I was able to see two thirds of the 146's allocation waiting to turn from Bromley High Street into Westmoreland Road, sometimes simultaneously seeing the missing third of the allocation going the other way up to Bromley North! The TGWU only allowed joint scheduling between routes in very limited circumstances, so when you only had one bus on the route, you couldn't even maintain the hourly schedule, on a Sunday for instance, because of the need for the crew to take breaks. In the end, I believe when the route was converted to BL an awkward 64 minute headway applied out to Downe, with further gaps.
By the way, there were NEVER RMs on weekday evenings - such practices didn't happen in RT days on any route, and would have been utterly unnecessary in the case of the 146 which probably never carried more than penny numbers in the evenings. The engineers had better things to do than sub buses for no good reason.
Brilliant story thank you for sharing ☺️ Another thing that makes me shudder, as someone who drives the R5/R10 on a daily basis so knowing the road well, is that they used to send Leyland Nationals up Cudham Lane 😬 |
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Post by busaholic on Sept 27, 2018 14:38:20 GMT
There have been quite a few misconceptions about the 146 over the years. I lived at Sandford Road in Bromley, just off Westmoreland Road, as a teenager/young adult, and could see all the routes passing Bromley South from my bedroom window. A little later I went to work for London Transport in the bus scheduling department. The 126 and 138 routes had been converted to one man operation by this time, with 36 ft Merlins, but the problem with converting the 146 was not only the width and length of omo buses, other than RFs, but the scheduling problems that arose with it being such a short route and only able to maintain an hourly headway to Downe at offpeak times by using two omo buses, rather than one crew, owing to the extra time that had to be allowed. At the time (late 1960s/early 1970s) the service used three buses in M-F peaks, also Sat shopping times, with two of those buses basically doing Keston (Fox) to Bromley North shorts. The Keston terminus required a reversing movement, so had to be crew operated. The service at those peak times was also unbalanced because it was impossible to maintain a 20 minute clockface headway between those two places in each direction, fitting the shorts in with the Downe buses. So you got the situation in the p.m. peak for instance of two buses within six minutes leaving Bromley South for Hayes and Keston and, watching from my bedroom window with the benefit of excellent eyesight , I was able to see two thirds of the 146's allocation waiting to turn from Bromley High Street into Westmoreland Road, sometimes simultaneously seeing the missing third of the allocation going the other way up to Bromley North! The TGWU only allowed joint scheduling between routes in very limited circumstances, so when you only had one bus on the route, you couldn't even maintain the hourly schedule, on a Sunday for instance, because of the need for the crew to take breaks. In the end, I believe when the route was converted to BL an awkward 64 minute headway applied out to Downe, with further gaps.
By the way, there were NEVER RMs on weekday evenings - such practices didn't happen in RT days on any route, and would have been utterly unnecessary in the case of the 146 which probably never carried more than penny numbers in the evenings. The engineers had better things to do than sub buses for no good reason.
Brilliant story thank you for sharing ☺️ Another thing that makes me shudder, as someone who drives the R5/R10 on a daily basis so knowing the road well, is that they used to send Leyland Nationals up Cudham Lane 😬 Glad you liked the story. Speaking of Cudham Lane, I worked for London Borough of Bromley library service in the late 1960s, and spent a few months on the mobile libraries. We had a trailer, which used to be deposited at either Biggin Hill or Farnborough Village during the week (Farnborough being infinitely preferable to me, as it was right by the 47/51 terminus, and there was a good café) but there were also two library 'vans', of which the older one was a quite long Bedford based, I guess, on a coach chassis. Cudham was one of the weekly stops, and I remember some 'interesting' trips that way, and at Jail Lane in Biggin Hill, especially in the snow, which was quite prevalent one autumn/winter as I recall. The most senior driver, Bill, really knew his stuff so we never had any problems with him on, but another driver who confusingly was also called Bill had real issues sometimes. I didn't even drive a car in those days, but I knew that the second Bill was a crap driver. Amazing how many betting shops he could find on or just off our route too! |
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Post by danorak on Sept 27, 2018 16:38:17 GMT
Brilliant story thank you for sharing ☺️ Another thing that makes me shudder, as someone who drives the R5/R10 on a daily basis so knowing the road well, is that they used to send Leyland Nationals up Cudham Lane 😬 Glad you liked the story. Speaking of Cudham Lane, I worked for London Borough of Bromley library service in the late 1960s, and spent a few months on the mobile libraries. We had a trailer, which used to be deposited at either Biggin Hill or Farnborough Village during the week (Farnborough being infinitely preferable to me, as it was right by the 47/51 terminus, and there was a good café) but there were also two library 'vans', of which the older one was a quite long Bedford based, I guess, on a coach chassis. Cudham was one of the weekly stops, and I remember some 'interesting' trips that way, and at Jail Lane in Biggin Hill, especially in the snow, which was quite prevalent one autumn/winter as I recall. The most senior driver, Bill, really knew his stuff so we never had any problems with him on, but another driver who confusingly was also called Bill had real issues sometimes. I didn't even drive a car in those days, but I knew that the second Bill was a crap driver. Amazing how many betting shops he could find on or just off our route too! A book I occasionally mention which I'm sure you'll have but would enjoy if not is 'Bus Crew', an oral history of working at TB by Jim & May Cooke. Mainly about the 47s but a fair bit about the 138, 146 etc. Long out of print but it still turns up. |
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Post by TB141 on Sept 27, 2018 20:23:21 GMT
Glad you liked the story. Speaking of Cudham Lane, I worked for London Borough of Bromley library service in the late 1960s, and spent a few months on the mobile libraries. We had a trailer, which used to be deposited at either Biggin Hill or Farnborough Village during the week (Farnborough being infinitely preferable to me, as it was right by the 47/51 terminus, and there was a good café) but there were also two library 'vans', of which the older one was a quite long Bedford based, I guess, on a coach chassis. Cudham was one of the weekly stops, and I remember some 'interesting' trips that way, and at Jail Lane in Biggin Hill, especially in the snow, which was quite prevalent one autumn/winter as I recall. The most senior driver, Bill, really knew his stuff so we never had any problems with him on, but another driver who confusingly was also called Bill had real issues sometimes. I didn't even drive a car in those days, but I knew that the second Bill was a crap driver. Amazing how many betting shops he could find on or just off our route too! A book I occasionally mention which I'm sure you'll have but would enjoy if not is 'Bus Crew', an oral history of working at TB by Jim & May Cooke. Mainly about the 47s but a fair bit about the 138, 146 etc. Long out of print but it still turns up. I’d love to get my hands on a copy of that! |
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Post by busaholic on Sept 27, 2018 20:51:58 GMT
Glad you liked the story. Speaking of Cudham Lane, I worked for London Borough of Bromley library service in the late 1960s, and spent a few months on the mobile libraries. We had a trailer, which used to be deposited at either Biggin Hill or Farnborough Village during the week (Farnborough being infinitely preferable to me, as it was right by the 47/51 terminus, and there was a good café) but there were also two library 'vans', of which the older one was a quite long Bedford based, I guess, on a coach chassis. Cudham was one of the weekly stops, and I remember some 'interesting' trips that way, and at Jail Lane in Biggin Hill, especially in the snow, which was quite prevalent one autumn/winter as I recall. The most senior driver, Bill, really knew his stuff so we never had any problems with him on, but another driver who confusingly was also called Bill had real issues sometimes. I didn't even drive a car in those days, but I knew that the second Bill was a crap driver. Amazing how many betting shops he could find on or just off our route too! A book I occasionally mention which I'm sure you'll have but would enjoy if not is 'Bus Crew', an oral history of working at TB by Jim & May Cooke. Mainly about the 47s but a fair bit about the 138, 146 etc. Long out of print but it still turns up. Not only do I not have it, but I'd never heard of it, either. I'd love to get hold of a copy. Is there a photograph of the Cookes in it (I guess there probably is)? I wonder if it'll ring any bells for me, as it were. My memories of TB on the 47 were of the time when it only had a M-F allocation, and the crews on that rota mainly worked 227s at weekends, which wasn't popular with older crews particularly, the 227 being considered the tearaways' route! |
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Post by danorak on Sept 28, 2018 10:47:26 GMT
A book I occasionally mention which I'm sure you'll have but would enjoy if not is 'Bus Crew', an oral history of working at TB by Jim & May Cooke. Mainly about the 47s but a fair bit about the 138, 146 etc. Long out of print but it still turns up. Not only do I not have it, but I'd never heard of it, either. I'd love to get hold of a copy. Is there a photograph of the Cookes in it (I guess there probably is)? I wonder if it'll ring any bells for me, as it were. My memories of TB on the 47 were of the time when it only had a M-F allocation, and the crews on that rota mainly worked 227s at weekends, which wasn't popular with older crews particularly, the 227 being considered the tearaways' route! I think there are pictures - it's a long time since I've looked at it. My copy is in a very fragile condition, the Cookes lived in the same road as my uncle so gave him a signed copy that got passed to me but the binding has disintegrated. I remember there's a bit in there about their time on the 227s which tallies with your recollection. A quick look suggests second hand copies are going for about £5. It's 'as told to John Wagstaff by Jim and May Cooke' if looking for the author. |
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Post by John tuthill on Sept 28, 2018 11:13:09 GMT
Not only do I not have it, but I'd never heard of it, either. I'd love to get hold of a copy. Is there a photograph of the Cookes in it (I guess there probably is)? I wonder if it'll ring any bells for me, as it were. My memories of TB on the 47 were of the time when it only had a M-F allocation, and the crews on that rota mainly worked 227s at weekends, which wasn't popular with older crews particularly, the 227 being considered the tearaways' route! I think there are pictures - it's a long time since I've looked at it. My copy is in a very fragile condition, the Cookes lived in the same road as my uncle so gave him a signed copy that got passed to me but the binding has disintegrated. I remember there's a bit in there about their time on the 227s which tallies with your recollection. A quick look suggests second hand copies are going for about £5. It's 'as told to John Wagstaff by Jim and May Cooke' if looking for the author. And here they are: Attachment DeletedAttachment DeletedIt cost me £2.50(!!) in 1979, and is basically their memories of working from Bromley Garage, Jim retired in 1964 after 40 years on the buses. A nice nostalgic read, not too technical with lots of nice photos. Published by Sheaf, long gone. Amazon has 4 copies on sale for £4.95! |
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Post by localet44 on Sept 28, 2018 16:40:59 GMT
I can assure you that there were RM's on weekday evenings even if it was only occasionally. In which case it (the RM) will have been on the route all day. My parents continued to live in Sandford Road until after the 146 was opoed, so I used to visit them, and never saw one. Also, no reports in the LOTS newsletter were ever forthcoming as 'strange visitors'. According to the London Bus Routes website by Ian Armstrong, RMs worked the 146 on Sundays from January 1975 to April 1978 when the route was opoed There are a couple of photos of them on Flickr sites
Localet
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Post by busaholic on Sept 28, 2018 20:30:33 GMT
In which case it (the RM) will have been on the route all day. My parents continued to live in Sandford Road until after the 146 was opoed, so I used to visit them, and never saw one. Also, no reports in the LOTS newsletter were ever forthcoming as 'strange visitors'. According to the London Bus Routes website by Ian Armstrong, RMs worked the 146 on Sundays from January 1975 to April 1978 when the route was opoed There are a couple of photos of them on Flickr sites
Localet
They certainly did - well, one per Sunday. What I'm disputing is RMs subbing for an RT in the evening, with its one-bus service, when 2 RTs would be sitting out of service at TB fully blinded for the 146 (front intermediate and rear blinds had to be changed with the conductor's key, in the case of the front blind from the front of the top deck). Drivers wouldn't welcome an RM, with its extra 6 inch width, in the dark anyway. It's fantasy land. |
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, I was able to see two thirds of the 146's allocation waiting to turn from Bromley High Street into Westmoreland Road, sometimes simultaneously seeing the missing third of the allocation going the other way up to Bromley North! The TGWU only allowed joint scheduling between routes in very limited circumstances, so when you only had one bus on the route, you couldn't even maintain the hourly schedule, on a Sunday for instance, because of the need for the crew to take breaks. In the end, I believe when the route was converted to BL an awkward 64 minute headway applied out to Downe, with further gaps.