Yeah I was just having a look at the archived schedules for it. Do you know what route it used to be jointly compiled with?
It was joined with the U4.
Back in 2015 I upped sticks and moved to Uxbridge just so I could drive the 607 back when the B7TL VWs were on it. I was put on a 12 line U4 only rota which suited me as it had a lot of weekends off. But there were two joint U4/607 rotas and one 607 rota for part time drivers. Needless to say I took every opportunity going to get rid of my U4 shifts in favour of the 607. I successfully avoided the U-line routes and the 331/A10 rota, both of which were for drivers with higher seniority.
When the 607 was up for tender, it was separated from the U4 and a bunfight ensued as to who would get to remain on the 607, with its shorter operating hours, superior vehicles, limited stops and easier, less risky nature of the route. I only knew of one person that preferred the U4 and that was only because they were unlucky and got flashed by a camera in the Hayes area.
As for the route being slow, the schedules had quite a bit of resilience built in. With no live changeovers and flexible stand space at both ends, the pace of the route was dictated by the slowest driver. Most of the time we were told to run on time which was very achievable. Certain drivers would sabotage the route with slow driving for their own reasons - if they were making the following bus late it was permitted to overtake them.
During my stint on the route I got into the pace of it. On Fridays you could go miles without overtaking any 207s as the Uxbridge Road moves slowly. It was rare to overtake any 427s at all in the evenings. The 607 dwells at bus stops for long periods due to its high load factors and popularity so the 427s took advantage. Occasionally they'd violate by zooming past and beeping twice like the Road Runner. This was in the days when Metroline were still flushing out the mischief that went on under First London rule.
Personally I don't like the live changeovers at Iron Bridge - I'm not sure anybody does. Asides from the obvious implications of forcing the average speed and operational flexibility of the route down, the hot meal options in the vicinity aren't exactly conducive to driver health, whereas there was choice in Uxbridge.
The route was near perfect at UX in my opinion. Unless the Uxbridge Road was seriously disrupted, there was very little opportunity for lost mileage and dead runs were rare. The flip side to this was the ~3 hour rounders during the day made it hard to get the most out of drivers hence why it was mixed with the U4. A typical late shift would either be;
1 rounder 607, break, 3 rounders U4.
1 rounder 607, break, 2 rounders 607
2 rounders U4, break, 1 or 2 rounders 607
After the PM peak it was possible to do two rounders on the 607 within a 5h 30m spell.
There were a lot of spreadover shifts paying 12 hours+, some lines on the U4 rota had them. I hated them. Driving in both traffic filled peaks with 4 hours off twiddling my thumbs. No thank you. I was offered £20 notes by drivers who wanted those shifts for the week. After all, most people are at work to make money. I was a special case however and swapped those spreadover shifts with those whose duties had the most mileage on the 607, even if they only paid 7.5 hours.
The route is by no means pointless. In fact, it is a runaway success. Few people make long trips on it - most passengers make short to medium distance trips and the buses are consistently well loaded from start to end of service. The Uxbridge Road corridor is normally ok traffic wise - others are horrendous. There's a lot of bus priority, miles of dual carriageway and limited parallel rail links west of Southall. All this combined with large town centres relatively close together allow this route to flourish.
Bizarrely there is a KFC within spitting distance of most stops on the 607, even at the stops that are not in town centres like Adelaide Road and Hillingdon Lees Road. Sad to say the Iron Bridge stop has broken all the rules.
Passenger behaviour on the route amazed me. The locals love their 607.
- People of all ages could be seen sprinting along then Uxbridge Road, some for hundreds of metres so they don't miss the bus. I've driven a lot of routes and haven't seen running to that degree for any other route. I waited for every single one of them just for the effort they made.
- Some eastbound passengers in the AM peak would rather let an empty 207 go in favour of a packed 607 which they might not be able to get on. People risk a time penalty for the benefits of a limited stop service.
- Passengers would rapidly leap to the driver's defence if anybody made up noise because a special unscheduled stop wasn't made for them.
- Passengers regularly let themselves off where it suited them. For safety reasons I tried to avoid being stationary where possible.
- Quite a few people got on showing
Slough PlusBus tickets and took umbrage when I wouldn't accept them. Those people were unlucky I'd been working with railway tickets for years and knew they were pulling a fast one.
I daresay the Uxbridge Road is a lot less fun to travel on now with busy VMHs, live changeovers and the 207/427 no longer being run ex-First style. At the time I considered the 607 to be the most desireable TfL service route to drive and glad I was able to do so.
