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Post by ThinLizzy on Mar 25, 2020 23:12:57 GMT
I didn’t know how varied the 185 was until I looked it up due to this conversation. I thought it was a hardcore London Central/General route, being with them since it was created but it turns out it’s been far more bumpy than that, with the operator (EasyLink I think?) going into liquidation shortly after taking the route on and Selkent ran it before this. Never knew any of this! I can see Stagecoach smart hybrids suiting the 185 very well 😋 although to me like I’ve just said I’ve always known it as a hardcore GAL route. The route has had a fairly interesting history pre-2010 - Was with Selkent from the 90s until January 2001, then went to London Easylink, who ran it with the X-FBB VP's. This didn't last long though as on 21st August 2002 Easylink went into liquidation - Which led to Blue Triangle (When it was still independent) taking on an emergency contract to cover it, which saw a variety of vehicles cover the route such as this and this. Other operators also stepped in to help such as London General and London Central who provided some PVLs, and other companies such as Amber Lee, Carousel Buses, Imperial Buses, Redroute Buses and Sullivan Buses also helped providing vehicles, during the break in school terms when their vehicles were spare. Arrivas Original Sightseeing Tour also operated some closed top Ms on the route for a period too. After over a month of service like this First and TfL subsidiary East Thames Buses ran a joint operation on the route with Stagecoach providing extras on the 53 (Which parallels the southern section of the route. By December 2002 the 185 was declared Londons fifth most unreliable service! By April 2003 the route finally settled with East Thames buses from the Belvedere (BV) base, originally with Dennis Dart SLF/Caetano Compass buses like this, but they were soon replaced by the VPs initially ordered by Easylink in 2001 for the route. In 2006 it then had part of its allocation transferred to Mandela Way (MA) with some VWLs introduced to the route. Then of course in October 2009 it became a GAL route when they bought East Thames Buses, they transferred it to Camberwell (Q) in May 2010. It kept the VPs until 2013 when they were replaced with VWLs & WVLs. Funnily enough this route has been run by several of the GAL companies over its time - Blue Triangle when they had the temporary contract, London General when they loaned some vehicles for it and London Central currently run it. Arriva have also technically had dealing with it during the time they loaned some Original Sightseeing Tour Ms for the route during the troubles. Would be interesting to see it move again. just a couple of bits with this. The Caetano Darts never made it onto the 185, they replaced the Excels on the 108. The ETB service was phased in, initially using East Lancs bodied Olympians displaced by new B7TLs from the 128/129/150/180. The Arriva TOLST vehicles were staffed with Arriva drivers, mainly from Rainham as a subcontractor along with First London. Metrobus also provided a few Olympians during the first few weeks
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Post by vjaska on Mar 26, 2020 0:16:12 GMT
The route has had a fairly interesting history pre-2010 - Was with Selkent from the 90s until January 2001, then went to London Easylink, who ran it with the X-FBB VP's. This didn't last long though as on 21st August 2002 Easylink went into liquidation - Which led to Blue Triangle (When it was still independent) taking on an emergency contract to cover it, which saw a variety of vehicles cover the route such as this and this. Other operators also stepped in to help such as London General and London Central who provided some PVLs, and other companies such as Amber Lee, Carousel Buses, Imperial Buses, Redroute Buses and Sullivan Buses also helped providing vehicles, during the break in school terms when their vehicles were spare. Arrivas Original Sightseeing Tour also operated some closed top Ms on the route for a period too. After over a month of service like this First and TfL subsidiary East Thames Buses ran a joint operation on the route with Stagecoach providing extras on the 53 (Which parallels the southern section of the route. By December 2002 the 185 was declared Londons fifth most unreliable service! By April 2003 the route finally settled with East Thames buses from the Belvedere (BV) base, originally with Dennis Dart SLF/Caetano Compass buses like this, but they were soon replaced by the VPs initially ordered by Easylink in 2001 for the route. In 2006 it then had part of its allocation transferred to Mandela Way (MA) with some VWLs introduced to the route. Then of course in October 2009 it became a GAL route when they bought East Thames Buses, they transferred it to Camberwell (Q) in May 2010. It kept the VPs until 2013 when they were replaced with VWLs & WVLs. Funnily enough this route has been run by several of the GAL companies over its time - Blue Triangle when they had the temporary contract, London General when they loaned some vehicles for it and London Central currently run it. Arriva have also technically had dealing with it during the time they loaned some Original Sightseeing Tour Ms for the route during the troubles. Would be interesting to see it move again. Nice summary of the 185's interesting history! London Easylink's collapse was very sudden; drivers were radioed in mid-afternoon and told to terminate their bus at the next stop and run straight back to the yard. I had quite a few interesting rides on the route in the aftermath, with all sorts of odd buses turning up. Thankfully ETB's Caetano Darts never formed the full allocation - no way would they have coped! It was mostly DDs.
Just a small point - the extras on the 53 had nothing to do with the 185 fiasco. IIRC a sinkhole had closed Blackheath Hill for several months, resulting in the 53 being under severe pressure. Stagecoach couldn't supply enough extras so Blue Triangle - who were still a small independent operator at the time - helped out with extras over part of the route. Blue Triangle were specialists in supplying drivers at short notice, at a time when many of the big operators were struggling with driver shortages.
Indeed, it was down to a sinkhole on Blackheath Hill - IIRC, Blue Triangle purchased some T's especially for the work, as well as for railway replacement work of which they're did a lot of, from London Central & Stagecoach and kept a fleet of last resort mainly accompanying T's & M's that would cover for the Lolyne's if there were issues as well as work the school routes until 2005. I remember seeing the T's on the 185 under Stagecoach whenever I was in the Camberwell area but didn't ride the route until Easylink were around and the only odd buses I did get to ride were the Arriva Sightseeing M's
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Post by VWH1414 on Mar 26, 2020 10:37:43 GMT
The route has had a fairly interesting history pre-2010 - Was with Selkent from the 90s until January 2001, then went to London Easylink, who ran it with the X-FBB VP's. This didn't last long though as on 21st August 2002 Easylink went into liquidation - Which led to Blue Triangle (When it was still independent) taking on an emergency contract to cover it, which saw a variety of vehicles cover the route such as this and this. Other operators also stepped in to help such as London General and London Central who provided some PVLs, and other companies such as Amber Lee, Carousel Buses, Imperial Buses, Redroute Buses and Sullivan Buses also helped providing vehicles, during the break in school terms when their vehicles were spare. Arrivas Original Sightseeing Tour also operated some closed top Ms on the route for a period too. After over a month of service like this First and TfL subsidiary East Thames Buses ran a joint operation on the route with Stagecoach providing extras on the 53 (Which parallels the southern section of the route. By December 2002 the 185 was declared Londons fifth most unreliable service! By April 2003 the route finally settled with East Thames buses from the Belvedere (BV) base, originally with Dennis Dart SLF/Caetano Compass buses like this, but they were soon replaced by the VPs initially ordered by Easylink in 2001 for the route. In 2006 it then had part of its allocation transferred to Mandela Way (MA) with some VWLs introduced to the route. Then of course in October 2009 it became a GAL route when they bought East Thames Buses, they transferred it to Camberwell (Q) in May 2010. It kept the VPs until 2013 when they were replaced with VWLs & WVLs. Funnily enough this route has been run by several of the GAL companies over its time - Blue Triangle when they had the temporary contract, London General when they loaned some vehicles for it and London Central currently run it. Arriva have also technically had dealing with it during the time they loaned some Original Sightseeing Tour Ms for the route during the troubles. Would be interesting to see it move again. just a couple of bits with this. The Caetano Darts never made it onto the 185, they replaced the Excels on the 108. The ETB service was phased in, initially using East Lancs bodied Olympians displaced by new B7TLs from the 128/129/150/180. The Arriva TOLST vehicles were staffed with Arriva drivers, mainly from Rainham as a subcontractor along with First London. Metrobus also provided a few Olympians during the first few weeks Oh and they were the only bits of info I took from the wiki too! Should've trusted what I remembered from past knowledge - thanks for the corrections .
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Post by LK65EBO on Mar 26, 2020 10:59:40 GMT
just a couple of bits with this. The Caetano Darts never made it onto the 185, they replaced the Excels on the 108. The ETB service was phased in, initially using East Lancs bodied Olympians displaced by new B7TLs from the 128/129/150/180. The Arriva TOLST vehicles were staffed with Arriva drivers, mainly from Rainham as a subcontractor along with First London. Metrobus also provided a few Olympians during the first few weeks Oh and they were the only bits of info I took from the wiki too! Should've trusted what I remembered from past knowledge - thanks for the corrections . Bus Routes in London Wiki?
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Post by VWH1414 on Mar 26, 2020 12:34:18 GMT
Oh and they were the only bits of info I took from the wiki too! Should've trusted what I remembered from past knowledge - thanks for the corrections . Bus Routes in London Wiki? Yes - to verify and add to what I already knew from previously reading and seeing pictures of the 185, I checked that wiki and it mentioned the stuff, such as the Caetano Compasses, I added that ended up being slightly incorrect anyway.
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Post by ThinLizzy on Mar 26, 2020 13:56:00 GMT
just a couple of bits with this. The Caetano Darts never made it onto the 185, they replaced the Excels on the 108. The ETB service was phased in, initially using East Lancs bodied Olympians displaced by new B7TLs from the 128/129/150/180. The Arriva TOLST vehicles were staffed with Arriva drivers, mainly from Rainham as a subcontractor along with First London. Metrobus also provided a few Olympians during the first few weeks Oh and they were the only bits of info I took from the wiki too! Should've trusted what I remembered from past knowledge - thanks for the corrections . No problems It was a great thing to be involved in- I was working on a weekday Tramlink replacement down in Mitcham when I got the phone call saying I was going to be working at Lewisham on the 185 emergency service- was a great example of the bus industry pulling together. At the time there was works going on at the Vauxhall gyratory systemand in the worst days it was taking buses over 2 hours to complete a single journey from Victoria, leading to loads of Camberwell Green turns and Goose Green turns on the way back to Lewisham. The service started off with an emergency 20 minute service, then gradually increased to a full service when ETB joined in with the fun. I eventually spend 2-3 months (I think) working from Lewisham Bus Station on the late shift. As mentioned before, there was a wide variety of vehicles used on the route. Whilst it was mainly Metros and Titans, RedRoute sent out M5 a few times with a conductor, along with a Leyland Lynx and Bristol VR. It was strange seeing the Caetano Compass' turn up with ETB in Lewisham as I had previously worked at Limebourne when they were first delivered there.
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Post by Londontransport3 on Mar 26, 2020 16:44:27 GMT
Stagecoach 36661 has been debranded and repainted also first bus to carry new logos
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Post by Londonbuses54 on Mar 26, 2020 17:07:10 GMT
Stagecoach 36661 has been debranded and repainted also first bus to carry new logos Link?
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Post by Londontransport3 on Mar 26, 2020 17:26:38 GMT
Stagecoach 36661 has been debranded and repainted also first bus to carry new logos Link? I saw it today when i was out..
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Post by ThinLizzy on Mar 26, 2020 17:54:49 GMT
Stagecoach 36661 has been debranded and repainted also first bus to carry new logos Link? A photo has been posted on one of the Facebook groups (The Londoner I think.) To kill 2 birds with one stone, there's a bit of banditry- it's on the 366 but front number blind stuck on 167. ServerKing will as happy as I am a new logo has finally appeared
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Post by busoccultation on Mar 26, 2020 18:00:45 GMT
Stagecoach 36661 has been debranded and repainted also first bus to carry new logos Link? Found a picture of 36661 with the new logo on Flickr - flic.kr/p/2iHYaaN (Credit to BusesInLondon_396)
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Post by ThinLizzy on Mar 26, 2020 18:07:10 GMT
Found a picture of 36661 with the new logo on Flickr - flic.kr/p/2iHYaaN (Credit to BusesInLondon_396) Have to say, apart from the Banditry, it looks super smart
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Post by Londonbuses54 on Mar 26, 2020 18:15:31 GMT
Found a picture of 36661 with the new logo on Flickr - flic.kr/p/2iHYaaN (Credit to BusesInLondon_396) Cheers - couldn’t find it on the londoner. Only 36601 I saw, and still looks the same with the old logos etc
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Post by Pilot on Mar 26, 2020 18:29:45 GMT
Oversized logo.
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Post by rj131 on Mar 26, 2020 21:33:38 GMT
Found a picture of 36661 with the new logo on Flickr - flic.kr/p/2iHYaaN (Credit to BusesInLondon_396) One of the comments says the logo looks really childish. I’m sorry to say but I have to agree, it really doesn’t suit red buses imo 🤷🏻♂️
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