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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2013 18:13:26 GMT
The excellent londonbuses.co.uk site does cover Night Buses but does not go beyond N60.
I just wondered when the original N89 - London Bridge/Liverpool Street-Southall Brent Road finished and the current N89 - Trafalgar Square-Erith began.
Back in 1973/4 I was regularly in the upper deck back seat of an RML, enjoying a smoke while waiting for the bus to actually move.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 30, 2013 13:33:03 GMT
Jammy, there is an article on the history of the nightbus network on
wikipedia under the relevant routes. There is also a book abot night
bus network to, released in 2011.
Londons Night Buses
VOLUME 1 1913- 1983. BY PHILIP WALLIS, 2011
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Post by Deleted on Jul 30, 2013 15:58:27 GMT
The N89 demise came about when the N207 started. Not sure what year though.
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Post by M1199 on Jul 30, 2013 18:38:14 GMT
I think the N89 was withdrawn around 1996. I vaguely remember an article in the Uxbridge Gazette, that was mainly about the new Volvo Olympians that were entering service on the 607 but it had an 'other changes' section where it listed the N89 being replaced by a new N207 route.
The L (later DMP) classed darts for the A10, which were new in 1996 had blinds for both the N89 and N207.
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Post by vjaska on Jul 30, 2013 19:14:25 GMT
IIRC, the current N89 came about in the early 00's replacing part of the N81 - will most likely need a correction on this though?
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Post by Deleted on Jul 30, 2013 20:46:18 GMT
Thank you detamour. I found the Wikipedia article very useful, assuming it is accurate.
My faith in Wikipedia was severely shaken around 2008, but that's a long story not really appropriate for a transport forum.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 31, 2013 15:23:50 GMT
I have a contact looking into the history of the topic you mentioned.
hopefully they will get back to me soon. PM ME YOUR EMAIL THOUGH.
Buy that nightbus hisory book, its on amazon uk!
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Post by eggmiester on Aug 2, 2013 0:27:22 GMT
The current N89 commenced in 2002 and replaced the N81 in its entirety and took the Erith link from the N53 which was cut back to plumstead garage thus the 53 became 24hr.
At the same time the N1 was extended to Thamesmead replacing the Thamesmead leg of the N53, the N53 used to split at plumstead with 1 bus per hr to Thamesmead and 1 bus per hr to Erith, in fact I think the frequencies were even longer, like a bus ever 40 mins over the common section (plumstead to Oxford circus).
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Post by alphanumeric on Aug 14, 2013 17:20:52 GMT
Sorry Egg you're not entirely right on your bit mentioning the N53. As an ex occasional driver of the N53 (96-01) I csn verify that it was half hourly from Central London to Plumstead Common then alternate buses went to either Thamesmead or Erith providingan hourly service to the extremities. This was until 2000 when the N1 took over the Thamesmead leg making thus standardising the N53 to half hourly to Erith. An interesting point being that the N53 had 3 different Central London termini. The first two buses left from Oxford Circus with the two departures from the suburban end after 4am running through to Oxford Circus all doing prior or return journeys as a standard day 53.
All Erith departures (except one of the above mentioned plus the last one - a Woolwich short) went to Victoria for meal relief and came out of Victoria as buses bound for Thamesmead. All other buses started/finished at Trafalgar Square. Because the route was so busy at weekends we used, after a while, have Trafalgar Square - New Cross Garage extras timed 5 minutes in front of the main scheduled runs. These ran light from PD to the square and also light every trip back up town. Nice little jobs straight through jobs given out as rest days. You could tell if it was a regular night driver doing them because they would clear the square through to elephant then crawl along the old kent road tolet the through bus past so he didn't have any grief with passengers trying to reuse
their ticket at New Cross when they were thrown off because they didn't bother to check the destination when they boarded. I drove them in the days before one day tickets being valid on "N" prefix routes, had countless arguements and would regularly pay in in excess of £200 on a Friday/Saturday night shift on the main N53. I never quite made to £300 though :-( £298 was my record. Sorry for going off on a slight tangent. Trying to jump back a little. We used to pick up a handful of passengers at Erith each trip and then for the most part run non stop to Plumstead Common. A handful of regulars on the 0420 Erith departure would board along Wickham Lane but you could see why the route was withdrawn from that section and semi-replaced by the N89
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Post by Alex on Aug 15, 2013 0:21:21 GMT
Sorry for going off on a slight tangent. Trying to jump back a little. No worries from my angle! I find posts like this fascinating! I had heard of the old N53 arrangement and it does interest me, I can't seem to find maps of it, only a little bit of it on this 1995 East London map: www.busmap.co.uk/Downloads/Stagecoach%20East%20London%20Map.pdfCouple of questions, how did the Thamesmead loop terminate at the Town Centre (as shown) doing both Bentham Road and Crossway on the way? The current N1 (which does Crossway first towards Thamesmead then terminating at Titmuss Avenue) I get but this N53 seems a bit of a conundrum..... Also what way did the Erith bus go? From what I can gather from this map (which misses out most of the route between Plumstead Common and Erith) the N53 would have gone from Plumstead Common via King's Highway, Wickham Lane, Okehampton Crescent, Bedonwell Road and Nuxley Road to The Eardly Arms? Is this right? Seems really odd compared to the current arrangements  Also the story about different fares and Travelcards not accepted on night buses is one I have been told before. Someone I used to work with was a driver on the N3 under London Buses, and said the first N3 left Central London in front of the last daytime 3, cue arguments and confusion  |
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Post by Alex on Aug 15, 2013 0:32:51 GMT
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Post by vjaska on Aug 15, 2013 0:33:32 GMT
Sorry for going off on a slight tangent. Trying to jump back a little. No worries from my angle! I find posts like this fascinating! I had heard of the old N53 arrangement and it does interest me, I can't seem to find maps of it, only a little bit of it on this 1995 East London map: www.busmap.co.uk/Downloads/Stagecoach%20East%20London%20Map.pdfCouple of questions, how did the Thamesmead loop terminate at the Town Centre (as shown) doing both Bentham Road and Crossway on the way? The current N1 (which does Crossway first towards Thamesmead then terminating at Titmuss Avenue) I get but this N53 seems a bit of a conundrum..... Also what way did the Erith bus go? From what I can gather from this map (which misses out most of the route between Plumstead Common and Erith) the N53 would have gone from Plumstead Common via King's Highway, Wickham Lane, Okehampton Crescent, Bedonwell Road and Nuxley Road to The Eardly Arms? Is this right? Seems really odd compared to the current arrangements Also the story about different fares and Travelcards not accepted on night buses is one I have been told before. Someone I used to work with was a driver on the N3 under London Buses, and said the first N3 left Central London in front of the last daytime 3, cue arguments and confusion From Thamesmead, I think it ran via Bentham Road & Crossway - not sure of what it did coming into Thamesmead though. As for the N53's routing to Erith, looking at the map, it looks like it the Erith journey continued along Plumstead Common Road & Kings Highway and then followed the 422 from Wickham Lane to Nuxley Road before re-joining the map. |
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Post by eggmiester on Aug 17, 2013 16:20:46 GMT
Sorry Egg you're not entirely right on your bit mentioning the N53. As an ex occasional driver of the N53 (96-01) I csn verify that it was half hourly from Central London to Plumstead Common then alternate buses went to either Thamesmead or Erith providingan hourly service to the extremities. This was until 2000 when the N1 took over the Thamesmead leg making thus standardising the N53 to half hourly to Erith. An interesting point being that the N53 had 3 different Central London termini. The first two buses left from Oxford Circus with the two departures from the suburban end after 4am running through to Oxford Circus all doing prior or return journeys as a standard day 53. All Erith departures (except one of the above mentioned plus the last one - a Woolwich short) went to Victoria for meal relief and came out of Victoria as buses bound for Thamesmead. All other buses started/finished at Trafalgar Square. Because the route was so busy at weekends we used, after a while, have Trafalgar Square - New Cross Garage extras timed 5 minutes in front of the main scheduled runs. These ran light from PD to the square and also light every trip back up town. Nice little jobs straight through jobs given out as rest days. You could tell if it was a regular night driver doing them because they would clear the square through to elephant then crawl along the old kent road tolet the through bus past so he didn't have any grief with passengers trying to reuse their ticket at New Cross when they were thrown off because they didn't bother to check the destination when they boarded. I drove them in the days before one day tickets being valid on "N" prefix routes, had countless arguements and would regularly pay in in excess of £200 on a Friday/Saturday night shift on the main N53. I never quite made to £300 though :-( £298 was my record. Sorry for going off on a slight tangent. Trying to jump back a little. We used to pick up a handful of passengers at Erith each trip and then for the most part run non stop to Plumstead Common. A handful of regulars on the 0420 Erith departure would board along Wickham Lane but you could see why the route was withdrawn from that section and semi-replaced by the N89 Thanks for that insight into the N53, I knew the change happened around the early 2000's, thought it co-incided with the N89 introduction. your story about the short journeys reminds me of the days when I used to drive the N21 and we had shorts that ran between Eltham and Trafalgar Square that supported the main service (then Sidcup, foots cray tesco to Trafalgar Sq), we used to try and Mae sure the through bus had passed us by the time we got to Eltham as you'd get the same arguments, passengers couldn't understand that the Eltham buses were Scheduled short turns.... In all fairness though I think the Eltham buses should have ran to Blackfen or at least Avery Hill to turn (only about 5 mins further down the road) as we used to drop a lot of Greenwich Uni students off on the short runs who then had to wait 15-30 mins of more for the next Sidcup N21 just to go 5 mins down the road, although most used to walk. |
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Post by alphanumeric on Aug 19, 2013 0:57:58 GMT
Firstly glad to hear the N21 shorts played the same game we did.
Secondly the route to Erith is spot on. What we did when we gt there was another matter! When I started on the N53s PD didn't operate any of the Bexley routes so it was our only route into the area so any operational notices came usually after the event (maybe this was a little to do with them being posted late as opposed to being supplied to the garage itself late) First we turned left at the library and terminated by the swimming pool then straight across and ran via the town centre spinning around by the roundabout at macdonalds and lastly turned right and looped around by macdonalds. It was anyones guess until you got there. As for Thamesmead that's easy Boiler house, bentham road to the town centre when you took you're stand time (even with passengers) then started via crossway. On a weekend you were usually so late you just kept going. Weekdays the regulars knew the score and would get off and walk. As for stand times. I can't quite remember the exact details. I have a copy of a few duites somewhere I'll try and dig them out. But don't hold your breath. I take ages doing these things! But it was roughly the same at thamesmead and erith or maybe we just took roughly the same amount of time. Most of us used to leave about 10-15 late on a weekday and just hammer it. Apart from the first bus from thamesmead which was the first nighter and usually busy and the last departures from both as these were standing room only by new cross and a struggle to keep to time. As for the duties I'll give you a rough idea from my head. 901 2055 53pd-oxo-pcom-tsqu (last day bus) light vic-meal relief.
0140ish from n53vic (0145at tsqu)-thm-tsqu-er-wool fin 0540 - this was the longest duty most milage worst hit on the weekend and my fav.
902 2215 53pd-oxo-pd (via wool not the pcom) relief at pd - 0145ish light n53 thm-tsqu-er (0420ish hammered to) oxo first day bus back to pd 0645ish finish
903 2230 53pd-oxo-n53 er-vic relief thm 0450ish hammered-oxo 53 pd 0710 finish
904 all n53 2335 pd light thm-tsqu-er-vic relief - thm - light pd 0540ish finish
905 all n53 2355ish pd light wool-er-vic relief- thm-tsqu-er- light pd 0610ish finish
906 I hated this one! 0025 pd light n53wool-thm-tsqu-er-vic relief last n53 pcom then daybus for a tsqu rounder leaving the common about 0640 finishing around 0930. Also there was a straight thru job on n53 rota but numbered as the last job on day rota
131 (day 53 rota started at 61) 2025ish 53pd-oxo-pcom-oxo-n53 thm light pd finish 0205ish lots of pressure on this one controller, fuel guys, shunters all waitig for this one to come in then go home.
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Post by alphanumeric on Aug 19, 2013 1:26:56 GMT
One other thing I remember now whether this was because first handled their night duties differently to stagecoach or not I don't know. I know that our night turns were counted as the day before ie friday night were last friday duties to book on. I heard (must stress this is hearsay) that some other companies counted them as the day after. Anyway point being whatever the exact date of the n53to thamesmead n1 changeover was I remember that night thamesmead being served by both the n53 and the n1. It wouldn't surprise me if it was a stagecoach er......error. Never bothered to find out it stagecoach were fined for running only half the erith buses they were supposed to. Of course first could've started them a night too soon. I remember one of the inspectors at tsqu saying your going to thamesmead are you? An n1 has just left for there too.
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