Route 19 Observations

Today, it was the turn of Route 19 to transfer to London General with 15 new B5L hybrids and 11 diesel B9TL's. Route 19 runs between Finsbury Park and Battersea Bridge, South Side. The Route used to run to Tooting Bec, with a Sunday extension to Streatham Common until it's withdrawal on 16th October 1957. In 1975 garage journeys were extended to Tufnell Park, with the whole Route being extended further to Archway in 1984. In 1993, Route 19 became the first Routemaster service to be awarded to a company that was not a subsidary of London Buses limited. Kentish Bus who painted their RML's in a cream and maroon livery. This lasted until 1998 when the Route tranferred to Arriva London. On 2nd April 2005, Route 19 gained 28 brand new VDL DB250 DW buses. In 2009, Battersea garage closed, and Route 19 transferred to Brixton (BN). 2011 saw Route 19 lost to London General. Route 19's young DW's will now transfer to South Croydon (TC) for Route 197 following their retention of the Route. Today the service change didn't seem all in order - for example, the iBus system was not working and the Transys Oyster machine was not working either. Whilst I was at the Battersea stand, WVL 488 turned up not in service to run a service to Finsbury Park, and whilst he was on the stand the driver changed the blind to '337 East Sheen, Queen's Road' so it looks like Odd Working's already! I hope you enjoy reading this post.