Saturday 19 May 2012

Route T33 Observations







Today, it was the turn of Route T33 to be awarded to Abellio London. Route T33 has it's roots in shoppers Route 354, which ran between Sanderstead and Bromley via Forestdale. The Route was later altered to run Bromley to West Croydon and in 1986, a 5 days a week service was introduced. In 2000, major changes took place in the Croydon and Addington areas due to the opening of Tramlink. Route 54 was altered to run between Elmers End and Woolwich, Route 353 was altered to run between Addington Villiage and Ramsden Estate and Route 354 was atered to run between Penge and Bromley North. May 2000 saw Route's T31, T32 and T33 introduced to help connect Addington Village with areas such as Headley Drive, Fieldway and Forestdale. Route's T31 and T32 were awarded to First London CentreWest with brand new Marshall Capital buses painted in red and white to match the then Tramlink colur scheme. They were operated from their Orpington garaage. Route T33 was awarded to Metrobus with Dennis Darts painted in blue and yellow. It was operated by their Green Street Green garage. In 2002 the Route was transferred to Godstone garage. In 2006, Metrobus bought a new garage premises in Beddington, a suburb in the London Borough of Sutton and Route T33 was transferred there. In 2011 it was announced that Metrobus had lost the T33 to Abellio London with 10 brand new 10.8 metre Enviro200's from their Beddington Cross garage. Today the service change took place and the sheer number of buses was astonishing! Buses just turned up bus after bus. The Route is 7 miles long and has some picturesque views in the Selsdon Vale area. I hope you enjoyed reading this post.