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.

Theres A New Kid On The Block!

Trams have come to Tom London Bus Blog! And also the Stadler Variobahn has immigrated to England. Today saw one of 6 new Stadler Variobahn trams go into limited passenger use. They have been in use between East Croydon and Wimbledon. They are actually for new Route 4 which will run between Therapia Lane and Elmers End. Although they are for Route 4, they are permitted to run on other parts of the network. I also had a small chat with Nicola Redman, Tramlink's Head of Projects, and she was saying about how they are air conditoned, unlike the existing CR4000 fleet, she also continued to say that the existing fleet will be getting a midlife refurbishment, despite being lightly refurbished 3 - 4 years ago. These are also Stadler's first ever Variobahn trams in the UK and have had to have fog lights installed, whereas in Norway, they don't need them. Although Stadler is a Swiss company, they have been built in Germany. I hope to do more post about the ongoing devlopment of Tramlink, and hope you enjoy reading this post.

An Hour At West Croydon

Today I spent an hour at West Croydon doing observations. I have not uploaded all the pictures I took, purely because there was 105 of them. I was also very lucky to spot Merobus 979 which is currently visting all operators in London that have the Scania N230UD chassis including Metroline, Metrobus, London Sovereign, London United, Docklands Buses and First. This is while they carry out modifications. I hope you enjoy viewing this post.

Pictures Of The Day 26.03.12

Abellio London 8501 is seen accelerating across the tram tracks at Reeves Corner, en Route from Caterham to Sutton. This bus was refurbished with the retention of Route 152 respectively in December 2011. The smart, shiny paintwork of Caetano Nimbus 8495 is seen waiting at Faraday Way traffic lights, en Route from Wallington to Canons Hill.

Route 462 Observations

Today, it was the turn of Route 462 to change operators from Arriva London to Blue Triangle. In 2011, it was announced that Route 462 would be awarded to Blue Triangle with newly introduced Wright Streetlites. These are the first of their type in the whole of Go Ahead London's fleet and have been coded WS. I also witnessed the Arriva London PDL's that were formerly used on the Route being used by Blue Triangle minus their Arriva London logos. Route 462 runs between Ilford and Hainault. I hope you enjoy viewing this post.