Recently route 407 has received brand new Enviro 200's as part of its contract renewal in November 2014. The route began in 1991 and ran between Caterham and Walling, run by South London from South Croydon garage using Leyland Olympians. In 1994, London's bus companies were privatised and South London was sold to Cowie plc and the operation was now known as Cowie South London. As well as this, the route was diverted at Wallington Green to serve Carshalton before terminating at Sutton. The route was also awarded to London & Country and the route was run using Optare Metroriders from the Croydon (CR) (later known as Beddington Farm) garage. London & Country was also rebranded as Londonlinks, and in 1997 Cowie plc was renamed Arriva plc and the operation was branded Arriva Croydon & North Surrey. The next change was in 1999, when Arriva London from Beddington Farm won the route using a batch of new ALX200's featuring Euro 2 engines and Lazzerini seats. By 2001, the route had been transferred back to South Croydon. The next change was in 2009, when Travel London won the route from their Beddington Cross garage. The route transferred to Beddington Cross on the 31st of October 2009 using new Enviro200's, being used as a launch route for the then new Abellio London operation, as National Express sold Travel London to reduce debts. In 2014, Abellio London retained the contract using more new Enviro 200's, this time equipped with a flywheel, which will soon be added, to improve fuel efficiency. The new contract was supposed to be awarded in February, however delays saw this award delayed til June. The new vehicles, were therefore going to be late inevitably, however during early January the new Enviro's for the 407, and the newly won route 201 started to arrive and enter service. I decided to go out on the 10th of January to ride these new buses. They are built to a specification including the new ZF automated manual gearbox, Lazzerini Practico seats, and Thermo King drivers air conditioning. The buses certainly look the part, but the ride is somewhat disappointing, with the new ZF gearbox so far proving to be unreliable, among Abellio's and Go Ahead's examples. The gearbox also seems to change from 1st to 2nd at around 5 mph, which slows the bus down significantly. However, the seats are rather comfortable and this makes up for the poor gearbox. Many thanks to the kind driver for allowing me to take pictures in the cab and I wish Abellio London every success for the new contract, building on the great service they have provided since 2009. Many thanks for reading this post.
