Tramlink Replacement Service, Mitcham Junction - Mitcham

From 6th April to 9th April, due to the commencing of double tracking, a replacement bus service is in operation. The buses are being worked by Abellio London from their Beddington Cross garage (BC) with ALX400's. Tramlink services are currently only running between New Addington and Mitcham Junction, and between Mitcham and Wimbledon. The service between Mitcham and Wimbledon will run every 15 minutes. I hope you enjoy reading this post.

The ' Magnum ' Tram!

As you may know, Tramlink 2548 has recently received an all over advert, something that has not been seen since 2008. Therefore yesterday, I decided to travel to Church Street tram stop to photograph it. It is promoting the new Magnum Infinity, which is an Ice Cream. The advert will be on the tram until May 13th.
I hope you enjoyed reading this post.

Croydon Changes - 31st March 2012

Yesterday, some changes took place following the mothballing of Beddington Farm garage (CN). Route 50 transferred from South Croydon garage (TC) to Brixton garage (BN). Route 109 transferred from Thornton Heath garage (TH) to Brixton garage (BN) after 61 years. Route 264 (My local Route) transferred from Beddington Farm garage (CN) to South Croydon garage (TC). Route 410 transferred from Beddington Farm (CN) to Thornton Heath (TH). Above are some pictures of what we will now expect on two of those Routes.

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.