News

This page gives up-to-date major news items to supplement our monthly newsletter, •The London Bus• (TLB). Items noted here will be incorporated in the next issue of TLB in greater detail. News updates will usually be weekly, by Sunday evening, but if major stories arise we will attempt to announce them sooner. Reports more than a month old and already reported in TLB are deleted. Each issue of TLB is typically 40 pages containing references to around 300 routes and 1000 vehicles, together with the business and political news, the publicity output of the companies, forthcoming exhibitions and rallies, and much more. To get the full picture, why not join now? Go to the Membership Page for details.

If you need to contact us with anything to do with membership, subscriptions to TLB or LBM and queries over postal sales, email to lotsmemsec@gmail.com and it will be passed to the correct person. Reports for TLB/LBM or queries to other society officers can go via the TLB Editor davestewart297@gmail.com and it will passed to the correct person.

NEW For queries about Postal Sales, please email lotspostalsales@gmail.com.This E mail address may also be used for ordering from Postal Sales if wishing to pay by direct debit bank transfer - for details see Page 1 of the Sales Bulletin.

Would the member who paid his renewal into the NatWest Bank in Hoddesdon on Friday 20^th November please contact the Membership Secretary, as we do not know who you are. Thank you.

LOTS meetings and events

Conway Hall meetings

Due to the continuing pandemic all LOTS meetings are CANCELLED until further notice

Conway Hall is located at Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL. Nearest Underground station: Holborn (Central and Piccadilly Lines) Buses: 1, 8, 19, 38, 55, 59, 68, 91, 168, 188, 243 & 521 stop nearby. Doors open from 6pm. sales stand from 6.30pm, event begins at 7.30 and is finished by 10pm. There is no charge. Visitors are welcome, especially from other societies or if you buy something or join as a new member. In normal times, meetings are held monthly (except January, July & August).

TLB 675 was posted on Tuesday 17 November. The closing date for reports for TLB 676 is Wednesday 2 December and it is due for posting on Tuesday 15th December.

LBM 192 was posted on 15 September with TLB 673. An encouraging response to the Editor’s call for new material has enabled us to plan on the basis of LBM 193 and LBM 194 to be available in November 2020 and January 2021 respectively with normal production resuming from LBM 195 (Spring 2021) in March 2021. We will confirm these arrangements here (i.e. on our website) and in TLBs in due course.

NEW For queries about Postal Sales, please email lotspostalsales@gmail.com This E mail address may also be used for ordering from Postal Sales if wishing to pay by direct debit bank transfer - for details see Page 1 of the Sales Bulletin.

Please address your orders to LOTS Postal Sales, Unit G16 Lombard Business Park. 8 Lombard Road, Wimbledon, London SW19 3TZ. Orders are processed weekly. Make sure that the 'Postal Sales' name is included prominently, so we can give the order the best attention. An updated Sales List was included with TLB670. You can use this list to order, or a letter is perfectly acceptable, and so is the Sales List printed off from our website. In each case, please don’t staple cheques to the form – they really won’t get lost by us but might be when the banks try to process them electronically!

LOTS’ latest publications, available now:

LOTS LBM192 London Bus Magazine Summer 2020: (£5.00) Main articles are ‘Out with the old’ about LT’s vehicle replacement programme from 1935-39, a ‘London Country Retrospective‘ with b/w photographs, and ‘Royal Ascot in 1970’.LOTS London Bus & Tram Fleetbook 2020. The 32nd edition of our 128-page pocket size Fleetbook, now updated to June 2020. Orders can now be taken by Postal Sales ( £7.00 post free to members, add +15% for postage to UK non-members or +30% for all overseas orders.

TLB EXTRA 1955 is now available, same prices as Fleetbook. An updated full sales list can be printed out by going to the ‘Sales’ tab on this website. Extra 1954 and Extra 1953 (£7.00 each) also recent issues.

LOTS Review 2019 (£13.00) As ever, this is the original and definitive story of buses in London and the country areas during the last year, fully illustrated with informative captions.

LOTS SUP-39A: (£4.50) This 56-page booklet encompasses the TfL operators’ fleet and garage allocations from SUP36 and a simplified PVR table from SUP37. Some features are dropped from 36 (eg. Fleets of non-TfL operators – see Fleetbook and occasional features in TLB) while items like LSP operations from 37 are dropped. The PVR tables are now in route order. It also removes much of the duplication of vehicle type codes, garage codes, and which bit of each group runs what. Current at September 2019

LOTS SUP-24I: (£4.50) The latest LT Service Vehicles Current fleet. Current at September 2019

TLB Extra – Vehicle news of 1948 to the 1980s: (£6.50/£7 each year) (80-pages illustrated)

Sales List in TLB670: Please note on page 2 that Capital Transport books attributed to Mick Webber are incorrect. ‘London’s 70s Buses’ is by

(SEC, John Allpress’s) The three Routes Handbooks for 2019 - Brighton & Hove Buses; First Hampshire & Dorset and Stagecoach South

London Country Vehicle Memories by Julian Bowden & Michael Dryhurst £16.00 Bowden Publishing (A4 format)

The London Feltham Tram The Evolution of a Classic Tramcar Design by Peter Waller £25.00 Pen & Sword Books

Croydon Tramlink A Definitive History by Gareth David £30.00 Pen & Sword Books

SEC’s 2020 Update to its 2019 Fleet List and Sussex Independents books, 32pp (£2.50).

Trolleybuses in East Central London. Published by Adam Gordon £30.00. 184 pages –details on ahgbooks.com website.

Wires above South East London. (Robert Harley) £25.00 Heathfield Publishing (part of Capital Transport – more details on C/Ts website)

Regional Tramways: London Transport (Waller) £25.00 Pen & Sword (includes history, DLR and Croydon Tramlink)

Greater London Bus Map for 15 June 2019 (2) and a Night Bus Map for 15th June 2019 (£4)
From each edition of the series an amount of the price is donated to a charity. In this case it is to the Firefighters Association.

Also, in the Historical series -
The 1976 Greater London Bus Map, 10th April 1976 - £4.00
The 1952 Greater London Bus Map, 6th July 1952 (Second Edition) - £4.00

Amendment to the Sales List in TLB670: Please note on page 2 that Capital Transport books attributed to Mick Webber are incorrect.

‘London’s 70s Buses’ is by Matt Wharmby and ‘London’s Country Buses’ is by Kevin McCormack.

See the Publications Page for details of LOTS publications or the Sales Bulletin for our current stocklist.

Note that on the ‘membership’ page of this website is a new membership form. When you are due for renewal you should receive one of these, or you can print the one on the website. Note that at the bottom of the form that there is a new way of renewing. It can be paid directly to our bank account and then you must send the MemSec an email to let him know you have done it.

Latest news

1) Tower Transit MetroDeckers up to 34009 are now in stock and most are in service, almost all these days on route C3. More BYD/ADL E400EVs continue to be delivered but none are yet in service.

2) Monday 30 November and a new ‘Arriva Click’ demand- responsive operation is to begin, covering the area between Bluewater and Northfleet via Swanscombe and Ebbsfleet. Four Sprinter minibuses are due to operate.

3) A reminder that next Saturday 5 December will see route R7 go from Selkent to Metrobus and, in a late change, the extension of the 153 from Moorgate to Liverpool Street Bus Station.

LBSL intends to enter into new contracts for the following routes with the operators listed below:

All the diesel & hybrid vehicles detailed above will meet Euro VI emissions standards. New electric vehicles may enter service after the contract start date dependent on infrastructure and/ or vehicle delivery timescales.

1) The BYD/ADL E400EVs for Stagecoach are now arriving slowly, both the batches concurrently for Rainham (174) and Barking (173). The E400EV demonstrator (LF69 UXJ) finished its stint at London United after the 13 November and was returned to BYD at Iver. At Tower Transit, just four MetroDeckers had entered service although it is normally just one (occasionally two) per day in service. Another four are in process of delivery.

1) Although the BYD/E400EV demonstrator BCE47000 at RATP did not run for the last week of October, from Monday 9th November it was back on route 71. Stagecoach BYD/E400EV 14133 is now at West Ham and at least one other (14130) has followed. Eventually they will enter service elsewhere.

2) Monday 9th November saw the first Optare MetroDecker-EV in service at Tower Transit; four (OE 34001-04) have been used in the past week, so far all on route 23. Another four (34005-008) have been registered by Optare and should be delivered later this month.

3) Arriva in north Kent is to withdraw routes 484/485/485A (Bluewater & Ebbsfleet) after 28th November. From the 30ththat will be covered by another ‘Arriva Click’ DRT minibus to restore a service to the Swanscombe area.

4) Next week on Monday 23rd November Uno Hatfield will take over school routes 692/699 in north London using the early electric d/ds BYD1471-75 formerly with Metroline.

Coming Events

(LSS) = LOTS Sales Stand booked to attend

These are publicised as a service to the readership; LOTS has neither any involvement nor responsibility for any event noted. Many events have admission fees, I have included them where they have advised, you should check with organisers or websites before attending if costs worry you. We usually confine this listing to events with an expected London bus interest or within easy reach of London. Full national event lists can be found in the April issue each year of ‘Buses’ magazine and at http://www.classicbuses.co.uk/events.html Our website is regularly updated with other events.

Events cancelled:

NLETE bazaar at Enfield Barnet (Saturday 5 December)

Ensign vintage bus running day (Saturday 5 December).

You must check on the event websites or on the full national event list at http://www.classicbuses.co.uk/events.html
Our website is regularly updated with other events.

Latest Update: 28 November 2020

LOTS meetings and events

Conway Hall meetings

Latest news