Latest Update:  11 January 2021

Society 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.

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).

The London Bus (TLB)

TLB 676 was posted on Tuesday 15th December. The closing date for reports for TLB 677 was Wednesday 6 January and it is due for posting on Tuesday 19 January. The closing date for TLB 678 is Wednesday 3 February.

LOTS London Bus Magazine update

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 and Recent LOTS publications:

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:

NEW LOTS LBM193 London Bus Magazine Autumn 2020: (£5.00)  Main articles are 'In Memory of via points' by Colin Fradd with 57 pictures; reminiscences of bus, tram and trolleybus routes serving Clerkenwell in the early 1950s by Nigel Davis, plus 'All change at the London Bus Museum'.

LOTS London Bus & Tram Fleetbook 2020. The 32nd edition of our 128-page pocket size Fleetbook,  updated to June 2020. Orders can 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

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

From the Sales List, the following are now out of print:

LOTS  TLB Extra 1973.

Grey-Green and Contemporaries (1961 to Arriva years)

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

Recent items from other publishers: 

NEW Young Routemasters (James Whiting) £16.95. A photograph and caption book covering each route conversion to Routemasters 1956 to 1965

NEW London's Disused Railway Stations - Inner South East London (CT) £22

NEW Wires above South East London (Robert Harley) £25

NEW A London trolleybus reborn Q1 1812 (Dave Chick) £25

NEW Vehicle History File - London DMS (Wooleybus) £22.50

NEW Valliant Years (coaches in W & NW London) (£50)

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)

From Mike Harris, the latest London bus maps:

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

 
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 

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

* Currently numbered 405D.

The vehicles detailed above will meet Euro VI emissions standards.

The above contracts will commence on the following dates:

24th July 2021: Route 606.

30th October 2021: Route 645.

6th November 2021: Route 313

1) Rapid transfers from storage into service at Stagecoach  Rainham have resulted in 24 (as at today) BYD/ADL E400EVs available for service on route 174; the majority are those that had been earmarked initially for Barking route 173 – that has to wait for now. 

2) Garage news now and RATP London is to close Epsom Garage ‘by July’ and, in the meantime, routes 413/463/S1 are  being transferred to London General and routes 293/404/467/470/S3 moved to Tolworth Garage.    Centrebus is to close Stevenage Garage by April, some routes being surrendered but most  transferred to Luton Garage.  Go-Ahead has started to prepare a second garage at Silvertown and  plans to make it “all electric”. It is very close to the present garage which remains in use as now.    

1) A modest re-think seems to be taking place over whether all the schoolday extras are still needed, both in London and the Counties.  

2) The electric BYD/ ADL E400EVs are being phased into service on Stagecoach route 174 (Dagenham- Romford- Harold Hill), the first appearing on 30th December. 

3) Lots of changes on Country routes, with minor service reductions by Centrebus in Herts and at Ensignbus from 4th January and at First Berkshire from 9th.  General timetable revisions also from Universitybus from 4th .    Also on that date Centrebus 390 (Stevenage & Hertford) passes to Richmond’s and Stevenage local route 178 is abandoned, marking the end of many years of direct competition in the town.

1) The big swap within Arriva turned out to be more complicated. In one exercise, 5 x E400s from Kent went to Leicester and 5 x  Volvo B9TL/ Geminis came the other way.  In the second exercise another 16 x E400s went from Kent to Yorkshire (Dewsbury), 16 x B9TL/ East Lancs from Yorkshire to Leicester and 16 x B7TL/ Geminis from Leicester to Kent.   There is an additional handful of single­-deck swaps (to be determined). 

2) The first (of 20) StreetDeck FCEVs for Metroline (WHD 2710) was delivered to Perivale last week.  It awaits completion of the hydrogen fuel cell instillation. Also, still no Stagecoach BYD/E400EVs have yet gone into service but watch LVF as some may do so before the end of this year!  

1) At Arriva’s Country operations, a grand vehicle swap began on 16th December, intended to eventually equip Leicester with Class-VI double-deckers.  That city will soon be setting up a CAZ (clean air zone). It affects about 20 older Enviro400s going from Arriva in Kent to Arriva in Yorkshire.  Yorkshire then sends newer E400s to Arriva Midlands at Leicester and 08/58-reg Volvo B9TLs go from Leicester to Kent. 

2) In the past week no more MetroDeckers had come to Tower Transit and Stagecoach’s E400EVs have still not yet entered service.  It is believed that the first StreetDeck FCEV may be arriving at Metroline soon. 

3) At Stagecoach all five of the hired provincial Solos at Bromley have been stood down from service and are now in use as ‘drivers meal relief’ buses at termini.

1) Saturday 12th saw London United route 391 replaced by an extension of route 110 to Hammersmith, together with the transfer of some DLEs from V to AV Garage to allow for that. V Garage (Stamford Brook) also lost route 306 to Metroline (with VWHs from Brentford Garage) and several of LU’s VHs are due to be reallocated elsewhere. Also at RATP the solitary and unpopular StreetDeck WH 45252 was last used about 3 weeks ago and is being returned to Wrightbus about now.

2) Still none of the Stagecoach BYD DD/ADL E400EVs have yet entered service while charging infrastructure is completed ; meanwhile training continues from West Ham Garage.   Over at Metroline PV (Perivale) they still await the “imminent” arrival of the first couple of hydrogen fuel cell StreetDecks.  However, the ten Optare MetroDeckers at Tower Transit are now providing the full allocation on route C3.   The  electric MetroCity (MC 1) that had been hoped to operate on route 444 has been returned to Optare without being used here.