Latest Update:  5 July 2020

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.

Note that the TLB Editor has a new address: davestewart297@gmail.com.  

LOTS meetings and events

Conway Hall meetings

All LOTS meetings are CANCELLED until 28 September. Conway Hall is closed.
The bus rides evening on 20 July is also CANCELLED

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 670 was posted on 18 June. The closing date for reports for TLB 671 was Wednesday 1 July and it is due for posting on Tuesday 14 July. The closing date for reports for TLB 672 is 5 August.

New and Recent LOTS publications:

We regret that as our volunteers have not been able to travel to LOTS' Office to process orders, Postal Sales postal sales have been delayed. If you have sent an order since mid-March, it will be processed shortly.

Also 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.

Please address your orders to LOTS Postal Sales, Unit G16 Lombard Business Park. 8 Lombard Road, Wimbledon, London SW19 3TZ. 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 TLB636. 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 London Bus & Tram Fleetbook 2020. The 32nd edition of our 128-page pocket size Fleetbook, now updated to June 2020, has now gone to print and is expected back in the week commencing 22 June.  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.   The latest TLB EXTRA 1955 is also now available, same prices as Fleetbook.  An updated full sales list can be printed out by going to the ‘Sales’ tab on this website.

Although we will process orders at least weekly, all post is now subject to potential delay within Royal Mail. 

LOTS LBM191 London Bus Magazine Spring 2020 will be distributed to all subscribers in the week commencing Monday 22nd June.

LOTS SUP-39A: (£4.50)  **NEW**  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. 

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

LOTS TLB Extra – Vehicle news of 1954:  (£7.00)  (64-pages illustrated).  

LOTS Review 2018 (£12.00), the definitive account of 2018, vehicles, routes and the politics of London and also record of changes in the country areas of the Home Counties. 2019 Review available from end of June 2020.

TLB Extra – Vehicle news of 1953:  (£7.00) (80-pages illustrated).

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

TLB Extra – Vehicle news of 1948 to the 1980s:  (£6.50/£7 each year) (80-pages illustrated)
 
See the Publications Page for details of LOTS publications or the Sales Bulletin for our current stocklist.

Vacancy

None

Latest news 

Sunday 5 July

1) In London reversion to front door boarding is almost completed, the last few routes being at Sutton and on some routes with non-standard types causing difficulty with fitment of drivers’ protection  screens.   The conversion back to normal Mon-Fri schedules in London proceeds with another list of routes each weekend.  In the Country areas the main activity lately has been restoration of Saturday services (those had been more severely cut than Mon-Fri). Towns such as Stevenage and High Wycombe have benefitted from this and next weekends.  

2) In London delivery of new buses has now dried up once the stragglers of buses part-completed had arrived.  As of now, those outstanding are Abellio E40Ds (2031-53), Stagecoach E40Ds (11376-99) and RATP E20Ds SDE20303-15) . It has resulted in hires and transfers plus older vehicles in use on routes 270, 285, 425 and K1.  Another handful of Ee buses at Go-Ahead are in service at NP, leaving just two (Ee 48-49) to come.

3) The London sightseeing operators are starting to return, albeit in a very limited way to begin.  Between 4^th and 11^th July OLST, Big Bus, Golden Tours and some of the ‘specialist’ operations (e.g.  Brigit’s) are back.

Sunday 28 June

1) The changes in SW London on 27 June went ahead although some planned vehicle moves were changed.  Route 71 took its SPs with from Tolworth to Fulwell  and the swap of buses between Abellio and RATP on the K1 and 285 took place as planned, topped up with older buses.  The new E20Ds for K1 and E40DS for 285 are still awaited and unlikely to arrive before August.   

2) 27 June also marked the start of Caetano electric operation on route C10 as well as the P5.   Currently HCT Group has the BYD/E400EV demonstrator LF69UXJ and it is now in use on route 20 where it should stay for about two weeks.     

Saturday 20 June (item 1 updated 2 July)

1) Go-Ahead took over route 230 from Arriva on 20th June although there are still several E400EVs to come; in consequence route 357 remains with diesel WVL/WVN buses.   Metroline’s OME2678 has been used from NP Garage on route 212 in comparison with the BYD/ADL E400EVs but is now at Merton for further evaluation. After a few days of evaluation at Merton, albeit not In service, it returned to route 212 from NP Garage. It was back at Potters Bar by 30 June, in service on route 134 on 1 July (updated item).

2) The other event on 20 June was the introduction of BYD/ADL E200EVs on Stagecoach route 323.  Next weekend’s change of operator on routes 285 and K1 will see ten RATP ADEs loaned to Abellio for the 285 and ten Abellio E20Ds loaned to RATP for the K1.

Sunday 14 June

1) Many more London routes have returned to normal schedules, in stages each Saturday from mid-May with another 150 or so during June.  The transition on TfL buses to restore front door boarding  - and thus payment of fares – began on 30 May and the process is almost completed.   Prominent notices are now on London buses to restrict total passenger loads, to 20 (d/d), 10 (s/d) or 7 (small s/d) buses, in an attempt to achieve ‘social distancing’.   When the limit seems to be reached a board in the windscreen ‘BUS FULL’ will be shown. Drivers have a limited discretion to exceed the totals for such as  ‘same households’.   From Monday 15 June face coverings MUST be worn on all public transport. Also from Monday 15 June there is a restriction with no free travel allowed between 04:30 and 09:00 on Mon-Fri on TfL services for holders of London Elderly Persons’ Freedom Passes, the 60-Plus Card and ENCTS passes.

2) Numerous Country Area routes were restored to full (or nearly full) services on Mon-Fri  from Monday 1st June as already noted here, but more have followed from Monday 8th :  NIBS 21/31/81 at Brentwood, Red Rose 100 in Bucks, Metroline 84/305/PB1, Sullivan 306 and the main UNO network 601, 602, 341/641, 614, 635 and 653.  In general, reduced Saturday schedules  remain unchanged for now.   From 15 June Metrobus routes 10/100/200 return to North Terminal at Gatwick; it had been closed since 31 March due to lack of airline flights.   

3) 13th June marked the first day when the second batch of Caetano electrics at Abellio entered service and is also the first day of a full allocation of the type on route P5 although not yet on the C10.

Monday 8th June

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

* One vehicle is an existing hybrid double deck.

** Operationally exchanged with 2 existing hybrids from route 20.

All the diesel & hybrid vehicles detailed above will meet Euro VI emissions standards.

The above contracts will commence on the following dates:

23rd January 2021: Routes 229, 469, 492 & B12.

6th February 2021: Routes 184 & 616.

20th March 2021: Routes 162, 367 & 484.

In addition, it is confirmed that Route 200, the award of which to London General was announced on 23rd April 2020 for commencement on 20th February 2021, will now be operated by new electric double deck vehicles.

In all cases, new electric vehicles may enter service later than these dates owing to infrastructure and/ or vehicle delivery timescales.