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. 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 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 lotstlbeditor@gmail.com and it will be passed to the correct person.

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.

Meetings and Events

We meet at The Gallery at Alan Baxter, 77 Cowcross Street, Farringdon. A three minute walk from Farringdon Station* (Met/Circle/H&C lines, Elizabeth line and Thameslink).

Doors open at 6pm, meetings start at 6.30pm and finish at 8pm, then Q&As and sales stand but all out by 9pm when the venue is locked.

Booked dates in 2024 are 30 September (featuring “London Country under deregulation” by Jeff Tucker) and 18 November.

*Exit from Farringdon station (Met side), turn east and go up Cowcross Street until you reach the Leon restaurant. Opposite there is a passageway, cross the cobbled courtyard to the far right corner and go down the stairs to the basement meeting room known as 'The Gallery'. We would advise that you do not drive to the venue, parking space is rare and charges apply for 24 hours. There are several coffee shops and a Wetherspoons on Farringdon Road.

The London Bus (TLB)

New and recent LOTS publications

For queries about Postal Sales, please email lotspostalsales@gmail.com. This email 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 list.

Please address your orders to LOTS Postal Sales, 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 your order our best attention. You can use the Sales List printed off from this website this list to order, or a letter is perfectly acceptable. In either case, please don’t staple cheques to the form.

NEW London Bus Review 1946-1952 (£18.00).
A4 glossy 172 pages. Full details of all changes to Central Area bus, tram and trolleybus routes during the period, including garage/depot allocations and vehicle types for bus routes. Includes 47 black & white photos, with three historic colour photos on the covers.
View sample pages.

NEW SUP-45B London Bus Garages Allocation and Routes (£6.00).
List of all London bus garages with route and bus allocations as at August 2024. 60 pages with 8 colour photos.
View sample pages.

NEW SUP-46A London Transport Trolleybuses - Allocations and Disposals 1948-1962 (free digital download).
Allocation histories and disposals for all LT trolleybuses. 102 pages.

NEW SUP-47A London’s Advert Buses 1969-2024 (£8.00).
All known all-over advert buses in the London area (not London Country). Over 1000 buses and over 4000 adverts listed, with dates. 76 pages, 18 colour photos.
View sample pages.

London Bus Review 2022 Greater London and Beyond (£17.00).
A4 glossy, 80 pages, 135 colour photographs with extensive captions. This is the ORIGINAL annual Review made with about 50 years’ experience.

LOTS London Bus & Tram Fleetbook 2024 (£8.50).

SUP 39D Transport for London's Bus Operators Fleet Allocations and PVRs - March 2024 (£5.50).
TfL operators' fleets with garage allocations and a simplified PVR table.

NEW London Bus Magazine No 209, Autumn 2024 (£6.00).
Features include "Royally serving different Standards by motorbus"London Transport Ticket Machines in the 1980s and 1990s and Buses to Zoos.

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

Vacancies

Nil.

Non-members may wish to look at a sample issue of TLB.
Hopefully this will whet your appetite for joining LOTS!

Industry and general news

Major news items to supplement our monthly newsletter:

Thursday 10 October

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

Route	Previous Operator	New Operator	PVR	Vehicles
217	Sullivan Buses	London General	12	Existing diesel double deck
Route	Current Operator	New Operator	PVR	Vehicles
60	Arriva London South	Arriva London South	20	New electric double deck
312	Arriva London South	Arriva London South	12	New electric single deck
405	Arriva London South	Arriva London South	10	New electric double deck
466	Arriva London South	Arriva London South	20	New electric double deck
485	London General	Transport UK London	4	New electric single deck
499	Stagecoach East London	Stagecoach East London	8	Existing diesel single deck*

* One vehicle is diesel double deck.

New electric vehicles may enter service after the contract start date, dependent on infrastructure and/or vehicle delivery timescales.

The diesel vehicles detailed above will meet Euro VI emissions standards.

The start and end dates for the above contracts are detailed in the following table:

Sunday 6 October

1. In addition to the 75 BYD B11s reported last week, Go-Ahead London has now ordered 32 ADL Enviro 100EV single-deckers for routes 233, R1, R3, R4 and R8 (all MB).

2. RATP has ordered 20 Wright GB-Kite Electroliner single-deckers for route 33.

3. Due to delays in installing charging equipment at Ash Grove (HK, for route 242) and Leyton (T, for route 257), some of Stagecoach London's new Wright StreetDeck Electroliners are going to be temporarily redeployed to routes 47 (TL) and 247 (NS). Delivery of the batch for route 257 (82065-82082) has now started, while 82064 from the route 242 batch is now at Catford (TL) for driver training.

4. Further vehicles ordered by Stagecoach London are 11 Volvo BZL/MCV single-deckers for routes W13 and W14 (LI), to be 66090-66100, plus one Volvo BZL/MCV double-decker for the school working on route W13 (LI), to be 86226.

5. The 51 Volvo BZL/MCV double-deckers on order for Arriva London routes 243 and 341 (AR) are to be numbered EZ1-51.

Sunday 29 September

1. The EBD-class of Go-Ahead BYD B11 buses mentioned last week are now known to be the first of an order for 75 for use on routes 321, 333, 101, 473 and SL4.

2. TfL's technical services are still being affected by cyber attacks earlier in the month. One side-effect is that the live bus running data feed (as used by LVF and others) has at times been interrupted or incomplete.

Friday 27 September

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

Route	Current Operator	New Operator	PVR	Vehicles
25/N25	Stagecoach East London	Stagecoach East London	31	Existing hybrid double deck
73/N73	Arriva London North	Arriva London North	24	Existing New Routemaster
425	Stagecoach East London	Stagecoach East London	21	New electric double deck

New electric vehicles may enter service after the contract start date, dependent on infrastructure and/or vehicle delivery timescales.

The hybrid vehicles detailed above will meet Euro VI emissions standards.

The start and end dates for the above contracts are detailed in the following table:

Thursday 26 September

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

Route	Current Operator	New Operator	PVR	Vehicles
37 (24hr)	London Central	London Central	19	Existing hybrid double deck
390 (24hr)	Metroline	Metroline	17	Existing New Routemaster
SL5	Arriva London South	Arriva London South	10	New electric double deck
SL7	Metrolbus	Metrobus	21	New electric double deck
Silvertown Tunnel Cycle Bus	na (new route)	Stagecoach East London	3	Existing electric single deck

New electric vehicles may enter service after the contract start date, dependent on infrastructure and/or vehicle delivery timescales.

The hybrid vehicles detailed above will meet Euro VI emissions standards.

The start and end dates for the above contracts are detailed in the following table:

Monday 23 September

1. Catching up with recent TfL routes news, there have been several contract renewals but not much in the way of actual changes. An exception is the W9, one of the routes run by Sullivans until 2nd August. It was then taken over by Stagecoach London under an "emergency non-tendered contract". From 21st September a new 3-year contract with Metroline (PB) started. It is currently being worked by elderly DE-class E200s either reinstated or transferred from Uxbridge but (as of today) nothing is showing up on LVF.

2. New BYD B11 electric double-deckers for Go-Ahead London have started to arrive, with a small batch being shipped from Shanghai to Southampton and seen at Eastleigh. They were fully lettered up as the EBD class and had NX (New Cross) garage codes. Later deliveries are reported to be due to go via Bristol Docks.

3. Over 3 weeks into September and there are not yet any 74-plate buses on TfL work. There did seem to be a push to apply all pre-booked 24-plate registrations to buses still being delivered, notably on Arriva London ES and EKL classes.

4. Our new SUPs plus the London Route Review were indeed available in time for the recent Bromley Garage open day, and can also be bought from Showbus (at Quainton Road on Sun 29th Sept) and the next LOTS meeting (Farringdon on Mon 30th Sept). A reminder about SUP46A (trolleybus allocations and disposals) seems to be needed: It cannot be bought since it is only being offered as a (free) digital download from https://www.ltsv.com/lots/.

Saturday 7 September

1) Route changes today (7th September) have included the withdrawal of one-bus route 549. This leaves the (nominally) temporary 533 as the only TfL route numbered in the 5xx series.

2) Most of the outstanding ES-class StreetDeck buses for Arriva London have been registered (with 24-plates), although some may not yet have reached London. The 11 EKL-class GB Kite single-deckers have also been 24-registered but again these are not yet delivered.

3) Uno has acquired seven E40D buses that were previously in RATP's ADE-class. They have been numbered 1489-1495 and are intended for ex-Sullivans route 298.

4) New route 310 did indeed start on Sunday 1st September. The reason for this was so that the press launch could be attended by local Jewish community representatives. New school route 618 started on 2nd September and has so far been worked exclusively by Transport UK E40H 2559.

5) The two Stagecoach London E400EV buses inherited from CT Plus and used on routes 20 and 616 moved to Plumstead (PD) during the summer. This has increased the proportion of electric buses on route 180 but it would appear that the main reason for the transfer was that routes 20 and 616 were being moved from Walthamstow (AW) to Leyton (T), and the latter garage does not yet have charging facilities.

Coming events

These are publicised as a service to the readership. LOTS has neither any involvement nor responsibility for any event listed. Some events have admission fees. Please check before attending if costs are a concern. We usually confine this listing to events with an expected London bus interest or are within easy reach of London.
(LSS) = LOTS' Sales Stand expected to attend.

Sunday 13 October
Gravesend and Dartford Running Day. Now to be centred on Bluewater rather than Ebbsfleet. It will be at the Coach Park in the Village Car Park, which is outside House of Fraser at the opposite side of the centre from the bus station.

Sunday 3 November
Running Day based on Archway Station in support of the Poppy Day Appeal.
Free vintage buses on at least routes 4,17, 43, 210 and 390.

Sunday 17 November
Running Day based on Camden Town in support of the BBC Children in Need Appeal.
Free vintage buses on at least routes 24, 29, 134 and 214.

A national event list can be found here.