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.

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

The next meeting is on Monday 27 June(AGM), then 26 September and 28 November. The AGM will be held in the Brockway Room. Other meetings will be in the main hall.

Conway Hall is located at Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL. We are in the Great Hall unless otherwise stated. Conway Hall authorities currently request that visitors are encouraged to wear face masks and that those feeling that they have Covid symptoms are asked not to attend.

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 7.30pm 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. Meetings are held four times a year, plus the AGM.

TLB 694 was posted on Tuesday 21 June. The closing date for reports for TLB 695 is Wednesday 6 July and it is due for posting on Tuesday 19 July.

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:

SUP-39C TfL’s Bus Operators Fleet Allocations and PVRs 56 pages, (£4.50).

NEW LOTS London Bus Magazine No 200 Summer 2022, (£5.00). Main features are 'Mullany's Buses' and Part One of a 50 years of

LOTS London Bus Magazine 199, Spring 2022 (£5.00). Main features are Addlestone Garage operations in the 1050s by Terence

Uden, Archways Last Routemasters by Darius Grigg and 'The Yorkie buses are by me' by Tony Wilson.

LOTS London Bus Magazine 198 Winter 2021 (£5.00) Main features are Volvo Double Deckers in London by Malc McDonald ,

Streatham Buses in the 1060s by Ian King and trolleybus route 667 Bank Holiday workings by Hugh Taylor.

TLB Extra 1956 The last of the series although there is a difference. 1956 was a fairly slack year for vehicle changes so this

book has been expanded from 60 to 80 pages to include a summary of all the updates to all the other issues 1948 to 1955 and

1957-1984. Fully illustrated in B&W but with original 1956 colour cover pictures. (£7.00).

LOTS Review 2020: An A4-size 80-page book detailing all the London region events of last year, with over 100 colour pictures. £13.00.

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-24I: (£4.50) The latest LT Service Vehicles fleet current to 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.

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

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

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 2 April 2022 (£2) and a Night Bus Map for 2 April 2022 (£4)
From each edition of the series an amount of the price is donated to a charity. In this case it is to the British Heart Foundation.

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

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) Effective from Saturday 25 June, the Tower Transit operation at Lea Interchange Garage was transferred to Stagecoach ownership. A new O’Licence TTOL2022 Ltd was created to operate the buses and routes, this company being effectively a subsidiary of Stagecoach. It will be a few weeks yet before fleet re-numbering and altering the iBus and LVF references can take place.

1) The Go-Ahead Group has announced its intention to recommend shareholder acceptance an offer from a consortium made up of Australasian bus operator Kinetic Group and transport concession manager Globalvia Inversiones. Go Ahead Chief Executive Christian Schreyer described the £648 million offer as "compelling". If it progresses, Go Ahead would become a stand alone subsidiary of the consortium.

2) The new Stevenage Bus Station will open to buses and passengers on Sunday 26 June. This month sees two local bus operators surrender their routes in the town. Richmond’s 390 (Stevenage to Hertford and Ware) passed to Arriva from 12 June while A2B Travel’ s sole route in the town (SB10) passes wholly to Arriva from 26 June. Other than one Uno route (635) and two Centrebus (44-45 and 80), all local services will then be with Arriva. Arriva is building a new garage close to their Babbage Road site. As already recorded, Arriva has been awarded finance for 27 new electric buses for town routes.

3) Abellio London’s 11 electric MetroCity-EVs have been awaiting essential parts before delivery. However, three have been delivered and it is hoped for them to go into service on route 322 in the coming week.

1) The long awaited slashing of whole or part route withdrawals due next year has been published. Full detail will be in June TLB694 in an easy way to understand it but in the meantime you can use this link from TfL. https://haveyoursay.tfl.gov.uk/busreview

2) Two weeks on from the fire at Potters Bar and there are still about a dozen VW and VWH buses on loan. The problem has been that several electric charging points had been damaged in the fire. thus restricting the amount of OMEs that can be operated for now.

3) From next weekend 12th June, Richmond’s Coaches have surrendered route 390 (Stevenage & Hertford/ Ware) and the Saturday journeys on the SB10 with Arriva taking over. Two weeks later A2B Buses will surrender the weekday SB10 aa well. Staying at Stevenage the new bus station still has “issues” to sort out so it is not yet open.

1) The major fire in the rear yard at Potters Bar Garage last Sunday afternoon 22^nd May that started in an electric Optare MetroDecker resulted in all such buses being stood down for inspection. Six buses were destroyed - 2 VW, 2 TE and 2 OME. All other Metroline garages sent spare buses that they could spare, virtually all of which were VWHs. Reduced service on the garage’s routes was necessary for a few days. Similar MetroDeckers with Go-Ahead route 200 at Merton, also RATP routes 23 and C3 at Westbourne Park) were taken out of service that night for inspection. Go-Ahead initially used spare Es and WVLs but a dozen EHVs soon moved over from east London. RATP initially suspended routes 23, N23 and C3 but soon reinstated a limited service. Their first OMEs went back into service on the Night Bus N23 from 22:00 on 26th May, followed by the C3 on 27th. Go-Ahead and Metroline kept theirs off service. There was a lot of speculation over the cause of the fire in both the printed and electronic Media but most of it was wrong. As at this weekend (27 May) the cause of the fire had not yet been established.

UPDATE: A Metroline staff notice was issued at about 16:30 today to advise that the MetroDecker EVs are now safe to operate. Paraphrasing, it was an ‘isolated operational error’. The Metroline buses should start to re-enter service tonight or tomorrow. RATP Westbourne Park have already put theirs back into service. Go-Ahead Merton had stored theirs off site so probably they could come back over this weekend.

2) On 27^th May Stagecoach announced their purchase for about £20 million of Tower Transit’s operations at Lea Interchange Garage. The effect on the vehicle fleet remains to be seen.

3) In addition to the 8 London buses decorated for HM The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, nine more buses have been wrapped to promote the Elizabeth line. Purple is the dominant colour for both campaigns. The core section of the line between Paddington and Abbey Wood finally opened on Tuesday 24th May. (amended item)

1) The extensive set of route changes in the London Borough of Newham took effect today 21May affecting the 101, 241, 262, 300, 330. 376, 474 and new 304. Much of this is to increase the range of bus connections to Custom House Station which will be served from next Tuesday 24May by the Elizabeth line trains.

2) Also on 21May Abellio route 278 transferred from Southall to Dawley Road Hayes Garage. The similar transfer of route U5 has been delayed until the new BYD/ADL E400EV electric buses are made ready for service.

3) LOTS’ new publication SUP-39C ‘TfL’s Bus Operators Fleet Allocations and PVRs’ goes to print on Monday 23 May and we expect completed copies by 1st June. 56 pages, £4.50.

1) The advent of the Elizabeth line from 24th May has prompted a set of “advert buses” to highlight this occurrence. Nine buses have been treated to wraps which have lots of purple roundels plus a slogan “This bus connects to the new Elizabeth line”. For about three months they are to be used on routes that serve stations on the line. West: 2 buses on route 278. East: 2 buses on each of routes 304 and 474. South-East: 1 bus on route 180 and 2 buses on route 301.

1) Today Sat14May marks the re-arrangement of routes 129, 180, 244, 469, 472, B11 in SE London in connection with the opening on Tues24May of the Elizabeth line to Abbey Wood.

2) The first of eight TfL buses to be wrapped in Queen’s Platinum Jubilee are now appearing. Identities of most are not yet known so reports are needed please, to either LOTS or to LVF. The planned routes on which they are meant to be used are quoted below.

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.

All events are subject to any Covid-19 restrictions at the time. Please check before travelling.

All events are subject to any Covid-19 restrictions at the time. Events that seem likely to go ahead are below, although you should

check before travelling. LSS= LOTS Sales Stand should attend).

Sunday 26 June: London Bus Museum Brooklands summer event

Sunday 26 June: Open day at Reading Buses' depot in Great Knollys Street.

Saturday 2nd July: 50th anniversary of the Leyland National at Gaydon Airfield, Warwickshire.

Saturday/Sunday 09/10July: Thames Valley Traction Centenary Event: possible running day at Maidenhead.

Sunday 10 July: BBPG running day Godstone to East Grinstead, a new event

Sunday 17July: Alton bus rally

Sunday 31 July: Worthing bus rally

Sunday 7 August: Gosport bus rally

Sunday 7 August: Change of venue for Buses Festival now at Sywell Aerodrome, near Northampton.

Saturday 1st October: Heritage Running Day on route 37 (Peckham & Hounslow).

Sunday 23 October: London Bus Museum Brooklands Autumn event

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: 26 June 2022 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. 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 The next meeting is on Monday 27 June(AGM), then 26 September and 28 November. The AGM will be held in the Brockway Room. Other meetings will be in the main hall. Conway Hall is located at Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL. We are in the Great Hall unless otherwise stated. Conway Hall authorities currently request that visitors are encouraged to wear face masks and that those feeling that they have Covid symptoms are asked not to attend. 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 7.30pm 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. Meetings are held four times a year, plus the AGM. The London Bus (TLB) TLB 694 was posted on Tuesday 21 June. The closing date for reports for TLB 695 is Wednesday 6 July and it is due for posting on Tuesday 19 July. New and Recent LOTS publications: 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: SUP-39C TfL’s Bus Operators Fleet Allocations and PVRs 56 pages, (£4.50). LOTS London Bus & Tram Fleetbook 2022: (£7.50). NEW LOTS London Bus Magazine No 200 Summer 2022, (£5.00). Main features are 'Mullany's Buses' and Part One of a 50 years of LBM, a photo piece by The Editor. LOTS London Bus Magazine 199, Spring 2022 (£5.00). Main features are Addlestone Garage operations in the 1050s by Terence Uden, Archways Last Routemasters by Darius Grigg and 'The Yorkie buses are by me' by Tony Wilson. LOTS London Bus Magazine 198 Winter 2021 (£5.00) Main features are Volvo Double Deckers in London by Malc McDonald , Streatham Buses in the 1060s by Ian King and trolleybus route 667 Bank Holiday workings by Hugh Taylor. TLB Extra 1956 The last of the series although there is a difference. 1956 was a fairly slack year for vehicle changes so this book has been expanded from 60 to 80 pages to include a summary of all the updates to all the other issues 1948 to 1955 and 1957-1984. Fully illustrated in B&W but with original 1956 colour cover pictures. (£7.00). LOTS Review 2020: An A4-size 80-page book detailing all the London region events of last year, with over 100 colour pictures. £13.00. LOTS SUP-39B TfL Bus Operators Fleet Allocations and PVRs (£4.50) 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-24I: (£4.50) The latest LT Service Vehicles fleet current to 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: Young Routemasters (James Whiting) £16.95. A photograph and caption book covering each route conversion to Routemasters 1956 to 1965 London's Disused Railway Stations - Inner South East London (CT) £22 Wires above South East London (Robert Harley) £25 A London trolleybus reborn Q1 1812 (Dave Chick) £25 Vehicle History File - London DMS (Wooleybus) £22.50 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 2 April 2022 (£2) and a Night Bus Map for 2 April 2022 (£4) From each edition of the series an amount of the price is donated to a charity. In this case it is to the British Heart Foundation. 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. Vacancies None Non-members may wish to look at a sample issue of TLB. Hopefully this will whet your appetite for joining LOTS! Latest news Sunday 26 June 1) Effective from Saturday 25 June, the Tower Transit operation at Lea Interchange Garage was transferred to Stagecoach ownership. A new O’Licence TTOL2022 Ltd was created to operate the buses and routes, this company being effectively a subsidiary of Stagecoach. It will be a few weeks yet before fleet re-numbering and altering the iBus and LVF references can take place. Saturday 18 June 1) The Go-Ahead Group has announced its intention to recommend shareholder acceptance an offer from a consortium made up of Australasian bus operator Kinetic Group and transport concession manager Globalvia Inversiones. Go Ahead Chief Executive Christian Schreyer described the £648 million offer as "compelling". If it progresses, Go Ahead would become a stand alone subsidiary of the consortium. 2) The new Stevenage Bus Station will open to buses and passengers on Sunday 26 June. This month sees two local bus operators surrender their routes in the town. Richmond’s 390 (Stevenage to Hertford and Ware) passed to Arriva from 12 June while A2B Travel’ s sole route in the town (SB10) passes wholly to Arriva from 26 June. Other than one Uno route (635) and two Centrebus (44-45 and 80), all local services will then be with Arriva. Arriva is building a new garage close to their Babbage Road site. As already recorded, Arriva has been awarded finance for 27 new electric buses for town routes. 3) Abellio London’s 11 electric MetroCity-EVs have been awaiting essential parts before delivery. However, three have been delivered and it is hoped for them to go into service on route 322 in the coming week. Sunday 12 June There are no significant news items to report this week. Saturday 4 June 1) The long awaited slashing of whole or part route withdrawals due next year has been published. Full detail will be in June TLB694 in an easy way to understand it but in the meantime you can use this link from TfL. https://haveyoursay.tfl.gov.uk/busreview 2) Two weeks on from the fire at Potters Bar and there are still about a dozen VW and VWH buses on loan. The problem has been that several electric charging points had been damaged in the fire. thus restricting the amount of OMEs that can be operated for now. 3) From next weekend 12th June, Richmond’s Coaches have surrendered route 390 (Stevenage & Hertford/ Ware) and the Saturday journeys on the SB10 with Arriva taking over. Two weeks later A2B Buses will surrender the weekday SB10 aa well. Staying at Stevenage the new bus station still has “issues” to sort out so it is not yet open. Friday 27 May 1) The major fire in the rear yard at Potters Bar Garage last Sunday afternoon 22^nd May that started in an electric Optare MetroDecker resulted in all such buses being stood down for inspection. Six buses were destroyed - 2 VW, 2 TE and 2 OME. All other Metroline garages sent spare buses that they could spare, virtually all of which were VWHs. Reduced service on the garage’s routes was necessary for a few days. Similar MetroDeckers with Go-Ahead route 200 at Merton, also RATP routes 23 and C3 at Westbourne Park) were taken out of service that night for inspection. Go-Ahead initially used spare Es and WVLs but a dozen EHVs soon moved over from east London. RATP initially suspended routes 23, N23 and C3 but soon reinstated a limited service. Their first OMEs went back into service on the Night Bus N23 from 22:00 on 26th May, followed by the C3 on 27th. Go-Ahead and Metroline kept theirs off service. There was a lot of speculation over the cause of the fire in both the printed and electronic Media but most of it was wrong. As at this weekend (27 May) the cause of the fire had not yet been established. UPDATE: A Metroline staff notice was issued at about 16:30 today to advise that the MetroDecker EVs are now safe to operate. Paraphrasing, it was an ‘isolated operational error’. The Metroline buses should start to re-enter service tonight or tomorrow. RATP Westbourne Park have already put theirs back into service. Go-Ahead Merton had stored theirs off site so probably they could come back over this weekend. 2) On 27^th May Stagecoach announced their purchase for about £20 million of Tower Transit’s operations at Lea Interchange Garage. The effect on the vehicle fleet remains to be seen. 3) In addition to the 8 London buses decorated for HM The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, nine more buses have been wrapped to promote the Elizabeth line. Purple is the dominant colour for both campaigns. The core section of the line between Paddington and Abbey Wood finally opened on Tuesday 24th May. (amended item) Saturday 21 May 1) The extensive set of route changes in the London Borough of Newham took effect today 21May affecting the 101, 241, 262, 300, 330. 376, 474 and new 304. Much of this is to increase the range of bus connections to Custom House Station which will be served from next Tuesday 24May by the Elizabeth line trains. 2) Also on 21May Abellio route 278 transferred from Southall to Dawley Road Hayes Garage. The similar transfer of route U5 has been delayed until the new BYD/ADL E400EV electric buses are made ready for service. 3) LOTS’ new publication SUP-39C ‘TfL’s Bus Operators Fleet Allocations and PVRs’ goes to print on Monday 23 May and we expect completed copies by 1st June. 56 pages, £4.50. Monday 16 May 1) The advent of the Elizabeth line from 24th May has prompted a set of “advert buses” to highlight this occurrence. Nine buses have been treated to wraps which have lots of purple roundels plus a slogan “This bus connects to the new Elizabeth line”. For about three months they are to be used on routes that serve stations on the line. West: 2 buses on route 278. East: 2 buses on each of routes 304 and 474. South-East: 1 bus on route 180 and 2 buses on route 301. Saturday 14 May 1) Today Sat14May marks the re-arrangement of routes 129, 180, 244, 469, 472, B11 in SE London in connection with the opening on Tues24May of the Elizabeth line to Abbey Wood. 2) The first of eight TfL buses to be wrapped in Queen’s Platinum Jubilee are now appearing. Identities of most are not yet known so reports are needed please, to either LOTS or to LVF. The planned routes on which they are meant to be used are quoted below. Abellio (Beddington) – 270. Arriva Wood Green – 29. Arriva Brixton – 319 (EA 1). Go-Ahead at NP – An Ee for 106/212/230/357. Metroline Willesden - 6/52/98 ( a VWH). RATP- Shepherd’s Bush – 148 (LT70) RATP Fulwell – 65, 281 (BCE 47070). Stagecoach Bow – 205. For earlier news read LOTS TLB 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. All events are subject to any Covid-19 restrictions at the time. Please check before travelling. All events are subject to any Covid-19 restrictions at the time. Events that seem likely to go ahead are below, although you should check before travelling. LSS= LOTS Sales Stand should attend). Sunday 26 June: London Bus Museum Brooklands summer event Sunday 26 June: Open day at Reading Buses' depot in Great Knollys Street. Saturday 2nd July: 50th anniversary of the Leyland National at Gaydon Airfield, Warwickshire. Saturday/Sunday 09/10July: Thames Valley Traction Centenary Event: possible running day at Maidenhead. Sunday 10 July: BBPG running day Godstone to East Grinstead, a new event Sunday 17July: Alton bus rally Sunday 31 July: Worthing bus rally Sunday 7 August: Gosport bus rally Sunday 7 August: Change of venue for Buses Festival now at Sywell Aerodrome, near Northampton. Saturday 1st October: Heritage Running Day on route 37 (Peckham & Hounslow). Sunday 23 October: London Bus Museum Brooklands Autumn event 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: 26 June 2022

LOTS meetings and events

Conway Hall meetings

Latest news