Latest Update:  19 January 2020

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.  

Forthcoming Conway Hall meetings

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.Meetings are held monthly (except January, July & August) 

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.

LOTS Meetings and Events

Society Meetings:   At Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, Holborn, London WC1.   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.   

There is no meeting in January so the first 2020 meeting is on Monday 24 February. Then on Mondays 23 March, 27 April, 1 June, 29 June (AGM), 28 September, 19 October, 23 November and 21 December. No meetings in July or August but bus rides evening on 20 July.

The London Bus (TLB)

TLB664 was posted on Tuesday 17 December. The closing date for reports for TLB 665 was Wednesday 8 January and it is due for posting on Tuesday 21 January. The closing date for reports for TLB 666 is 5 February.

New and Recent LOTS publications:

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:

LOTS LBM189 London Bus Magazine Autumn 2019: (£5.00) **NEW** Main articles are “Over the Bridges” by Barry Turner, “Country routes 350/350A” by Richard Moseling and “All change in central London” (a photographic snapshot of the 15th June change).

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)  **NEW**  The latest LT Service Vehicles Current fleet.

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

LOTS Bus & Tram Fleetbook 2019 (£7.00): Now enhanced with summaries of more operators that cannot fit in the main text and a return of London Dial-a-Ride but still pocket-sized A6.  It includes no fewer than 12,418 vehicles and is now available on sales stand and from Postal Sales.

LOTS Review 2018 (£12.00), the definitive account of last year, vehicles, routes and the politics of London and also record of changes in the country areas of the Home Counties.

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 19 January

1) The batch of electric BYD/E200EVs SEe 99-109 for Go-Ahead route 100 finally entered service on 18th January.  At RATP the first handful of BCEs (47001+) are now undertaking driver familarisation.

2) At Arriva the Shires the delivery of new Temsa coaches for route 758 is still outstanding, so E20D buses are presently covering the service as there are no other compliant coaches available.

3) At Arriva London  three of the ex-Stagecoach HVs (183/6/8) are still outstanding after three months. The lengthy programme of refurbishment of DWs at Dartford is almost complete with the return of DW423 imminent.

4) Go-Ahead London has acquired ten Volvo B7RLE/ Wright Eclipse buses, mainly for the rail replacement fleet. They  will  resurrect the VWL class as VWL 45­-54.

5) The five early-model BYD double-deck electrics (BYD 1471-75) are now back with BYD and appear to be undergoing preparation for the newly awarded tender to Universitybus for school routes 692/699.

Wednesday 16th January

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

* Operates 24 hours at weekends only.

** Uses bus crosslinked from route 173.

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

The above contracts will commence on the following dates:

26th September 2020: Routes 256 & 365.

17th October 2020: Routes 173, 174, 296, 347, 496, 673, 674 & 675.

21st November 2020: Route 692/699.

New electric vehicles may enter service later than these dates owing to infrastructure delivery timescales.

Saturday 11 January

1) Some of RATP’s BCE-class BYD/ADL E400EVs are now available for driver familarisation prior to going onto route 94.   

2) Go-Ahead’s SEe-class BYD/ADL E200EVs are still awaiting entry in service on route 100; they are being fitted with audible warnings to pedestrians!  The similar buses for Stagecoach route 323 are now due in a few weeks’ time.

3) After a two-month break, another dozen MetroDecker EVs (OMEs) have been delivered for eventual service on route 134 and there are just four outstanding. Once they are in service the VMHs that are covering for them can be redeployed. 

4) The 16 DELs (2597-2612) that were delivered to Metroline several months ago but have been stored ever since, are now intended to go to routes 112 and 324 from Cricklewood Garage.

5) A month ago it was made known that all LTs would be converted to allow boarding by the front door only.  Following those on route 8/N8,  those on the 55/N55 and 267 should be next to be done.

6) New route 497 in Harold Hill that had been stalled  for several months is now scheduled to begin on 25th January. Over at Dartford more complaints over the cut-backs from Bluewater of routes 428 and 492 have caused the planned January start to be deferred for now.

Sunday 5 January

1) Carousel’s  upgraded route 102 duly began last Sunday 29th December using  large and long Volvo/ Plaxton  Elite coaches formerly on the London- Oxford X90 service.  The X90 ended on Saturday night 4th January, in the past couple of weeks having run at a reduced frequency.

2) The 758 (Hemel Hempstead & London) is the first route in our area to be affected by the new PSVAR rulings requiring coaches on services all to be accessible to disabled passengers.  Arriva’s new ‘accessible’ Temsa coaches are not yet delivered, so from 1st January the service is covered for the time being by Enviro200 buses.

3) A restriction of a different kind is the Low Emission Zone in Brighton, causing Metrobus route 273 from Crawley to be cut back from 29th December from Churchill Square to the Old Steine.  The Euro IV Scania OmniCity double-decks used on the route do not comply with emission restrictions. 

4) Metroline’s last three Scania double-decks (SEL 742, 745, 806) continued into 2020 to ply along route 297.   Likewise the last three Dart SLF/ Pointers with Abellio, usually on routes K1 or 481.  The last two Plaxton President bodied buses on TfL service (Sullivan TPL 926/7) are still active and shouid appear on school routes from the coming week.   Use LVF to check where these survivors can be found.

Sunday 29 December

1) Delivery has started of two batches of BYD/ADL electric buses, the single-decks (SEs 99-109) for Go-Ahead route 100 (Shadwell & St Paul’s ) and the double-decks (BC47001-029) for London United route 94.   Thus far, eight BCs are delivered to London and BC47002 (LB69 JNK) has arrived at  Shepherd’s Bush Garage for training use. The five single-decks for Stagecoach route 323 should be around shortly as well.

Sunday 22 December

1) Metroline’s  SEL class of Scanias is now down to three (742, 745, 806) available for service, latterly with just one or two on route 297 each day.

2) The very last Plaxton President bodied bus in TfL service is due to be withdrawn after use on Monday 23^rd.  It is planned to work HD121 on route 140 on that  day.  Scheduled journeys are as follows  (the time in brackets is the arrival time at the end of the journey):  

Harrow Weald to Hayes & Harlington Station at 0508 (0551), 0723 (0825), 1244 (1342), 1516 (1623), 1804 (1911).

Hayes & Harlington Station to Harrow Weald at 0613 (0706), 0837 (0941), 1354 (1458), 1635 (1748), 1923 (2021).

Wednesday 18 December

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

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

The above contracts will commence on the following dates:

5th September 2020: Route 312.

19th September 2020: Routes 246, 352, 354 & 358.

New electric vehicles may enter service later than these dates owing to infrastructure delivery timescales.

Sunday 15 December