Latest Update:  6 August 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

Due to the continuing pandemic all LOTS meetings are CANCELLED until February 2021

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 671 was posted on Wednesday 15 July. The closing date for reports for TLB 672 is 5 August and it is due for posting on Tuesday 18 August.

LOTS London Bus Magazine update

London Bus Magazine subscribers are advised that LBM 192 (Summer 2020) is being rescheduled for September delivery along with TLB 673, due for despatch on 15/16th September.  Also, 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:

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

NEW 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.

NEW LOTS LBM191 London Bus Magazine Spring 2020. Main articles are the second part of the route 101 history "From River Deep to Mountain High" by Malcolm Payne. "Doglegs and Horsehoes" by Barry Turner about various complicated Central Area routes - a sort of prequel to Looping the Loop in LBM 173 but with pics from the 1950s/60s and a 'History of route 441 by Nick Molony, the story of country bus 441 Wycombe - Windsor - Staines. LBM 192 is expected to be published in a few weeks and should be posted with August TLB.

NEW 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: 

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

Amendment to the 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.
 
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 

Sunday 2 August

1) On 31st July the Regional MD of Arriva announced that Stamford Hill (SF) Garage was to be closed, likely later this year. The intention is to transfer buses for the 73/N73 to Clapton (CT), 253/N253 to Ash Grove (AE) and 318 to Tottenham (AR).  The closure is to re-arrange capacities as a result of tender losses this year in north London of routes 67, 106 and 230.

2) Still just a trickle of new E400Hs buses to Abellio but neither the 270 nor the 285 batches are anywhere near completion yet.  The first five (of 24) E400Hs for Stagecoach route 425  have arrived this week, two months late.   Routes 200 (London General) and H98 (London United) have always had plenty of double-decks in use but are now being formally and gradually converted to full double-deck as they become available.

Monday 27 July

The Brooklands Museum complex is being re-opened from 1st August, but only on Thurs, Fris. Sats and Suns  between 10am-5pm.  However, there will be an initial limit on numbers and your arrival times will need to be booked in advance.  That applies to London Bus Museum members as well (LBM is staffed from 11am).   A simple booking system is on www.brooklandsmuseum.com

Sunday 26 July

1) Lengthy delays continue to be the norm in delivery of new buses for London. Abellio has 18 E400s for the 270 and 285 and Stagecoach 24 E400s for the 425 – plus 13 E200s for London United K1 – still to come to complete the allocations.  In these cases loaned buses and temporary transfers are helping out. 

Sunday 19 July

1) Just around 10% of TfL routes are still running with non-standard schedules, mostly of these being Saturday or Sunday schedules on Mon-to-Fri.   All buses should now have been re-converted for front door boarding although it seems there  a few that are not yet re-stickered!

Friday 17 July

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

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

The above contracts will commence on the following dates:

3rd April 2021: Routes 463 & 633.

1st May 2021: Routes 28/N28, 69, 315 & 687.

5th June 2021: Route 639/670.

The new electric vehicles for route 69 may enter service after the contract start date owing to infrastructure and/ or vehicle delivery timescales. 

Sunday 12 July

1) Since last week, there still a pause in deliveries of new buses to London and no service changes of any consequence in London until late August. 

2) Following the limited relaxation of  ‘social distancing’  last week the limitation of passenger capacities on London buses  changed, although it has taken a further week for new door stickers to appear on vehicles.  The double deck limit has risen from 20 to 30 (from 25 up to 35 at driver’s discretion), on standard  single-decks from 10 to 14 (18 discretion). Small single-decks from 7 to 11 (14 discretion).

3) The ‘Arriva Click’  DRT minibus operation in Watford finally started on Wednesday 1st July using just three (of the seven) vehicles in the fleet. 

4) The BYD/ADL E400EV demonstrator LF69UXJ, having spent two weeks with HCT on route 20, moved over to Metroline at Holloway from 10th July and should now be seen on route 43 alongside the identical BDEs.