Latest Update:  16 May 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 23 May. There is yet another change as both Andy Corbett, Commercial Delivery Director of RATP and Simon Reed, Head of Technology and Data, Surface Transport at TfL are unable to attend. Instead, Mark Sapsford, Field Service Engineer Manager, Technology and Data at TfL's Surface Transport will speak on the subject "20 years of (iBus)".

Further meetings in 2022 will be in on Mondays 27 June(AGM), 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 692 was posted on Tuesday 12 April. Sadly due to a printing plate fault, some rogue yellow patches appeared on the inside front cover pictures.  Rest assured that the photos were perfectly OK when they left and also rest assured that they weren’t an April Fool.

The closing date for reports for TLB 693 was 4 May. It is due for posting on Tuesday 17 May. The closing date for reports for TLB 694 is Wednesday 8 June.

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:

NEW LOTS London Bus & Tram Fleetbook 2022:   (£7.50).

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:

NEW 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

Latest news 

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.

Sunday 8 May

1) The Elizabeth line associated  bus service changes of 14th and 21st May will all go ahead as planned as  listed in TLB692, with the Paddington - Abbey Wood part of the line due to open to the public on Tuesday 24th  May.

Friday 6 May

LBSL intends to enter into a new contract for the following route with the operator listed below:

* Weekends only.

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

Start and end dates for the above contract will be as follows:

Sunday 1 May

1) The changes of 30^th April in London were complicated as on the three routes involved, none of the new buses for the contracts had arrived.   At Abellio, the 111 was taken on, using a mix of LTs taken from both London United and from its own devices (partly due to PVR reductions on other routes).  The 322 (also Abellio) had to be with 8.9m E20Ds from its own fleet (with one-for-one transfers to allow that) as none of the new Optare MetroCitys were ready for service.  The 204 stayed with its existing buses, the E400EVs not due until June. 

2) The StreetDeck Electroliner demonstrator  EL 1 has gone into service on route 119 (Croydon- Bromley) and  it should be out on Mon-Fri for a period.  The first batch of Electroliners due for London is for the 111 but are a  few months away yet.    Electric power supply remains awaited at RATP Edgware and Hounslow Heath as well as at Go-Ahead  Bexleyheath, for buses already delivered for routes 125, 235, 132 respectively.   

Friday 22 April

1) Over the Easter weekend Arriva’s country buses switched a lot of vehicles about.  Mostly as a result of the service reductions at Watford and Hemel, E400s moved from Herts to Kent, Volvo B7RLEs from Hemel to Luton and StreetLites from Kent to Hemel.   

2) The first of Abellio’s BYD/ADL E400EVs (batch 3430-41) for route U5 have started delivery.  Route 322 is due to pass from Go Ahead to Abellio next Saturday 30^th but to begin with it will be covered by existing fleet 8.9m E200Darts until the MetroCity electrics on order arrive.

3) A late-notified Running Day is at East Grinstead on this Sunday 24 April.  About 30 buses involved, ex- LT/LCBS, Southdown, M&D, Metrobus, re-creating old local routes.   

4) Centrebus deregistered trunk route 34 (Dunstable & St Albans) after 7th May. However, a few days ago  Red Eagle agreed to replace it commercially from Monday 9th May.

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

* 24 hour routes (H32 at weekends only).

All the hybrid vehicles detailed above will meet Euro VI emissions standards. New electric vehicles may enter service after the contract start date dependent on infrastructure and/ or vehicle delivery timescales.

Start and end dates for the above contracts will be as follows:

Sunday 17 April

There are no significant news items to report this week.

Saturday 9 April

1) A start has been made to convert Go-Ahead route 5 (Canning Town & Romford) partially to LT operation, using LTs released from PVR reductions from route 12 at Camberwell.  As at this weekend they are not in general daytime use although for some time LTs have been scheduled anyway in early mornings as a run-on from the N15 allocation. 

2) The two buses at RATP planned for Platinum Jubilee livery are not now expected to be ‘wrapped’ until mid-May.  LT 70 will be one, the other is planned to be BCE 47070. 

3) The delays in getting electric power supplies roll on,  with RATP Edgware and Hounslow Heath hoped for by the end of May, but that at Go-Ahead Bexleyheath not now till July.  

4) Ensignbus resumed Southend sea front service 68 from April 2nd to 18th,  thence basically weekends, half terms and  bank holidays to mid­- July, then daily in school holidays.

Sunday 3 April

1) The LOTS 2022 Fleetbook and Mike Harris’ bus maps are now in stock and orders can be accepted now.  If you intend to go to Brooklands on 10 April our sales stand is there.

2) Route news is that Arriva takes over route 432 on 2 April and HV 132-144 have transferred into Norwood Garage.   Also on 2 April route 84 passes from Metroline to Sullivan Buses although hopes of getting a full green-bus output on the first few days has been thwarted by delays at the painter’s.

3) Abellio’s new garage at Dawley Road Hayes opened on 2 April with some buses transferred in and the rest to follow in May.    

4) In Kent the Sunday route awards from 3 April mean that 433 and 489 are retained by Arriva while the 401 Westerham- Sevenoaks- Tonbridge (every two hours)  passes to Ham’s of Flimwell. 

5) The Mercedes-Benz Citaro artics in Brighton, all former London vehicles, will be withdrawn later this year and replaced by ‘mid-life double-decks’ from London.   So if you want to re-acquaint yourself with London General’s  MAL 98-119, for now they are on the 25 in Brighton.