Retracing Green Line 705

Saturday 5th August 2023

After our enjoyable trip from Hertford to Guildford the Retracing Green Line Routes Gang (RGLRG) recently reassembled for another cross London jaunt, this time reliving the wonderful RF, RC and RCL operated 705 which in the network’s heyday linked Sevenoaks in Kent with Windsor in Berkshire.

The half-hourly 705 had a parallel sister route in the half-hourly 704. That started its Windsor bound journey further south than Sevenoaks in Tunbridge Wells where London Transport famously had a very small exclusively Green Line crew operated bus garage – we think with a PVR of just six buses, all on the 704. Located centrally in Lime Hill Road the land value far exceeded any financial return Green Line could offer so it was no surprise the garage closed in December 1967 although it took some years, even into London Country’s era in the 1970s, before it was sold.

From Tunbridge Wells the 704 operated via Tonbridge to Sevenoaks and from there, whereas the 705 went via Westerham, Biggin Hill, Keston and Hayes to Bromley, the 704 operated more direct via Knockholt and Farnborough before the routes met up again in Bromley to provide a combined joint frequency of every 15 minutes north to Victoria and west to Windsor.

There’s no longer a bus between Sevenoaks and Knockholt – the last vestiges of this route ended when Arriva withdrew its route 402 in 2017, so we opted to retrace the 705 rather than the 704 so we could be more faithful in keeping to the original route.

As we weren’t aiming to beat any marathon bus riding endurance records we opted to once again split the retracing across two sessions with part one from Sevenoaks to Victoria and part two from Victoria to Windsor, including an intriguing stop off half way along the Great West Road.

Day one began at Sevenoaks bus station where the 705 set out on its two hour 57 minute journey to Windsor. It was going to take us more than double that over the two days and that included using the formerly branded Green Line branded 702 operated by Reading Buses for part of the way.

In original Green Line days the 705 was operated from bus garages in Dunton Green and Windsor, both obviously no longer with us and pre war, when the network was designated by route letters rather than numbers Sevenoaks to London was route X and London to Windsor route Z in the 1930s while after a re-lettering route X became a route D and extended across London to Staines.

Today, Sevenoaks is home to Go Coach Hire which has established itself as the go to bus operator in this part of north west Kent including looking after the small bus station in the town adorned with its purple and yellow branding.

The first section of route 705 was along the A25 west to Westerham. Back in the day, as well as the half hourly 705, this pre M25 busy road also saw the hourly LT Country Bus route 403 on its way from Tonbridge to Croydon and Wallington. When we travelled last month the timetable had just three off peak return journeys on Go-Coach route 1. Quite a come down, although that timetable is supplemented by Go Coach Hire’s Go2 branded DRT service for those partial to such operations.

However, the good news is that from earlier this week the timetable was doubled to six return journeys on Mondays to Fridays.

We caught the second of the three departures of the day, the 11:15 from Sevenoaks as did quite a few other passengers returning home from shopping, with the bus emptying out as we progressed towards Westerham. Leaving Sevenoaks buses on route 1 serve Riverhead north of the town via a slight deviation along Bullfinch Lane which the 705 wouldn’t have done and approaching Westerham the bus makes an anti-clockwise loop but otherwise it was a faithful recreation of how it would have been a few decades ago.

We arrived in Westerham at 11:41, having taken 26 minutes from Sevenoaks (the 705 did the journey in 18 minutes), and where LT style bus stop flags can still be found, because it’s the southern outpost of TfL route 246 from Bromley, although on Summer Sundays buses continue further south to Chartwell. There’s now a half hourly service between Westerham and Bromley but back in the day the half hourly 705 was joined by half hourly LT Country Bus trunk route 410 between Reigate, Westerham and Bromley which, like the 705, ran via Biggin Hill.

After an 18 minute wait the Stagecoach operated 246 finally arrived to pick us, and the other nine waiting passengers, up at 11:59 for its scheduled 11:53 departure to Bromley North. It took 56 minutes on what was another busy journey to reach Bromley North station whereas the scheduled time was 50 minutes and the 705 would have taken 38 minutes.

Route 246 is operated with four Enviro 200s from the Stagecoach bus garage in Bromley and includes another deviation along residential roads between Hayes and Bromley which would never have seen a Green Line route back in the day.

Back in the 1960s, the furthest south an LT red bus would have ventured in this area was Downe with route 146 running via Keston and Hayes to Bromley North and was one of the first bus routes to be tendered being awarded to Crystals Coaches in August 1985. However, going even further back in time, pre-War, a few peak hour journeys on route 137 from Archway ventured as far south as Westerham Hill as did weekend journeys on route 146 from Lewisham.

We took a little break to wander around Bromley’s town centre and enjoy some refreshments before continuing northwards planing to take either a 208 or 320, whichever arrived first. In the ‘old days’ aside from routes 704/705 it would have been a choice between routes 1 and 47, both now very changed. There was a long gap on the 320 and after a ten minute wait, a bus on Go-Ahead operated route 208 arrived which took us on the 35 minute journey via Catford to Lewisham. Unbelievably the 705 did that segment in just 15 minutes.

It was another busy bus with lots of passengers boarding and alighting along the way but luckily no driver changeover as we passed by Stagecoach’s bus garage in Catford because the route is operated by Go-Ahead London with 18 Enviro 400H from its garage in Orpington.

From Lewisham we could have caught a bus from a choice of the 21, 136, 321 or 436 offering a combined 25 buses an hour to our next staging post at New Cross. Just a few minutes after alighting from the 208 a 21 and 136 arrived together and we opted for the former and remind ourselves just how claustrophobic a busy New Bus for London type bus feels compared to the Enviro 400 we’d in which we’d travelled on the 208.

The short leg to New Cross on a 705 would have taken just seven minutes whereas our 21 took 17 minutes. Obviously traffic was much less in those days and the 705 stopped at far fewer bus stops.

We changed buses outside Go-Ahead London’s New Cross bus garage which operates the 21 with 24 LT class vehicles on to our next route – the 53 – another Stagecoach operated route with 27 Enviro 400 buses from Plumstead garage and which at one time went as far north as Camden Town but now only reaches Lambeth North.

This took us along the Old Kent Road, past the Bricklayers Arms, to Elephant & Castle where the remodelled roundabout and demolished shopping centre is rapidly being replaced with a new building.

As we alighted the 53 a bus on our next route, the 344, was just pulling away from the same bus stop but only a minute later another one arrived which took us on the seven minute journey to Lambeth Palace. It’s an Abellio operated route from Battersea garage taking 21 Enviro 400 buses between Liverpool Street and Clapham Junction stations.

Our invitation for afternoon tea with the Archbishop had got lost in the post so we abandoned that idea and walked past the Palace entrance to the stop round the corner in Lambeth Palace Road where one of Abellio London’s smart 22 electric Caetano E-City Gold buses from Walworth bus garage on route C10 (Canada Water to Victoria station) arrived instantly to take us for our final seven minute leg of part one across Lambeth Bridge and past Tate Britain to Pimlico Underground station.

From Pimlico buses on Green Line routes headed north along Belgrave Road towards Eccleston Bridge. We could have caught a route 24 for just one stop but as there wasn’t one arriving for nine minutes we walked along Belgrave Road and soon reached the famous Eccleston Bridge.

Eccleston Bridge has been completely transformed over the last few decades from the days when it was Green Line’s central London hub with bus shelters on either side of the bridge on a two way road as well as a small enquiry office at the western end of the shelter on the northern side of the road where you’d often find an Inspector with an impressive badge on his (no female inspectors in those days) peaked cap overseeing operations as buses came and went to and from Home Counties’ destinations all around London.

Eccleston Bridge marked the halfway mark of our journey so we admired the facade of the original building fronting Buckingham Palace Road then parted and regrouped a week later to continue the retracing westwards to Windsor.

In the mid 1960s route 705 was altered to run ‘express style’ between Victoria and Windsor stopping at only 13 other bus stops on the journey as well as using the Chiswick fly-over and Colnbrook by-pass while sister route 704 continued serving all the normal Green Line bus stops. This cut 19 minutes off the journey time to Windsor with the 705 doing it in an hour and the 704 taking 79 minutes. We decided to follow the pre-change route, not least because today’s route 81 which we’d be using is routed through Colnbrook rather than the by-pass.

From Victoria today, Reading Buses has been running hourly route 702 to Windsor since First Bus gave the route up in December 2017. At the end of this month the company is relinquishing use of the Green Line branding for this route and its compatriot 703 route (Arriva, which owns the Green Line name, wanted to charge too much) with a fleet of seven brand new Enviro 400 buses being introduced sporting a new livery using a new The London Line name under an overarching Windsor Express brand to promote the routes key features.

For our purposes in retracing the 705, the 702 only worked as far as Hammersmith because from there it continues along the A4 before joining the start of the M4 at Chiswick which it uses to Langley.

We caught the 11:00 from Victoria’s Buckingham Palace Road as far as Hammersmith which was good to see carried a good number of passengers.

It took just over the scheduled 30 minutes to reach Hammersmith which wasn’t bad going considering the heavy traffic on some of the route and all the developments taking place not least the rebuilding of Olympia 2.

The 702 doesn’t call into Hammersmith bus station which back in the day was called Hammersmith Broadway Butterwick and was quite a hub for Green Line routes. As well as route 705, also calling were routes 701, 702, 704, 714 and 716.

We walked round to King Street in Hammersmith to catch TfL’s route H91 to take us along the 705’s historic route via Stamford Brook, Turnham Green and Gunnersbury to Chiswick and then along the Great West Road towards Osterley.

We didn’t have to wait long for an H91 which sees buses running every 12 minutes and back in 705 days was the preserve of Central Bus route 91 which ran from Wandsworth Bridge to London Airport Central (as Heathrow was called) so it’s nice to see the tradition of a 91 number still appearing on today’s truncated route H91 along the same stretch of road.

Metroline operate the H91 with 14 LT class buses from its Brentford garage although as you can see the bus that arrived taking us towards Osterley was a Wright Eclipse Gemini bodied Volvo B5LH, which to be honest, we all preferred as we enjoyed passing such icons as Stamford Brook bus garage, the former Turnham Green bus garage, Chiswick bus works and the famous Gillette factory on the Great West Road.

We decided to break our journey at Osterley library in Thornbury Road to partake of some refreshments at the delightful Osterley Park café but also to visit the Osterley Book Shop located in the former ticket office of Osterley Spring Grove Underground station on the Piccadilly line.

That station was resited from Thornbury Road further west to the Great West Road in 1933 but you can still see where the platforms existed from the road bridge and the book shop itself is an absolute treasure trove of second hand books including transport titles and books about London as well as a collection of old London Transport and Ordnance Survey maps. A visit is highly recommended and it was definitely worth the stop off for us and also the book shops which did brisk trade among our map loving party.

After that we returned to the H91 and this time had an LT Class …

… to take us on to the bus stop at Vicarage Farm Road, Hounslow where buses turn left to reach Hounslow West Underground station.

Being pedantic in our retracing, the 705 didn’t serve Hounslow West but carried along the Great West Road for 750 yards to Henlys Roundabout before joining Bath Road so we decided to walk that stretch of bus-less road before catching our next bus, on route 81 at the Basildene Road stop to take us onwards to Slough.

Ignoring the break we had in Osterley and the extra wait for the second H91 it had taken us 55 minutes from Hammersmith to reach the bus stop for the 81 but that included a 12 minute walk of course. Added to that was the half an hour to Hammersmith and ten minutes to change from the 702 to the H91 and we’d notched up a travel time of 95 minutes.

Route 81 is a very long standing LT route now operated by Metroline with 16 Wright Gemini bodied Volvo B9TL buses every 12 minutes between Hounslow and Slough from its garage at Lampton. It was yet another busy journey as we passed along the northern boundary of Heathrow Airport before taking the original Bath Road route through the delightful Colnbrook having passed through the bus gate preventing through traffic which uses the well established by-pass as those 705 express journeys did.

After continuing through Langley we were soon approaching Slough with “this bus terminates here” played out on the bus PA speakers as we reached the huge Tesco Extra store in Wellington Street as Slough’s bus station is still closed following last year’s arson attack. It had taken us 50 minutes to reach Slough.

From Slough we had a choice of either the 702 again – or the Thames Valley operated 703 from Heathrow Terminal 5 – or Thames Valley’s route 2 or First Bee Line route 8 to take us on the final leg to Windsor. Back in LT Country Bus days as well as the 704 and 705 we could have caught a bus on a number of routes which connected the two towns including the 335, 353, 417, 441, 457 and 457A. But once you leave the southern fringe of Slough on the A332 there’s nothing until you reach central Windsor.

As it happens the first bus to arrive was another 702 so we ended part two as we’d began it, and fittingly on a route that until very recently was branded Green Line.

The journey from Slough to Windsor took us 17 minutes – the 705 took 11 minutes but went via Eton College – which brought part two’s overall journey time to two hours and 42 minutes which with part one brought the total to six hours and 17 minutes, only just over double the pre-express speeding up of the 705 which took just under three hours.

And that’s another Green Line route retraced.

Roger French

Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS with DRT Su extras.