Thursday 28th September 2023
The London Bus Museum held another of its Heritage Running Days a couple of weeks ago on Saturday 16th September.
This time RTs and Routemasters could be found providing free rides on route 38 between Victoria and Clapton Pond with a few journeys extended to Leyton Bakers Arms.
As a real nod to the past one starter journey even commenced at Chingford Royal Forest Hotel continuing back there at the end of the day.
In the routes heyday buses ran regularly between Victoria and Chingford with some journeys even continuing on Summer Sundays to Epping Forest Wake Arms as this 1965 fare chart displyed in one of the RMs on Saturday confirmed.
There was also a 10A which ran between Victoria and Leyton and then to Loughton. All this began to change in the ‘Reshaping” era of 1968 and over subsequent decades the route has been cut back and at one time was famously run with articulated buses and then became one of the few to be conductor operated when the LT class was first introduced.
There were no bendy buses to be found on Saturday with vehicles providing the service mainly RTs and RMs.
One vehicle of note was STL2377…
… while also out were RTW467 and RTL554.
as well as RT1…
… and RM1.
Low numbered RM5 was also in service…
… as well as many other RTs and RMs as you can see from the fleet list below.
As usual with the London Bus Museum the information available online was excellent including a fleet list and with running numbers…
… and a timetable for the day showing running numbers making it easy to work out which vehicle was operating each journey.
The online site also displayed an interesting history of the route as well as a fascinating gallery of photos through the ages.
A ten minute frequency was provided on Saturday’s Heritage Day with extra journeys between Victoria and Holborn Bloomsbury Square and alternate journeys turning at Hackney Central Station at certain times and across the lunch period.
Photographers were out in force all along the route grabbing the best vantage points …
… and it’s always great to see the reaction of members of the public as the buses pass by.
Plenty of smiles, photographs and a huge amount of interest.
Passengers waiting for their normal TfL operated route 38 bus enjoyed a free ride when the heritage vehicles stopped at each stop and by lunch time this certainly helped alleviate what turned out to be a day of extreme late running on all bus routes using Grosvenor Place (between Victoria and Hyde Park Corner) due to severe congestion …
… caused by Buckingham Gate being closed to accommodate a crane.
Queues of passengers built up at Victoria bus station ….
…. due to long gaps between normal 38s so the heritage buses really came into their own albeit also running around half an hour late.
I always find travelling on buses from my youthful years offer a much welcome nostalgia kick when you remember little things like destination blind changing with a T-key …
… including occasionally from the upper deck for the front blind.
A huge thanks to the London Bus Museum team for another excellent heritage event and thanks to the many vehicle owners, drivers and conductors who gave up their time to provide the service and at their expense too.
It was a glorious day, helped by brilliant weather.
It wasn’t only route 38 enjoying a heritage boost on Saturday before last, as the Kingsbridge Running Day organised by the Thames Valley & Great Western Omnibus Trust also took place. It’s a great event and I’m sorry to have missed it.
Roger French
Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS
BusAndTrainUser 
Glad you had good weather I was the Conductor or Lodekka 2019 at Kingsbridge and the weather there was awful, however passenger numbers were reasonable and we also had lots of smiles and waves from passers-by. Glyn
LikeLike
The 178 used to serve the area and was one of the rare Low Height double decker routes in London
LikeLiked by 1 person
I was amazed at how frequent the normal 38 service is with buses carrying few passengers towards the northern end of the route. It’s also a very long route that encounters a lot of traffic congestion as the heritage vehicles found out. Shame they didn’t curtail into Mildmay Park or other places to add a bit of variety to their destinations. Nevertheless an enjoyable event and I look forward to the next running day. Perhaps the museum could run services on routes that run into Surrey like the old 117, 237 and 131 or services around Staines. No ULEZ issues there.
LikeLike
Just before reading this, I was looking at a recent youtube upload of RFs at an event in Leatherhead, and musing on the similarities and differences between RTs and RFs in the 1950s and 60s. The seating was the same, and the livery, and both had conductors (at least in the 1950s. As a regular user, I appreciated the entrance door on the RFs in the winter, and my dad liked their higher ceilings! The GreenLine versions were actually not bad for longer journeys, with the luggage pen, and all front-facing seating. But the bus RFs were the staple of the ‘lesser’ routes linking villages and smaller towns such as Edenbridge. The drivers coped amazingly well with narrow lanes, and of course there was no need for a low-bridge version
Rick Townend
LikeLike
The Loughton variant was the 38A, not the 10A. Unlikew he summer Sunday 35A, this was a year-round 7-day operation. Not of much interest to the west-enders, but crucial beyond the Bakers’ Arms, and it sometimes seemed to us Chingfordians that there were more 38As than 38s!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Don’t worry Roger you were in right place. It rained all day at Kingsbridge. The event operated well but there was little fun to be had riding around in the wet
LikeLike
It was an excellent day, but unfortunately the traffic congestion played havoc with the timetable, especially towards the end of the day. We waited about 30 mins at a stop in Clerkenwell around 4 00 – 4 30 to pick up a Hackney-bound bus, and when one eventually appeared it didn’t stop as it was full. We did get on the next one, but from our observations it seemed nothing ran either way on the Hackney-Clapton Pond section for the final hour or so.
LikeLiked by 1 person
A good illustration of the tribulations that London service controllers face every day. Do you build in excess running time “just in case”? Do you have excessive stand times at termini to “soak up” late running? Maybe a bit of both?
I understand that Clapton Pond was used as the northern stand as there is a little more space there; at Victoria buses were supposed to follow the service 38 buses in and out, so stand time was limited there, which impacted on late running.
There is no easy answer to service control, especially on a route where meal reliefs are “live”; it’s a juggling act all day long. At least there IS service control in London . . . outside London there seems to be very little, with buses bunching in the AM peak and allowed to continue to bunch all day long, even on headways of 15-20 minutes.
Two buses running together is one bus, in the eyes of the passenger . . . better to adjust one and restore the correct service headway.
greenline727
LikeLike
Very true greenline 727 – part of the problem is the woeful bus priority in much of the provinces (and its enforcement). Reliability and consistency of the timetable is essential and what do you do? Build in a load of slack that isn’t needed for 15 weeks a year (when the schools are off and traffic levels are lower)?
Remember travelling in one UK city on a Saturday afternoon and the timings were clearly replicated from the usual M-F rush hour. Great for consistency of the timetable, some would argue, but simply resulted in lots of sitting in layby stops!
Trust that the folks enjoyed their day. Not my thing but different strokes and all that…
BW2
LikeLike
greenline727 wrote “outside London there seems to be very little, with buses bunching in the AM peak and allowed to continue to bunch all day long, even on headways of 15-20 minutes.”
It can be worse than that. I was in Tadcaster early one afternoon waiting for one of Transdev’s much praised Yorkshire Coastliner buses which run a combined 30 minute frequency through the town.
15 minutes after the bus I was waiting for should have arrived, a bus turned up with a second in the distance behind it. The first bus was the 843 Scarborough run, not the 840 to Whitby I wanted, so it was running 45 minutes late. The 840 was the second bus, rolling up almost 20 minutes late and the driver didn’t seem inclined to even acknowledge the delay.
On arrival at Malton there was a driver changeover and the driver getting off said something along the lines of “Been late all bloody day” (although not so polite) to his relief.
Anyone who’d been relying on those buses to get to a late shift at work or to an appointment would have been screwed yet from the driver’s attitude and the lack of comment by other passengers, it was just another day so presumably a regular occurrence.
Doesn’t matter how lovely the buses are or even how cheap they are (£2 Tadcaster to Whitby is a bargain by any measure), if people can’t rely on the buses then they’re not going to get out of their cars.
LikeLike
The picture tagged as RM5 is actually RM1005.
LikeLike
Mainly caused by private cars that traffic jam judging by the picture and the creatures in them dare to moan about ULEZ and 20 MPH speed limits.
LikeLike
Love it all Roger..its like a day out..
LikeLike
” Reliability and consistency of the timetable is essential and what do you do? Build in a load of slack that isn’t needed for 15 weeks a year (when the schools are off and traffic levels are lower)?” Well, Cardiff Bus change their timetables during the summer, mostly running Saturday services on Mon-Fridays as well.
Carris in Lisbon (Portugal) have an astounding amount of changes during the year to suit loadings and traffic conditions.
Andrew Kleissner.
LikeLike
Reading do as well..
LikeLike
On a flippant note, with such an intense heritage timetable, even after the havoc of traffic congestion, loss of revenue on the TfL 38 may find what would probably be the fourth reduction in PVR when the figures next get looked at!
And sadly, clearly missed by the enthusiasm over vehicles, is that staff on London Transport from that era did not work Jacket-less, having light summer issue. Drivers occasionally removed even those (light grey, later blue), but Conductors never!
Terence Uden
LikeLike
Random thought about appearance…
Did LT have mirrors in the garages haranguing the staff about their appearance?
Birmingham City Transport did, many of which survived through to the end of WMPTE days and even into the privatisation era. There’s a survivor displayed at the Wythall museum.
“WATCH YOUR PERSONAL APPPEARANCE”
“Cap clean, Badge polished, Face shaved.”
“Tunic smart & properly fastened.”
“Bag and straps clean.”
“Trousers brushed and pressed.”
“Boots polished.”
Can’t see that sort of thing going down too well in these touchy-feely-mustn’t-criticise-anyone days!
LikeLike
It was a shame to hear a TfL official at Victoria comment in early afternoon that the heritage buses would be great if they had been in addition to the regular service and not replaced regular 38s! Who briefs these people?! I note the earlier point about 38A not 10A. In addition Piccadilly underpass was shut and there was a mid afternoon demonstration by Eros that delayed matters more! Still the sun shone and I got to ride on RM1 for the first time since the last day of RMs on the 36. Graham
LikeLike
Well remember that mirror in Birmingham Central Garage in the 1960s. LT let standards slip merely because of staff shortages, but in times of plenty, would suddenly tighten up, often to the indignation of some Crews.
Terence Uden
LikeLike
Liverpool Street back in the 60s! Renaming from LS to BC didn’t half upset some of the old hands.
Cotteridge and Selly Oak are those I remember the mirrors at; doubtless Harborne had one too (along with all the others) but I never got inside to see it.
I expect Yardley Wood still has theirs as it’s a very heritage-oriented garage.
LikeLike
I was a conductor at Clapton Garage (CT) in the 1980’s when I guess the 38’s were from Leyton (T). We worked the 22’s and the 30’s. I loved it. Even the two attempted muggings didn’t put me off. You really had to keep your jacket on or the heavy and jangly Gibson was uncontrollable and painful. We never wore it the way we were taught at Chiswick right tight up on the chest. Plenty of political badges on the lapels. The GI’s never said anything. There was an “appearance mirror” at Chiswick but I never saw one out in the sheds. We ran a lot of the same road with the 38’s. They were quite friendly. But once I was loaned to Ash Grove to work a duty on the 35 which in those days ran up to Clapton Pond from Brixton etc south of the river. Never again I said when I got back to Clapton.
MikeC
LikeLiked by 1 person