Every route 100. 9 of 26.

Saturday 27th April 2024

We’re now a third of the way through this fortnightly series featuring all of Britain’s bus routes numbered 100 and having been to Stevenage, Crawley, Lincoln, Glasgow, Campbeltown, Guildford and Manchester I thought it was time to head to London and take a ride on TfL’s route 100.

It’s odd to think the iconic number 100 has never really been exploited to denote a high profile bus route in London. Between 1934 and 1972 it was used for possibly London Transport’s quirkiest bus route running multiple duplicated journeys on what was quaintly referred to as “an irregular timetable” to coincide with shift change times at Beckton Gas Works, ferrying employees between that isolated site in East London and Barking – a journey time of around 8-10 minutes.

Buses for the route were sourced from route 15 and, exceptionally for London in those days, crews changed the number blinds themselves when swapping between routes.

After that route was withdrawn in 1972 the number was used for a few summer seasons to denote a sightseeing route aimed at tourists commencing from Horse Guards Avenue operated for London Transport with the much loved heritage vehicle ST922 owned by Prince Marshall’s Obsolete Fleet as depicted in the photograph below taken in 1973 by Barry Le Jeune.

After that foray the number 100, as we know it today (more or less), reappeared in June 1989 denoting a new route to serve the Wapping area of Docklands as it was transforming from the infamous former docks to an area for homes and businesses. This new 100 linked Shadwell and Wapping with Aldgate and Liverpool Street, as well as passing by Fenchurch Street in the eastbound direction.

I was joined on a trip up and down the route yesterday morning by a famous regular user of the service, Leon Daniels, TfL’s Managing Director Surface Transport until his retirement in 2017. Leon has a unique insight into the route’s characteristics both from his extensive professional interest and knowledge but also because it’s his friendly local bus route.

Back in 1989 when the route began Leon well remembers the challenges in operating buses through what was at that time an extensive redevelopment site and kindly shared this photo he took in the early days of the route with a Metrorider unable to proceed in Wapping due to builders blocking the road.

Interesting to see the destination blind stating ‘WAPPING Shadwell Station’ and the branding for the fledgling route.

Leon recalls intervening personally on one occasion by calling into the local police station in Wapping to get the police to take action only to be told by the Constable on duty he belonged to the River Police so wouldn’t want to get involved in a road traffic issue!

In 1998 the route was modified in the Aldgate area so it no longer served Fenchurch Street while a more substantial route extension beyond Liverpool Street to Elephant & Castle was introduced the following year in 1999. Leon recalls the downside of this was buses getting stuck at both ends of the route in peak time bottlenecks leading to significant unreliability.

Apart from a minor rerouting to serve Queen Victoria Street instead of Ludgate Circus in 2015, that incarnation lasted until 2017 when the route was cut back to Barbican and two years later, in 2019, gained a short extension to a more suitable stand space with the current western terminus in King Edward Street just north of St Paul’s Underground station.

The route is operated from Go-Ahead London’s Camberwell bus garage with nine electric Enviro200 MMC EV buses on a daytime 12 minute frequency timetable and every 15 minutes in evenings and all day on Sundays.

The electric buses used are from two batches. Some dating from 2019 and others more recently from last year.

It’s interesting to compare and contrast and spot the improvements now incorporated into recent deliveries of these and other new buses in London.

But you’ll notice how both batches come with a Leon Daniels sitting on the rear seat.

Today’s TfL route 100 is only three miles in length from St Paul’s to Shadwell with a scheduled journey time ranging from around 30-45 minutes depending on the time of day. That gives an average speed of 4mph in peak times; an average London jogging commuter could certainly attain a similar journey time and a cyclist could easily beat the bus. But that’s “London style buses” (the envy of many Combined Authority elected Mayors) for you.

I’ve taken a couple of rides on the route recently – one a few weeks ago and another yesterday morning with Leon. The first was an afternoon journey from St Paul’s (at 13:57) to Shadwell when I thought I’d avoid the worst of the frustrations of traffic congestion and sure enough proved lucky in my timing choice and direction of travel.

Having clocked the long queues of traffic from the east approaching Tower Bridge on the A1203 (see above map), I decided to abandon the idea of making a return journey on that occasion. Life is too short.

The first half of the journey turned out to be quite busy with 15 passengers boarding between St Paul’s, London Wall and Aldgate. Five of these were a group of office workers from London Wall travelling just three stops to St Botolph Street for a late lunch, two alighted at All Hallows Church, and one at Aldgate but six travelling beyond Tower Gateway alighting at The Highway and another to Wapping. After The Highway another six boarded as we continued our journey through Wapping and on to Shadwell. All told 21 passengers travelled and we arrived into Shadwell at 14:26, eight minutes earlier than the scheduled time of 14:34.

On yesterday morning’s outing we left St Paul’s at 11:25 with one passenger boarding at the King Edward Street terminus stop who travelled to Wapping station. Three more joined at Moorgate, one of whom alighted at St Botolph Street, Aldgate with two more coming on board at Aldgate station and another one at Tower Hill. At Highway three alighted and two boarded giving five on board (aside from us) who all alighted at Wapping station from where we continued empty towards Shadwell, including waiting time for two minutes at the health centre and finally picking just two more up for a one bus stop ride to the terminus which we reached at 11:59 – 34 minutes after leaving St Paul’s having carried 11 passenger in total.

After a break in Shadwell we returned on the 12:26 departure which coincidentally also carried 11 passengers, with most boarding in the Wapping area. One passenger alighted at Tower Gateway where the driver kindly let her alight from the front door which he’d positioned where there was a gap between parked tourist coaches blocking the bus stop under the railway bridge.

Leon pointed out a simple solution to this regular occurrence was to swap the bus stop designations around so the stop for scheduled buses comes before, rather than after, the area set aside for tourist coaches to stand as well as meaning it would be closer to both Tower Hill and Tower Gateway stations for passengers – about where the photo below is taken rather than further along the road, where the photo above was taken.

One of the unique aspects of TfL’s route 100 which sets it apart from the other 25 similarly numbered bus routes in Britain (as well as all other TfL bus routes bar the D3), is that it operates over genuine cobbled streets as it passes through Wapping…

… including a section of road where it’s too narrow for vehicles to pass each other – not something you see elsewhere in central London, or, apart from the Spaniards Inn on Hampstead Heath, any where else in London.

If you know where to look (Leon did) you can also spot one of the rare sitings of a TfL ‘Tail Stop’ also located in Wapping.

As you can see it’s not the busiest of route 100s. Those in Stevenage/Hitchin; Crawley/Redhill; Lincoln/Scunthorpe and Manchester/Warrington as featured in previous blogs in this series easily surpass the numbers travelling between Shadwell, Wapping, Aldgate and St Paul’s. There’s also no doubt it has the most sedate journey speed and layover allowance at termini of the routes featured with the London characteristic of two buses on stand time at each end.

That means at any one time (during the daytime) four of the nine buses on route 100 are standing idle with just five actually wheel turning, which is an interesting thought to conclude on as well as adding my grateful thanks to Leon Daniels for all the background information he kindly provided and accompanying me on my exploration and kindly hosting a lovely lunch afterwards – well, it’s hard work all this bus riding you know.

You can hear more from Leon on his Lunch with Leon podcasts which have now reached No 89 with all the back catalogue available on Leon’s website including No 53 with yours truly when we also “lunched” in January 2022.

Another plus from sharing bus rides with Leon is the fantastic collection of nostalgic photographs he has stored on his smartphone including this amazing atmospheric one below, from the mid to late 1960s during the period when London Transport’s ‘trial’ Atlantean XAs ran on route 67 in a pre Wapping redevelopment, pre Wapping station becoming East London Line and Overground and certainly pre route 100 era.

Gorgeous.

Roger French

Did you catch the first eight ‘Every route 100’ blogs? Here’s 1 of 26 (Stevenage-Hitchin) 2 of 26 (Crawley-Redhill), 3 of 26 (Lincoln-Scunthorpe), 4 of 26 (Glasgow-Riverside Museum), 5 of 26 (Campbeltown local), 6 of 26 (Guildford’s Onslow Park & Ride), 7 of 26 (Warrington-Manchester), 8 of 26 (Chatham-St Mary’s Island).

Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS.

Comments on today’s blog are welcome but please keep them relevant to the blog topic, avoid personal insults and add your name (or an identifier). Thank you.