RM 70th Anniversary: Celebrating London’s Iconic Bus

Sunday 21st July 2024

A rally marking the 70th Anniversary of the very first public appearance of a Routemaster bus at the 1954 Commercial Motor show is taking place this weekend at Chiswick Business Park – the site of London Transport’s famous Chiswick Works.

RM1 is in attendance along with the other prototypes (RM2 and RML3 and CRL4 arriving later in the morning after I’d left) and around 75 other examples from the extensive fleet of 2,760 iconic vehicles built in the late 1950s and 1960s.

Mark Lyons has written a very informative article in the current Buses magazine chronicling the history of those early prototypes as well as highlighting quirky one-off production models that stood out from the otherwise standard fleet.

With an aluminium body and 64 seats, the Routemaster was lighter and more sleeker than the RT with its 57 seats (photographed above), and became London Transport’s favoured bus to replace trolleybuses. Routemasters were still being built for service in the mid 1960s when many provincial fleets were receiving rear-engined front entrance buses capable of one-person operation, once legislation allowed.

Although appearing in 1954 it wasn’t until 8th February 1956, and after extensive testing, that RM1 went into service, initially at Cricklewood bus garage operating on route 2 between Golders Green and Crystal Palace.

RM2 followed in May 1957 on country area route 406 between KIngston and Redhill before being painted red and allocated to Turnham Green garage for use on route 91 between Hammersmith and London Airport.

RML3 had the ‘L’ suffix added to signify it was fitted with a Leyland engine, rather than an AEC, but this signifier was subsequently dropped and the ‘L’ used to denote a longer version of the bus (30 feet instead of 27.5 feet) with 72 seats. A batch of 24 were built initially (RML 880-903) followed by the main batch of 500 vehicles to end the series (RML 2261-2760).

The original prototypes were built as 27 feet long with a shorter bonnet area than the RT, made possible by fitting the radiator under the floor behind the driver. However, in July 1956 a change in legislation allowed 30 feet long two axle double deckers, so RM1 was fitted with a front-mounted radiator which became the standard for production models.

RML 2760 (photographed below) the last Routemaster to be produced, is maintained in original condition at the London Bus Museum and is still made up of its original body and sub-frames.

Growing up and travelling all over London in the 1960s the Routemaster became a firm personal favourite, more so than the RT, and when I undertook two stints as a bus conductor in the early 1970s I always preferred to work an RM due to its larger recess and cupboard on the rear platform where you could stand to supervise boarding and alighting.

On an RT you felt more in the way and there was nowhere to put your ticket machine box other than the small space under the stairs for pushchairs – no luxury of level boarding and spaces for unfolded buggies and wheelchairs in those days. And it was easier to read the fare chart displayed on the cupboard door on an RM whereas on an RT you had to ask a passenger on the bench seat over the offside rear wheel to move so you could read it.

For drivers Routemasters had a more comfortable cab and were automatic compared to the pre-select gears of an RT.

However, I always thought the RT had more character and now, being much older, I’ve actually come to appreciate the RT as a favourite London bus more than the RM – which I hope isn’t being a heretic to admit.

To a young lad in the early 1960s the Routemaster stood out as a lovely modern bus compared to ageing trolleybuses. Living in Winchmore Hill I remember trolleybus route 625 became RM operated route 275 with gleaming red RMs and it really was a contrast with the tolleybuses still soldiering on on the 629 and 641, whereas RTs on the 244 just didn’t seem modern, as they weren’t.

Happy memories, and here are a few more photos taken yesterday which, if you’re in London and reading this on Sunday morning, may tempt you to pop over to Chiswick to have a wander around the displays including many stalls selling memorabilia, photographs, books, models, old timetables and maps.

Well done to everyone involved in organising Routemaster 70. Previous anniversary events have been held in Finsbury Park where there’s much more space to enjoy the display so it was quite a challenge to get all the buses into position in the confined area in Chiswick yesterday morning but everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

Here’s to Routemaster 80 …. or maybe Routemaster 75 …. something for TfL to get behind?

Roger French

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