Tuesday 7th October 2025 Both TfL and Brighton & Hove Bus Company introduced a new high profile express bus route last week. It was interesting to take a ride on both to compare and contrast. TfL's much hyped route BL1 began on Saturday 27th September providing a quicker alternative for passengers travelling by bus between... Continue Reading →
A ride on the SL6
Saturday 5th July 2025 As TfL's Superloop brand becomes ever more nonsensical with more routes planned that are questionably 'super' and are certainly nothing about being part of a 'loop', I took a ride on one of the longest standing and original non-loop routes to be added to the brand - the SL6, renumbered from... Continue Reading →
A New Road for London
Tuesday 8th April 2025 Welcome to the brand new cross-River Silvertown Tunnel linking North Greenwich with Leamouth and Docklands with the aim of relieving congestion in the nearby Blackwall Tunnel. It opened yesterday, on time and on budget (£2.2 billion). The 0.9 mile tunnel includes a lane dedicated to buses and lorries and sees one... Continue Reading →
Looping round London on Superloop Part 2
Thursday 6th June 2024 Readers will recall Tuesday's blog saw us ending Part 1 of our round London Superloop odyssey beginning at East Croydon having only reached as far as Finchley Central rather than the planned Walthamstow Central. Thanks to light rain conditions, unimpressive aged vehicles on the SL7 to Heathrow, slow going through Northolt... Continue Reading →
Looping round London on Superloop Part 1
Tuesday 4th June 2024 The small gang of intrepid (mostly retired) busmen who do occasional bizarre London based bus trips has been at it again. Way back before Superloop was even a glint in a Mayoral eye, in June 2016, some of the team circumnavigated the extreme outer edge of the Capital's bus network using... Continue Reading →
Superloop reaches the Thames
Sunday 25th February 2024 It's the London Borough of Bexley's residents’ turn to enjoy the delights of TfL's Superloop limited stop 'express' buses now traversing their home patch. New route SL3 began yesterday linking Bromley, Sidcup and Bexleyheath with Thamesmead (just over the border in the Borough of Greenwich). It brings the metaphorical clockface Superloop... Continue Reading →
SL5. Short and sweet.
Sunday 4th February 2024 The latest segment of TfL's Superloop network launched yesterday. Route SL5 is the shortest section of the loop-round-London-that-isn't-really-a-loop, lying roughly between five o'clock and six o'clock on a clock face analogy. In geographic terms that's from Bromley to Croydon. It has the fewest number of bus stops of the Superloop network... Continue Reading →
The 5.6 mph Superloop Express
Tuesday 12th December 2023 I knew there might be challenging peak hour traffic conditions on the North Circular Road on a Monday morning…….but never expected it to be as bad as it turned out yesterday. If TfL knew about the disruptive utility roadworks on the North Circular Road near Colney Hatch Lane (and presumably someone... Continue Reading →
Superlook for Superloop
Sunday 10th December 2023 Yesterday saw TfL introduce the Superloop route that heads up its new SL number sequence. Route SL1 covers the northern arc taking over where route SL10 ends in North Finchley thereby extending the loop via Arnos Grove, Palmers Green and Edmonton to Walthamstow, terminating in the bus station by Walthamstow Central... Continue Reading →
Superloop begins to take shape
Sunday 26th November 2023 We’ve had the SL6. SL7, SL8 and SL9 but they were just aperitifs and starters, being reheated routes X68, X26, 607 and X140, and two of them aren’t even part of a loop so shouldn’t even have been on the menu. But now comes the main course in the form of... Continue Reading →
Superloop is super loopy so far
Thursday 20th July 2023 TfL began the roll out of its Superloop brand on Saturday so I thought I'd take a look and see how it's bedding in. The first thing that bugs me about this whole Superloop business is over the last couple of months TfL have spent £30,000 of its own scarce funds... Continue Reading →
TfL’s Superloop and a bus finally arrives after a five year wait.
Wednesday 29th March 2023 An unscheduled Wednesday Blog Special Mayor Sadiq Khan was out headline grabbing yesterday launching his idea for a Superloop network of limited stop express style bus routes encircling outer London. The vision is for an Overground-come-M25 bus network and is being promoted now to stymie criticism the Mayor isn't doing enough... Continue Reading →
