London Transport - New Cross allocation and use late 1970's

In late 70's early 80's London Transport decreed that buses allocated to a garage could be used on route they were cleared for, for example SF using DM's on 253 and EM using DM's on 279. Got me thinking can never remember seeing an MD on the 141 or a DM on 53. Neither can I remember prior to either route converting to RMs seeing an RM on them. Does anyone have any photo to show this did actually happen?

delt1c said:

In late 70's early 80's LT decreed vthat buses allocated to a garage could be used on route they were cleared for, for example SF using DM's on 253 and EM using DM's on 279. Got me thinking can never rember seeing an MD on the 141 or ba DM on 53. neither can remember prior to either route converting to RM,s seeing an RM on them does anyone have any photo to show this did actually happen

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No photo, but definitely saw an MD on the 141. A DM on the 53? I'd consider that very unlikely.

There was a booklet published by Capitol Transport published in 1978 called 'Odd Men Out' which detailed odd bus workings on London Transport, with reference to the 53 and NX DM's it quotes: Gradual conversion from RM to MD took place during January 1977 and after the introduction of DMs to NX for route 141 in March 1977 these began to appear alongside them on occasions, one being scheduled. There is a picture of DM1166 on the 53 heading for New Cross on the same page. in relation to the 141, it quotes 'MDs off route 53 have appeared with a picture of MD136 alongside a DM on the 141 at the bottom of the page.

A nice photo would be MDs parked at Grove Park Station on both the 36B and the 141.

chrisdoward said:

There was a booklet published by Capitol Transport published in 1978 called 'Odd Men Out' which detailed odd bus workings on London Transport, with reference to the 53 and NX DM's it quotes: Gradual conversion from RM to MD took place during January 1977 and after the introduction of DMs to NX for route 141 in March 1977 these began to appear alongside them on occasions, one being scheduled. There is a picture of DM1166 on the 53 heading for New Cross on the same page. in relation to the 141, it quotes 'MDs off route 53 have appeared with a picture of MD136 alongside a DM on the 141 at the bottom of the page.

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Yes - London Bus Route Histories website records one DM off route 141 being 'cross linked' on to route 53 from 1977, and the page includes a photograph of a DM in action. The corresponding page for route 141 doesn't mention a scheduled MD working, although has a (broken link to) photo of one.

At the risk of stating the obvious, a cross-link like this tends to happen where one route has a higher requirement in one peak than the other, and there's another route with the opposite requirement - it's not uncommon (even now), but is only obvious where each route has a different type of bus allocated. This means that the 'odd' bus will often only appear on the 'wrong' route for a few hours in one of the peaks.

I think the 'anything goes' rule was a bit after 1981 when the MD and DM allocations were removed from New Cross. In to the 1980s, NX seemed more rigid than some garages about keeping their RMLs (allocated to route 37) in the right place - although there are recorded occasions of them appearing very occasionally on their RM routes. Likewise their DM / D or T in crew mode were quite a rarity on RM allocated routes until there was a gradual conversion to T crew before OPO conversion. Although somewhere I have got a photo of a DM or crew D on route 21.

The exception being NX night routes (N82 every night, one Saturday night duty on the 177 which stayed crew operated after the daytime route went OPO, and the night inter-station service) which seemed a bit more variable in practice, possibly depending on the preferences of the crew on the night.

Roger1973 said:

Although somewhere I have got a photo of a DM or crew D on route 21.

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If you were able to squirrel that out, I'd be very pleased to see it. It's a route I've known since the late 1940s, since I was born and lived in a house sited a hundred yards from it (and my first word was 'bus'!) so possibly the first time a bus with doors operated it would pique my interest.

Busaholic said:

If you were able to squirrel that out, I'd be very pleased to see it. It's a route I've known since the late 1940s, since I was born and lived in a house sited a hundred yards from it (and my first word was 'bus'!) so possibly the first time a bus with doors operated it would pique my interest.

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I will try and remember - I suspect the photo (if it has survived) is not at my current home, so it may be a little while before I get back to you!

Roger1973 said:

I will try and remember - I suspect the photo (if it has survived) is not at my current home, so it may be a little while before I get back to you!

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Thank you for your consideration. I have enormous affection for the 21, and my late wife worked for a long while at an address in Moorgate with a 21 bus stop right outside. I was always hoping to see a pre-war RT on it, but I'm fairly certain it never happened because blinds were probably never produced for NX with routes other than 177, 182 and 186 on them. Not sure about the 163, though.

I googled 141 New Cross for images and found one of MD123 on the Transport Library website. I thought there was a formal allocation at one time, possibly Sundays or Saturdays. I am sure I recall seeing one at Moorgate.

RELL6L said:

I googled 141 New Cross for images and found one of MD123 on the Transport Library website. I thought there was a formal allocation at one time, possibly Sundays or Saturdays. I am sure I recall seeing one at Moorgate.

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I've looked at the appropriate sources and can find no formal allocation on any day of the week, though as mentioned upthread there may have been an a.m. or p.m. peak one bus allocation at one time off the 53.

Busaholic said:

but I'm fairly certain it never happened because blinds were probably never produced for NX with routes other than 177, 182 and 186 on them. Not sure about the 163, though.

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There are photos in circulation (including on Ensign's web page for RT 8) of RT2's on the 70 / 70A and 163, and there's this one on the 179, and one here on the 186, which suggest that the 1952 3-line intermediate blinds were later replaced with (then) standard 5 line intermediate blinds on at least some of the batch, which may have given a bit more operational flexibility. (I'm aware that a few garages had more than one blind set, with buses being restricted to one or other group of routes, as the blinds would otherwise have been too big for the rollers - I don't know if NX ever did this.)

The RT2's were some time before my personal memory of course. I can't find (or recall seeing) a photo of one on route 21, but I'd have thought it was not impossible - NX had a weekend allocation on the 21 from 5 July 1952, and I have seen a reference to NX tram crews having the prospect of going all the way out to Farningham after conversion day.

I'm a bit confused on the abbreviations.
I know LT was London Transport, but not the others ?

Simon75 said:

I'm a bit confused on the abbreviations.
I know LT was London Transport, but not the others ?

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Quite! Doctor Marten's being used from San Francisco...

DM was the code for Daimler Fleetline, RM is Routemaster, and MD was the Scania Metropolitan. The others are depot codes, I assume, but I have no idea. SF - Stratford?

Please remember to define your jargon, folks.

GusB said:

Quite! Doctor Marten's being used from San Francisco...

DM was the code for Daimler Fleetline, RM is Routemaster, and MD was the Scania Metropolitan. The others are depot codes, I assume, but I have no idea. SF - Stratford?

Please remember to define your jargon, folks.

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SF Stamford Hill

Roger1973 said:

There are photos in circulation (including on Ensign's web page for RT 8) of RT2's on the 70 / 70A and 163, and there's this one on the 179, and one here on the 186, which suggest that the 1952 3-line intermediate blinds were later replaced with (then) standard 5 line intermediate blinds on at least some of the batch, which may have given a bit more operational flexibility. (I'm aware that a few garages had more than one blind set, with buses being restricted to one or other group of routes, as the blinds would otherwise have been too big for the rollers - I don't know if NX ever did this.)

The RT2's were some time before my personal memory of course. I can't find (or recall seeing) a photo of one on route 21, but I'd have thought it was not impossible - NX had a weekend allocation on the 21 from 5 July 1952, and I have seen a reference to NX tram crews having the prospect of going all the way out to Farningham after conversion day.

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My apologies, don't know how I missed out the 70 as one of my local routes. Mind you, don't remember ever seeing a pre-war RT on it. What I should have said was that their blind sets were confined to the ex-tram routes, so routes like the 1 and 21 that were still operated out of P (Old Kent Road) garage in 1952 when the final trams went, and later transferred to NX, wouldn't have been blinded.

On the matter of the weekend 21 allocation, it was worked by NX crews with Peckham (PM) buses, with travel NX to PM and reverse, before NX took over full-time when P closed, which coincided with the withdrawal of the 2RT2s if memory serves.

I was aware RT8 had been a NX bus, and I'd dearly like to travel on it: I hesitate to say 'again' because I don't know which ones I travelled on at this distance in time!

Just to add on the definitions, London Transport had three class codes for its Daimler/Leyland Fleetlines (four if you include the trial vehicles - XF - which were very different to the main run).

DMS was used for the OPO vehicles while DM was used for Fleetlines that were meant to be crew-operated. A D was a DM with some modifications to make it suitable for OPO use.

LT managed to resist the temptation to give the later B20 Fleetlines their own designation despite their design differences.

I can vouch for DMs appearing on the 53.

Busaholic said:

My apologies, don't know how I missed out the 70 as one of my local routes. Mind you, don't remember ever seeing a pre-war RT on it. What I should have said was that their blind sets were confined to the ex-tram routes, so routes like the 1 and 21 that were still operated out of P (Old Kent Road) garage in 1952 when the final trams went, and later transferred to NX, wouldn't have been blinded.

On the matter of the weekend 21 allocation, it was worked by NX crews with Peckham (PM) buses, with travel NX to PM and reverse, before NX took over full-time when P closed, which coincided with the withdrawal of the 2RT2s if memory serves.

I was aware RT8 had been a NX bus, and I'd dearly like to travel on it: I hesitate to say 'again' because I don't know which ones I travelled on at this distance in time!

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I'm not sure quite how it all worked. I don't know if the New Cross (NX) buses that were temporarily based at Peckham (PM) were regarded as part of the PM allocation, or part of the NX allocation, or a completely separate allocation, and to what extent they drifted from one to the other (and what blind-sets were fitted to which buses.)

On looking further, the 70 and 70A were (according to the London Bus Route Histories site) allocated to PM not NX from 1951 to 1954.

I can't see an obvious answer for which route's Mon - Fri allocation would have provided the buses for the Saturday 21's, but I would have thought that whatever blind-sets were made for NX in July 1952 included the 21, as they had a Saturday allocation from then.

The photo of an RT2* on the 179 presumably dates from after January 1954 - there was a re-shuffle of route allocations when Nunhead (AH) Garage closed, with some of Nunhead's work going in to Rye Lane and Peckham Garages, and in turn some of their routes (including the 179) passing to NX.

And the histories site records the temporary New Cross 21 allocation run from Peckham lasting until 1953. The 21 moved from Old Kent Road to New Cross in 1956, which was a couple of years before it closed, and Ian's Bus Stop says the RT2's mostly left central area passenger service in 1955.

All of which doesn't get us any closer to whether they worked on the 21 or not - guess we won't until such time as someone comes up with a photo of one...

RT 8 tends to come out and play when Ensign are running a few buses - I would expect it may appear on the 1 October event on route 37.

* - for those who are confused by abbreviations, 'RT2' or '2RT2' were London Transport body and chassis codes for buses RT 2 to RT 151, delivered in 1940. They are also interchangeably known as 'pre war RTs' (which upsets some people as technically they arrived after the war had started but to a pre-war design and before production of new buses was shut down) or 'wartime RTs'

Busaholic said:

Thank you for your consideration. I have enormous affection for the 21, and my late wife worked for a long while at an address in Moorgate with a 21 bus stop right outside. I was always hoping to see a pre-war RT on it, but I'm fairly certain it never happened because blinds were probably never produced for NX with routes other than 177, 182 and 186 on them. Not sure about the 163, though.

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I hadn't realised until quite recently that the 21 once went deep into the Kent countryside to Swanley and possibly Farnborough. The route is familiar to me as I lived in Bexleyheath, so knew it at Sidcup and Eltham. I only recall the 21A going to Swanley as a kid.

Roger1973 said:

I'm not sure quite how it all worked. I don't know if the New Cross (NX) buses that were temporarily based at Peckham (PM) were regarded as part of the PM allocation, or part of the NX allocation, or a completely separate allocation, and to what extent they drifted from one to the other (and what blind-sets were fitted to which buses.)

On looking further, the 70 and 70A were (according to the London Bus Route Histories site) allocated to PM not NX from 1951 to 1954.

I can't see an obvious answer for which route's Mon - Fri allocation would have provided the buses for the Saturday 21's, but I would have thought that whatever blind-sets were made for NX in July 1952 included the 21, as they had a Saturday allocation from then.

The photo of an RT2* on the 179 presumably dates from after January 1954 - there was a re-shuffle of route allocations when Nunhead (AH) Garage closed, with some of Nunhead's work going in to Rye Lane and Peckham Garages, and in turn some of their routes (including the 179) passing to NX.

And the histories site records the temporary New Cross 21 allocation run from Peckham lasting until 1953. The 21 moved from Old Kent Road to New Cross in 1956, which was a couple of years before it closed, and Ian's Bus Stop says the RT2's mostly left central area passenger service in 1955.

All of which doesn't get us any closer to whether they worked on the 21 or not - guess we won't until such time as someone comes up with a photo of one...

RT 8 tends to come out and play when Ensign are running a few buses - I would expect it may appear on the 1 October event on route 37.

* - for those who are confused by abbreviations, 'RT2' or '2RT2' were London Transport body and chassis codes for buses RT 2 to RT 151, delivered in 1940. They are also interchangeably known as 'pre war RTs' (which upsets some people as technically they arrived after the war had started but to a pre-war design and before production of new buses was shut down) or 'wartime RTs'

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I have no evidence for this, but it's my 'take' on it trying both to rely on memories from a very early age and what I've read since, plus seeing others' photos in print. I still remember well the last trams, both seeing them and travelling on them perhaps half a dozen times. For a few months prior to July 1952 I was staying at my grandmother's mansion flat which had a bay window in view of Eltham Church tram stop (and terminus.) The tram replacement bus route 70 passed the window, but I never saw an RT2 on it. It was only on 5th July 1952 that new route 182 brought this very different looking bus to the RTs and RTLs I'd been used to. Travelling on it with my father to Cannon Street and return I remember the slow rate of progress compared to the 21s on the common section, which was almost all of that section of route. This may well be because the 182 buses were being driven by ex-tram drivers in their first days with diesels but journeys months, even years, later seemed to indicate that extra time was given to 182s compared to the 21s, with much overtaking by the latter with their more intensive frequency. I don't remember seeing an 'ordinary' RT on the 182 during the time NX operated the RT2s.

At one time the 89 used to sometimes go beyond Lewisham to New Cross Garage.

frodshamfella said:

I hadn't realised until quite recently that the 21 once went deep into the Kent countryside to Swanley and possibly Farnborough. The route is familiar to me as I lived in Bexleyheath, so knew it at Sidcup and Eltham. I only recall the 21A going to Swanley as a kid.

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Possibly a slip of the keyboard, but the 21 at one time went to Farningham, Farnborough was on the 47.

and on racing days, the 21 went on to Brands Hatch.

More about the 21 at the 'London Buses Route Histories' website (and a page for almost every other London bus route, with info back to the 1930s in many cases.)

The 21 reached Farningham at weekends until 1971 (the 21A did on weekdays) until the 21A went one-man. And then in the mid 80s, a few early morning journeys on the 21 (while it was still crew operated) were started from Swanley and later West Kingsdown (there must have been a good reason for this - possibly school traffic?)

A lot of routes went quite a long way out until relatively recently - the 47 went to Farnborough until the early 80s, and if you go further back in time, quite a few routes had extensions in to the countryside on summer Sundays, the 47 reaching Knockholt Pound until the early 50s.

frodshamfella said:

At one time the 89 used to sometimes go beyond Lewisham to New Cross Garage.

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Yes - the 89 didn't go east of Welling (hence not invoving Bexleyheath Garage) until 1963, and before that it had allocations (not all at the same time) from Catford, New Cross or Old Kent Road garages, so there would have been garage journeys.

New Cross continued to have an allocation until it went OPO in 1978, although latterly only on Saturdays (it was not uncommon then for suburban routes to need more buses and / or crews on Saturdays than on Monday - Friday, so a bus allocation / crew rota that did a 'city' route in the week would help out on something suburban on Saturdays, either at the same garage or sometimes a garage would have a Saturday only allocation on a route.)

New Cross took the route on fully in 1986 when Bexleyheath closed. More on the 89's history (same website) here including a photo of an RM on a garage journey to New Cross.

Roger1973 said:

Possibly a slip of the keyboard, but the 21 at one time went to Farningham, Farnborough was on the 47.

and on racing days, the 21 went on to Brands Hatch.

More about the 21 at the 'London Buses Route Histories' website (and a page for almost every other London bus route, with info back to the 1930s in many cases.)

The 21 reached Farningham at weekends until 1971 (the 21A did on weekdays) until the 21A went one-man. And then in the mid 80s, a few early morning journeys on the 21 (while it was still crew operated) were started from Swanley and later West Kingsdown (there must have been a good reason for this - possibly school traffic?)

A lot of routes went quite a long way out until relatively recently - the 47 went to Farnborough until the early 80s, and if you go further back in time, quite a few routes had extensions in to the countryside on summer Sundays, the 47 reaching Knockholt Pound until the early 50s.



Yes - the 89 didn't go east of Welling (hence not invoving Bexleyheath Garage) until 1963, and before that it had allocations (not all at the same time) from Catford, New Cross or Old Kent Road garages, so there would have been garage journeys.

New Cross continued to have an allocation until it went OPO in 1978, although latterly only on Saturdays (it was not uncommon then for suburban routes to need more buses and / or crews on Saturdays than on Monday - Friday, so a bus allocation / crew rota that did a 'city' route in the week would help out on something suburban on Saturdays, either at the same garage or sometimes a garage would have a Saturday only allocation on a route.)

New Cross took the route on fully in 1986 when Bexleyheath closed. More on the 89's history (same website) here including a photo of an RM on a garage journey to New Cross.

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I recollect both the 89 and 89A working from Catford.

P.S. Not the very brief 89A incarnation that took it to Westerham from Welling, for some reason!

Does anyone know what routes the NX RMs were blinded for and why RMLs never made an appearance on route 53?

Jim Jehosofat said:

Does anyone know what routes the NX RMs were blinded for and why RMLs never made an appearance on route 53?

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On the latter point, because there was only ever a comparatively tiny allocation of RMLs at NX specifically for the 37, and all required for weekend operation too. The 37 was one of the first non-Central London to receive the larger buses because of good loadings throughout the day. NX only ever had a minority allocation, taken over from Peckham. LT always seemed keen to keep RMLs away from S.E. London garages.

Jim Jehosofat said:

Does anyone know what routes the NX RMs were blinded for and why RMLs never made an appearance on route 53?

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In answer to the question, it depends when you mean.

In the late 60s, route 108A was withdrawn north of the river, and NX had an allocation - this had RMs allocated at weekends. There was a brief Sunday allocation on route 188 in 1964, and Saturday allocation on the 36B in the early 70s. There was a Sunday 171A which ran through to Abbey Wood (later replaced in part by the 180A, and a weekend 141A until 1971. There may be other obscure / weekend allocations that don't immediately come to mind.

NX received RM's as part of the trolleybus conversion programme when route 141 / 141A replaced the (tram replacement) 179 as well as trolleybus 641 in 1961 - it's possible that some RT allocated routes may have been included on the blinds, but I can't find any official weekend allocations that early.

Again, info from / confirmed by London Bus Route Histories website.

In the mid 1970s, they must have had 1, 1A, 21, 37 (probably - unless they had separate blind sets for RMLs), 53, 89 (for the Saturday allocation), 141 (separate via point displays for the southern end and through route), 151, 171, 177 (Saturday night working / duty was crew operated quite some time after the main route went OPO), 180A (Sunday only), 192, N82 and night Inter Station.

I'm not sure that one blind set could handle all of these, or whether there were maybe two groups of buses, each with a different combination of routes on the blinds (this did have to happen at some garages, or the blinds would not have fitted.) Until fairly late on, the night Inter Station had quite a few different 'intermediate' displays as there were several different journey patterns so it's possible that a small number of buses had blind sets with that on.

As an aside, some NX RMs retained blinds from the mid 70s until the yellow blinds came in for routes 1 and 53 in the 80s - not long before this happened, I remember noticing a 53 mistakenly showing 'via points' for the 89 (both included 'Blackheath' but didn't have anything else in common.) NX had lost crew routes from the April 1978 changes onwards, but nothing happened that would have needed a full set of new blinds. I hope some managed to get out when they were disposed of.

And here's a 1982 photo (not mine) of an RML that strayed on to the 53, and one on the 141. NX seemed better than some garages at keeping RM / RML types on the right routes, but I have seen photos of RMLs on the 1 and 171 as well. I can't remember having seen photos of one on the more suburban routes that went in 1978, or on the 21, but don't think it would be entirely safe to say it never happened.

Thanks Busaholic and Roger1973. I lived opposite the 53 terminus at Plumstead Common from 1971 to 1978 and again from 1984 to 1987 and never saw an RML or DM on the route. I do remember turning the blind over the entrance and the route before being 36.

Jim Jehosofat said:

Thanks Busaholic and Roger1973. I lived opposite the 53 terminus at Plumstead Common from 1971 to 1978 and again from 1984 to 1987 and nedn't opendver saw an RML or DM on the route. I do remember turning the blind over the entrance and the route before being 36.

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That was quite a terminus for a young lad like me to come across for the first time, particularly when the old Plumstead garage (AM) was still operational and very much involved with the 53. I think there must have been a tea stall located there, as it was only on Sundays when buses got extended in service to Plumstead Garage, including NX ones. I assume therefore it didn't open on Sundays.

There was another Plumstead Common terminus in the 1950s, known as The Woodman. It was the terminus of the 126 from Beckenham and Eltham, and its landlord was my Uncle George. My first visit to Plumstead Common was with my mother aged about 3/4 on the 126, which conveniently stopped 100 yards from our house in Eltham.

Jim Jehosofat said:

I do remember turning the blind over the entrance and the route before being 36.

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Interesting, as the LBRH website says New Cross didn't have an allocation on the 36 until Sunday OPO in 1987.

There were occasions when garages got blinds for allocations that ended up not happening - I'm aware that when Catford got an allocation on route 36B, the blind sets included the peak hour 36A which they never ran, and when the 53 went to yellow blinds, Plumstead's RM blinds included the 177 Express (I have never seen written or photographic evidence that they ever ran on it - I am told the idea was that if a scheduled 177X had broken down at the central London end of the route, a 53 could have been summoned by radio to go and take the journey over. I don't know if the idea was rejected at some stage, or whether it just never needed to happen, or at least never happened when anyone noticed.)

Roger1973 said:

Interesting, as the LBRH website says New Cross didn't have an allocation on the 36 until Sunday OPO in 1987.

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True, but NX operated the 36B on Saturdays for a while in the 1970s with RMs, so could have been that?

I've read about the terminus at the Woodman which was also used by the 163 which would have approached the stand from the Woolwich direction as opposed to the 126 from the Welling direction. I'm wondering where and how they changed direction. With regards to 36 on the blind, it might have been 36B, it was 50 years ago and a few brain cells have been lost over the years!