London Buses historical discussion (1985-2000)

[90sWereBetter]

I thought I'd open this thread to cover an interesting period in London bus history, covering tendering, privatisation and the lead-up to the formation of TFL, plus copious talk about bus types after all.

I have a few questions relating to MTL London Northern. Was the London Northern business the smallest of the London Buses units, because it seems the only depots they had were Holloway and Potters Bar (admittedly these were two of the largest London bus depots). In addition, why did MTL sell the operation to Metroline less than four years after buying it? Was it a case that they saw just how investment was needed in the double deck side of the fleet (the fleet was mostly MCW Metrobuses and unrefurbished Routemasters iirc) and decided to get out while they could?

On a different tangent, what was Wandle District in the late 1980s, which depots and routes were covered by it

 

[Dstock7080]

On a different tangent, what was Wandle District in the late 1980s, which depots and routes were covered by it

Wandle District garages:
Putney, Merton, Stockwell (had been in Abbey until Aug '87), Sutton (all went to London General)
Brixton, Croydon, Streatham, Thornton Heath (all went to South London)

 

[317 forever]

I thought I'd open this thread to cover an interesting period in London bus history, covering tendering, privatisation and the lead-up to the formation of TFL, plus copious talk about bus types after all.

I have a few questions relating to MTL London Northern. Was the London Northern business the smallest of the London Buses units, because it seems the only depots they had were Holloway and Potters Bar (admittedly these were two of the largest London bus depots). In addition, why did MTL sell the operation to Metroline less than four years after buying it? Was it a case that they saw just how investment was needed in the double deck side of the fleet (the fleet was mostly MCW Metrobuses and unrefurbished Routemasters iirc) and decided to get out while they could?

On a different tangent, what was Wandle District in the late 1980s, which depots and routes were covered by it

In London Buses days London Northern had 3 other garages that closed prior to privatisation. These were Muswell Hill (MH, 1990), Chalk Farm (CF, 1993) and Finchley (CF, 1993).

 

[Snow1964]

Westlink was smaller than MTL, it also had just 2 garages, Hounslow Heath and Kingston. It was created as a low cost operation. Kingston bus garage finally closed about 2000 (bus stops had moved to nearby locations in mid 1990s) and the site was redeveloped as the Rotunda complex

I am not sure if it included Norbiton bus garage, which had been opened in 1950s as overflow to cramped Kingston and was rebuilt in 1984. Norbiton closed in 1990, so it had a very short privatisation era life. The Norbiton site was for many years a Wickes store, but a year ago became a Lidl.

Westlink got bought by Travel West Midlands (basically a renamed West Midlands PTE buses), which later became part of National Express, but within months of acquiring it, Nat Express sold it to London United.

 

[busesrusuk]

Wandle District garages:
Putney, Merton, Stockwell (had been in Abbey until Aug '87), Sutton (all went to London General)
Brixton, Croydon, Streatham, Thornton Heath (all went to South London)

Wandle also had Elmers End, Norwood and Victoria (GM (moved from Abbey)). Putney also started out in Abbey District and moved to Wandle at the same time as SW and GM.

I'm not sure about Wandsworth, it may have closed when Abbey was disbanded but I do recall that when I started at Wandle in 1987 we did have some old records from Wandsworth. It may just have been a convenient place to keep them as many of the staff moved to Putney, Stockwell and Victoria upon closure of WD.

The districts on creation in 1979 had the following number of garages:

Leaside 9
Forest 7
Selkent 10
Wandle 8
Cardinal 9
Watling 7
Abbey 10
Tower 8

Of those, Watling and Tower closed in 1984 with garages reassigned to neighbouring districts and Abbey was disbanded in 1986 (IIRC).

To Answer/correct another post, Norbiton closed in 1990 so did not make it to privatisation which happened in 1994. It was not part of Westlink but it became Kingston Buses which was another attempt by LBL to set up a low cost unit (similar to Bexleybus, Harrow Buses Suttonbus etc.) and had a troubled existence with very poor industrial relations. All the low cost units such as Westlink, Bexleybus, Roundabout etc, were all subsidiaries or trading names of London buses Ltd until the 11 units, which superseded the districts, were privatised.

 

[Bedford OB]

Westlink was smaller than MTL, it also had just 2 garages, Hounslow Heath and Kingston. It was created as a low cost operation. Kingston bus garage finally closed about 2000 (bus stops had moved to nearby locations in mid 1990s) and the site was redeveloped as the Rotunda complex

I am not sure if it included Norbiton bus garage, which had been opened in 1950s as overflow to cramped Kingston and was rebuilt in 1984. Norbiton closed in 1990, so it had a very short privatisation era life. The Norbiton site was for many years a Wickes store, but a year ago became a Lidl.

Westlink got bought by Travel West Midlands (basically a renamed West Midlands PTE buses), which later became part of National Express, but within months of acquiring it, Nat Express sold it to London United.

The first of the London companies to be sold was actually London Coaches, which was also a smaller unit, and was sold to its management in 1992. It had been using Wandsworth Garage since 1988. At the time of sale it had just over 100 vehicles. It was later to run a mainstream bus contract, the 52/N52, before being sold on to Metroline in late 1994.

The sales of London Coaches and Westlink were effectively "dry runs" to clear the way for the main privatisation, managed by the same in-house team and advisers.

Westlink was the second to be privatised, in advance of the big London companies, and was initially also sold to its management team, which sold it on quite quickly to West Midlands Travel, where as stated it was part of the sale of that business to National Express. The Travel West Midlands name was not used until a year after Westlink had again been moved on, to London United.

 

[busesrusuk]

The first of the London companies to be sold was actually London Coaches, which was also a smaller unit, and was sold to its management in 1992. It had been using Wandsworth Garage since 1988. At the time of sale it had just over 100 vehicles. It was later to run a mainstream bus contract, the 52/N52, before being sold on to Metroline in late 1994.

The sales of London Coaches and Westlink were effectively "dry runs" to clear the way for the main privatisation, managed by the same in-house team and advisers.

Westlink was the second to be privatised, in advance of the big London companies, and was initially also sold to its management team, which sold it on quite quickly to West Midlands Travel, where as stated it was part of the sale of that business to National Express. The Travel West Midlands name was not used until a year after Westlink had again been moved on, to London United.

Indeed it was. If anyone wants the full history of the privatisation of London Buses then I would thoroughly recommend the book "Privatising London's Buses" by Roger Torode...

 

[Statto]

By the late 90s MTL had got themselves into debt, going into rail industry, & add in having to replace a fleet of aging buses on Merseyside, were the main causes of the debt, so the London Northern operation was sold to Metroline, MTL themselves were brought by Arriva in 2000, MTL would have gone bankrupt had they not done so the finances were that dire.

 

[RHolmes]

By the late 90s MTL had got themselves into debt, going into rail industry, & add in having to replace a fleet of aging buses on Merseyside, were the main causes of the debt, so the London Northern operation was sold to Metroline, MTL themselves were brought by Arriva in 2000, MTL would have gone bankrupt had they not done so the finances were that dire.

It’s also the reason the company largely favoured Marshall Capital bodied darts pre-2000 both in London and Merseyside for fleet replacement

They (Marshall) were at the time the cheapest single deck/midi bus on the market and sold as a discounted bulk order to benefit both MTL and Marshall who were both in a financially bad situation.

 

[Statto]

It’s also the reason the company largely favoured Marshall Capital bodied darts pre-2000 both in London and Merseyside for fleet replacement

They (Marshall) were at the time the cheapest single deck/midi bus on the market and sold as a discounted bulk order to benefit both MTL and Marshall who were both in a financially bad situation.

Indeed, like i said, by the mid 90s MTLs fleet on Merseyside was quite elderly, most of the fleet dated from 1971 to 1984, MTL bought a large batch of Titans & Metrobuses from LT in the early 90s, but that was a sticking plaster given their age, & MTL had to undertake large fleet replacement that was quite costly, then add in winning Rail franchises, MTL ended up going into debt, so MTL sold London Northern to Metroline to sure up the finances, but even that couldn't stop the financial bleeding, & MTL sold the whole business to Arriva in 2000.

 

[Roilshead]

Was the London Northern business the smallest of the London Buses units, because it seems the only depots they had were Holloway and Potters Bar (admittedly these were two of the largest London bus depots).

London Northern was the smallest London Buses company, with 320 vehicles. 1100 staff, and an annual scheduled mileage of 10M (next in line was Metroline with 370, 1150, and 11M respectively). However, its annual turnover of £36m was larger than that of Metroline at £33M (these two companies again being at the bottom of the table.

 

[Bedford OB]

London Northern was the smallest London Buses company, with 320 vehicles. 1100 staff, and an annual scheduled mileage of 10M (next in line was Metroline with 370, 1150, and 11M respectively). However, its annual turnover of £36m was larger than that of Metroline at £33M (these two companies again being at the bottom of the table.

Those numbers apply to the year ended March 1993, and were headline figures for the last completed financial year at the time the companies were advertised for sale. They don't represent the relative sizes of the businesses when they were actually sold some eighteen months later in October 1994, or, hence, the calculations used during the sale negotiations.

The substance of the Information Memorandum also provided projected turnover figures, and other data, for each of the companies, for the year ending 31 March 1994, taking into account, inter alia, their tender wins and losses, and the restructuring of some services, in the intervening period. Both London Northern and Metroline were on a notable downward trend at the time (others of course were trending upwards, and all of the companies' numbers were also affected by the ongoing wins and losses from/to other players in the market); London Northern's turnover was projected to drop to £27.8m for the year 1993/4, and Metroline's to £28.4m in the same year. While these were projected numbers, they were of course required by the process to be calculated with greart care, and my recollection is that London Northern was certainly the smallest of the companies (excluding the minor units already mentioned in this thread) at the actual time of sale.

 

[Mikey C]

Before selling out to Metroline in 1998, MTL did expand their London operations by acquiring a couple of smaller operators R&I Coaches and London Surburban in 1996.