The trouble with Connex Bus, aside from the hopeless reputation its train operations brought to the company, is that it expanded far too quickly and ran out of puff. After eighteen months of tender victories its run of luck ended after winning the 157 at the end of 2001. And the trouble with National Express was that until now they couldn't find the right vehicle to expand into London. The company's first attempt, the purchase of Westlink at the very onset of privatisation in 1994, was too far from the real opportunities in the heart of town, and so was County Bus, its second try. So these operations were sold and National Express bided its time until winning the C1 and 211 from London General. But again expansion was frustrated by the inconvenient location of the garage at Battersea. Local outcry was what eventually hounded Limebourne out of its base and Travel London moved in, at which point the whole lot was sold to Connex and breakneck expansion began.

Meanwhile the old Walworth garage has been spruced up for a fourth spell of use as a bus garage (London Transport until 1985, a Red Arrow base in 1988-1990 and London & Country / Londonlinks from 1995 till 1997). Rumours had been going around for a long time as to who would use it and for what (garage capacity being at critically low levels since the ongoing expansion of bus services), and the name of National Express came up again. However they won none of the tenders then up for grabs in the area and everyone forgot about them, until yesterday. It seems that the Battersea garage and its routes will transfer into Walworth and the new Travel London operation can settle in and expand at a more comfortable pace.

Observers were wondering what was afoot when Connex's logo began disappearing from its buses over the last few months, leaving only the second incarnation of the company logo, a sort of squashed worm. Beddington Cross's TA 18 (V318 KGW) shows the process half-done as it passes through Trafalgar Square on 21st January.