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Two standard
27'6" Routemasters occupying fleetnumbers at
either end of the series are RM 7 (VLT 7) and RM 2213 (CUV 213C). It was
intended to reunite the first ten RMs for
Routemaster 50, in spite of RM 7 not having been
seen at all since its withdrawal from service
eighteen years ago. Work was done on getting it
back up to MOT standard for the cause, and here
it is. |
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I've already
said that the international contingent regards
Routemasters as a unique symbol of London, and
accordingly there were at least two RMs present
that had come home for the weekend, having been
brought by their foreign owners. One such is RM 470 (D-HF1H, ex-MFF 504,
ex-WLT 470) which now resides in Germany.
However, there's a 4-metre height restriction on
the Continent that has necessitated the bus's
conversion to an open-topper with a removable
flat roof. |
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Restoring the
four Routemaster prototypes to exactly the
condition in which they entered service fifty
years ago has been on the minds of their
preservationist owners for a long time. This has
been an enormously difficult undertaking, since
the buses all received standard front ends fairly
early in their LT careers. In the case of
Weymann-bodied RML 3 (SLT 58), now carrying
the fleetnumber it used when new to denote its
Leyland running units, no drawings of the
original and unique design survived so it had to
be re-created from photographs. The result was
unveiled at one o'clock and is most impressive. |
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I wasn't able
to get a good shot of RMC 1510 (510 CLT) on the last
day of the 7 three weeks ago, but I did when the
First London open-topper joined up with silver RM
1650 to do a turn on the 259 after their stints
on the special route X50 had finished. There's no
regular work for the bus now that the 7 has gone,
so events such as this, as long as they continue,
and private hire duties are where people will see
it. Note the large white Routemaster 50 circular
logo on the side of the bus, a device that is
appearing so far on Routemasters serving the 19,
38 and 73 in the general vicinity. |
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Special route
X50 saw half a dozen Routemasters performing a
frying pan-shaped route in one direction,
starting from Manor House and then proceeding
anti-clockwise via Amhurst Park, Tottenham High
Road and then back via Seven Sisters Road. The
star of the show was the one and only FRM 1 (KGY 4D), the great
'what might have been', and I was damned if I was
going to miss a ride on it - I hadn't even seen
it properly up close since Aldenham in 1983. The
unique rear-engined Routemaster was built to a
specification that featured 60% standard parts
and continued the theme of weight saving (it
weighs less than nine tons). By the time it
entered service, Leyland had taken over AEC, and
as we all know, Leyland wanted it all. Despite
the FRM being perfect for London's future plans
(and how the dire scenes of the 1970s might have
been avoided if six or seven thousand FRMs had
come into service!), Leyland put the brakes on
its development and London Transport was saddled
with the inferior Fleetline. AEC dwindled and was
closed down in 1980, and Leyland's megalomania
got the better of them and they too are now a
distant memory. The FRM, therefore, was the last
chance London Transport had of continuing its
leading position in public transport, and that
legacy is almost completely gone. |
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As well as
being the fiftieth year of Routemaster operation,
2004 also marks the 175th anniversary of buses in
London, dating from 1829 when George Shillibeer
first hitched up his horses. Although it's
becoming a bit spurious to keep commemorating
these general anniversaries when there's little
left now that makes London's bus transport
special, this time two Routemasters (how could it
be anything else?) have been repainted into
heritage liveries. That on Battersea's RM 25 (855 UXC, ex VLT 25) is
peculiar, as it doesn't invoke any pre-London
Transport operator in particular - 'Great
Northern' is entirely fictitious. At least the
other one (route 19 stablemate RML 2524, which
I'll try to get tomorrow - it was meant to be
ahead of this one but was turned short!) is
authentic, being a Shillibeer-liveried example. |
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| If
you haven't been to Finsbury Park today, get yourselves
down there on Sunday and don't forget to buy a souvenir
programme to recoup the costs that the Routemaster
Association have incurred bringing you this splendid and
enjoyable event. As well as the Routemasters on display,
there is also a fascinating bus recovery demonstration,
in which poor old Metrobus M 1349 is felled and then
righted again, using two airbags and two sets of winches.
Tomorrow there are two special parades in addition to the
X50 service, a bus advert pasting competition and of
course the usual stalls selling every kind of bus-related
paraphernalia. I'm glad it's on two days, as I can get in
tomorrow all the things I didn't have time to do today! |
