The London Bus Page - 03/09/04 - Black Friday

It was hard to watch the 73's festivities, because at the end of it you knew that the standards of comfort expected by the very large number of people who use this massively busy route were going to disappear entirely. None of the arguments for articulated buses on this route stand up - and standing up is exactly what most people are going to be doing. I don't want to have to stand at all, thank you very much - nobody does!
The 73's contingent of guest buses arrived at Tottenham garage between ten and twelve and turned round on roughly a 20-minute frequency. Even on a Friday the level of traffic travelling the 73's roads is so stifling that many of the special workings had to turn short, as did more than a few of the normal runout. How bendies are going to cope, God only knows.

	First to emerge, at half past ten, was Arriva London South's semi-Shillibeer Routemaster RML 2524 (JJD 524D), which normally finds its home on the 19. This bus was repainted into this green livery to celebrate "175 years of London's buses", although there will be very little left worthy of celebration before long.
	The second bus in the 175th anniversary scheme is RM 25 (855 UXC, ex VLT 25), another Battersea bus used on the 19. It turns out that there was an operation called Great Northern - it was a horse bus service operated in 1859 as an offshoot of the Great Northern Railway. Both RM 25 and RML 2524 bowed in their commemorative liveries in time for Routemaster 50 in July.
	Ensignbus provided two of their veterans for the 73's last day, and number one was RT 4421 (NXP 775). We were really blessed with the weather for all three days of the Black Friday experience - wall-to-wall sunshine with little cloud, and blistering hot. Just like August should have been - only in September! A number of the specials carried lazy blind displays like this one, just namechecking each terminus of the 73 (and hoping that they would not have to turn short).
	I was pleased to see RCL 2220 (CUV 220C) make an appearance on a 'last day' extravaganza after not being able to make it to the 8's events. It wouldn't be the first time one of these ultimate Green Line coaches hauled passengers up and down the Hertford Road, as most of them were reclaimed from London Country in 1980 to do just that, on route 149. The full-width blind box specified on the RCL requires a KM-type blind borrowed from a Metrobus or early model DLA, while the numberplate is unusual in being traditional white-on-black but in the narrower typescript introduced when the registration system changed from year prefix letters to numbers.
	The one thousandth Routemaster, as preserved RM 1000 (100 BXL) proudly proclaims, was always considered rather special. Its final tour of duty was at Croydon garage (TC), whose staff treated it to original condition during the showbus days of the early 1980s. Today marked its first appearance on a last Routemaster day, although it did perform on a one-day extension of its former route 130 to mark the last day of that service with Arriva London South, today's owners of Croydon garage. The unique registration, chosen because of the non-availability of numbers with all zeroes, was the first on a Routemaster that did not feature the letters 'LT' in the registration. Although many say that this was intentional, so as to emphasise London Transport's initials, the letters LT were already allocated to the issuing authority from whom London Transport booked blocks of sequential registrations.
	London's Transport Museum have now made it a regular thing to bring out their fine buses to work on last Routemaster days, for which we are grateful! Even so, it is considered sensible that they not be exposed to quite all the hazards that can be faced nowadays serving the public, so for the 73 today just served part of the route and in the daytime only. At noon, out comes RM 1 (SLT 56), of course the first Routemaster of all. The non-opening front windows give the bus a stern look compounded by the protruding louvre at the top, a feature that did not continue to production models. Behind it, I was lucky enough to capture FRM 1 (KGY 4D), the great 'what might have been' of London bus mythology, in its first day of stage service since retiring hurt from Potters Bar in 1976. When it did do its short journey to Euston and back, I was elsewhere along the 73 and couldn't meet the scheduled departure in time - not to mention that the bus is so popular that it was swamped by riders and photographers wherever it went! Even though the FRM was held in high acclaim after the usual teething issues were solved, production would undoubtedly have meant the conventional Routemaster had a much shorter life than we see today.

Having spent two hours at Tottenham watching the first half of the special vehicles' roster, it was time to head into town (on RM 1000), past gauntlets of photographers at every point where sunshine permitted the taking of quality pictures (and I've already said we were uncommonly lucky with the weather).

Continue to part two of the 73's swansong, return to the 390 or the 9, or start again at the Table of Contents.


by Matthew Wharmby
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