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Walworth Garage began a record
fourth period of operation today, reopening to
take on the 100 under Travel London. This garage,
though sited right opposite Camberwell and
initially eclipsed by it, is now considered
ideally sited for the expansion of London's bus
services, but has always proven rather too
expensive to operate in the past. After its first
closure in 1985, it was reopened temporarily to
house Red Arrow routes pending the conversion of
Waterloo bus station into a working depot. In the
1990s Londonlinks, the
short-lived crossing of London & Country's LT
tenders with Kentish Bus's management and livery
style, operated out of Walworth, but when it was
decided by Arriva to concentrate all those routes
under Arriva London South's operation in 1997
Walworth was put on ice once again and began to
deteriorate in appearance, eventually ending up
as a campsite for travellers. The move of the 100 from
Stagecoach East London to Travel London hasn't
really changed a lot on the surface, since the
new batch of 9.3-metre Pointer-bodied Dennis Dart
SLFs are outwardly identical to those they
replaced, but it is apparent from the slightly
sickly interior and Birmingham registration that DP 109 (BX54 DKU) is really
just a Travel West Midlands bus with a coat of
red paint. I wish the old London Transport had
been able to spread its influence to the
provinces during deregulation, rather than
letting the reverse slowly destroy it, as
eventually happened.
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