I loved the 14. It was my home route into
town when I was growing up, and if I'd ever worked for
the old London Transport, that would have been the route
I'd have wanted to work on. When everything else in the
London bus world was cracking to pieces in the late
1980s, which brought to the area assorted tendering-era
horrors like Kingston Bus, Putney garage's RMLs simply
kept going. On Friday night they came to an end, not just
on the 14 but what had recently become Putney's sister
route 22 - and both are now just another pair of nothing
routes with unmemorable OPO vehicles.
Even though 22nd July was the last day of Routemasters on
both the 14 and 22, I'm going to cover them separately,
as only one of them actually should have been going OPO
on the following Saturday. The 22's contract expired on
22nd July as planned, and was renewed under the incumbent
company London General, but if the mode of operation had
been stuck to, the 14 would have had another two years
and four months with Routemasters. If contracts meant the
paper they were written on, this route would have ended
up being the last of all - but as we know, that honour
will now fall to the 159 on 9th December. |
 |
Having spent
most of the last few months stood at both termini
of the 14 photographing, I decided to spend the
route's last day along the middle of the route,
away from the crowds.This meant getting off along
the Fulham Road and walking down to the narrowest
point at which the 22 could be reached, and then
continuing on from there. The Fulham Road is the
14's bread and butter, and pictured opposite the
attractive Royal Brompton Hospital is RML 2290 (CUV 290C), just one of
the Putney RMLs that had been working for many
years since privatisation froze allocations in
place. |
 |
First of the
specials was Ensignbus's RT 4421 (NXP 775), which got
itself into position at Putney Heath for nine
o'clock and was on its way into town on its first
duty when captured a little further down the
Fulham Road at 9:45. It was actually scheduled to
be the second Ensignbus entry, but was swapped
with RT 1431 when the original entry was delayed.
This promised surprise would appear later in the
day at the Putney Common end of the 22, in the
form of RLH 61. |
 |
The long
decline of London's bus operating identity has
really put an end to the once-vaunted dream of
continuity that made travelling by bus such a
reliable and dependable concept. Along these
lines, a record that cannot possibly be broken is
the service record of Putney's RML 2590 (JJD 590D). Incredibly,
it has only ever worked from Putney - thirty-nine
years from the same garage, returning after four
overhauls. With an achievement like this, it was
only right that it fight all the way to the end,
and it is seen here in the Fulham Road during
mid-morning. Only a fluid flywheel problem
suffered later in the afternoon prevented it from
having a crack at being the last Routemaster in
service from Putney, the identity of which turned
out not to be as cut and dried as we'd believed.
RML 2590 was delivered for the 14, and spent the
next four decades watching the route steadily
contract. Its traditional Hornsey Rise terminus
was not covered again today, but is now taken
over by housing anyway. The inevitable splitting
of the service occurred in 1987, with OPO route
14A (now 91) taking over the northern leg and the
14 retracting from Euston to Tottenham Court
Road. The 14 was OPO on Sundays between 1987 and
2001, but RMLs returned on Sundays until today. |
 |
I know I've
really arrived now, because I was one of a select
number of people to receive an invitation to
travel on one of four round trips run by STL 2377 (EGO 426), thanks to
Cobham Bus Museum. Having photographed it enough,
riding on it was well worth the anticipation. It
sounds strange to say this, but I never felt like
I was riding on a 'vintage' bus - the standard of
seating and ventilation far exceed what passes
for acceptable in 2005, sixty-six years after
this 100% London Transport-designed and
Chiswick-built bus was first placed in service.
The 'J' code remembers the old Holloway garage's
long period of participation on the 14, something
that ended in 1971 when the garage was closed,
and no longer possible now that the route has
been retracted southward into the West End. |
 |
Coming home
one last time is RML 2618 (NML 618E), swinging
into Putney garage at 6:45 after the evening peak
had run its course. This former New Cross garage
Routemaster sidestepped the hatchet for just six
more months after the loss of the 36, but this
time there was nowhere left to run - and such was
the case for all the crews who'd managed to
transfer one step ahead of each OPO conversion
affecting the two London companies of the
Go-Ahead Group. The bus known as RML 2618 had
seen service on the 14 before, starting at
Holloway (J) and then spending the years
1970-1974 at Putney. |
 |
The 14 may
have got its Routemasters back on Sunday, but
another method of cost-cutting practised by LBL
in the 1990s was the phasing in of OPO buses in
the evenings, and this endured on the 14, giving
the last day an early finish that helpfully
allowed the commemorations of the last 14s and
22s to be staggered over a few hours. The last
route 14 journey (AF127) was always intended to
be entrusted to RML 887, the bus recently
repainted into 1933-style General livery, and I
was lucky enough to grab pole position downstairs
to take shots out of the front downstairs window.
Shortly after RML 887's departure from Putney
Heath at five to nine, we see its duplicate -
Blue Triangle's faithful RTW 75 (KGK 575, left),
exemplifying the eight years the 14's Putney
allocation spent under RTWs. Overtaking it on
Putney Hill on its way home out of service is RML 2673 (SMK 673F, right),
another New Cross transfer, and notable for its
extremely dishevelled condition - the bus could
be spotted from a distance simply due to the fact
that its red paintwork had faded almost clean
off, revealing acres of pink undercoat! |
 |
Tottenham
Court Road at 9:45 is where we see RML 887 (202 UXJ, ex WLT 887),
having performed the last route 14 duty into town
and now about to turn round. Getting this shot
cost me the front seat, but at least I got back
on through these crowds! RML 887 is a
splendid-looking bus and will fulfil its new role
in London General's Commercial Services
Department well, but it's not quite perfect - the
lower-case destination blinds have no place on a
Routemaster and the re-registration sits
uncomfortably. The original WLT 887 mark was
removed only a few months ago and now adorns a
Land Rover Freelander, perhaps one of
management's. It's good that AF127 was performed
by this bus from start of service, enabling us to
get as many shots of it as we could - since its
unveiling about a month ago it had seen pretty
regular service, but I'd only managed to bag it
for the first time two or three days before the
end - such are the small inconveniences of now
living out of London! |
 |
The end of the
line. Putney Heath, Green Man is only a
relatively new terminus to the 14 - in 1987 it
was extended up Putney Hill from its longtime
berth at Oxford Road to replace the 30, which was
withdrawn out of the area altogether. This
cheerful pub has never seen such custom, with
armies of photographers able to sip at pints and
take photographs of 14s without even having to
get out of their seats! RML 887 (202 UXJ, ex WLT 887),
seen in all its glory, arrived at eleven o'clock
and submitted to a ring of flashbulbs, and that
was the end of the 14. A quick dash on RTW 75 to
Putney Common enabled us to meet the last
outbound 22, but that for the next chapter. |
|
With seventeen RMLs on the 14's
Friday PVR of twenty-four, the route's conversion to WVL
was protracted for long enough to ensure a decent day's
run-out, and for that we should thank London General and
Putney garage. Only at the very end did the RMLs head off
to Plough Lane, where they are apparently all spoken for
already, and new WVLs move up from storage at Volvo's
Beddington premises. Interestingly, the new batch of
05-registered WVLs were very slow to appear at all, the
Volvo content being made up purely of the 52-reg ones
already based at Putney for the 74, 85 and 430.
A spot of stepping back took place at midday due to the
stand at Piccadilly Circus being taped off briefly, and a
security alert closed Putney High Street in the late
afternoon, but for the most part the 14's buses stayed on
their running numbers. The last Elliot School journeys,
performed earlier than usual to reflect the last day of
the school year, were carried out by RML 2297, which
moved onto AF134 later. Since WVLs cannot fit through the
gates of this school, the future of the two route 14
bifurcations that take its pupils home are surely in
doubt! |
| AF111
-
RML 2314 |
AF117
-
WVL 69 |
AF123
-
WVL 20 |
AF129
-
RML 2578 (RML 2290) |
| AF112
-
WVL 71 (RML 2618) |
AF118
-
RML 2520 |
AF124
-
RML 2590 (WVL 184) |
AF130
-
RML 2680 (RML 2290, WVL 29) |
| AF113
-
RML 2618 (WVL 71) |
AF119
-
RML 2606 |
AF125
-
RML 2604 (WVL 31) |
AF131
-
RML 2305 |
| AF114
-
RML 2605 |
AF120
-
RML 2472 |
AF126
-
WVL 66 (WVL 22) |
AF132
-
RML 2297 (WVL 33) |
| AF115
-
RML 2631 (WVL 198) |
AF121
-
WVL 52 |
AF127
-
RML 887 |
AF133
-
RML 2290 (WVL 190) |
| AF116
-
RML 2593 (WVL 42) |
AF122
-
RML 2673 |
AF128
-
WVL 29 (RML 2578) |
AF134
-
WVL 42 (RML 2297) |
| Here is the roster of special buses
on the 14's last day. RTW 75 performed as a duplicate
ahead of RML 887's last journey. |
| PT1 - RT 4421 (Ensignbus) |
FL37 - RTW 75 (Blue
Triangle) |
J7 - STL 2377 (LBPG) |
|
| Now
proceed to Part Two, the story of the last day of
Routemasters on the 22, return to the introduction, or start again at the Table of
Contents. |
