| Twenty-one years ago London Transport
commenced the Alternative Vehicle Evaluation trials, to
determine what type of bus would succeed the Leyland
Titan and MCW Metrobus as the basis of future orders.
Although circumstances invalidated the whole point of the
experiment even before it had come to an end, one of the
four types chosen did gain a subsequent bulk order - the
Leyland Olympian. For 1986, 260 more followed the
evaluatory batch, all ECW-bodied like the trial vehicles.
Now their time is up, with the last eight Ls working
their final day from Norwood garage, now of Arriva London
South. Two (L 180 and 214) ran on the 249, with the other
six (L 25, 37, 102, 162, 198 and 223) on the 432. |
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The two
remaining routes worked by Ls, like the final
buses themselves were rather forgotten castoffs,
being left to wither after being severed from
their parent route. The 432 was definitely such a
case, marking the final form of what to do with
the section of trunk route 2 (formerly 2B)
between Norwood Garage and Crystal Palace. At
intervals, it was known as 2A (which expanded
after the peaks over the 2B into town as OPO),
then became a self-contained section of the 2
once it was one-manned, and now exists under its
own number. L 37 (C37 CHM) began life at Sidcup
before moving to Plumstead and later settling at
Norwood. It is seen at Brixton as N157 on the
432. As for the 249, the original incarnation
(1970-1989) received Ls when operated by
Streatham, but was withdrawn, only to be
reintroduced in 1991 over the same roads as a
minibus route. Capacity problems restored an
upper deck in 1998, and these were Ls. |
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Most of
Norwood's Ls had departed by the early summer,
replaced by VLAs, but the need to retain a dozen
Olympians as refurbishment cover for early DLAs
even prompted repaints for two of them. Now that
the Arriva cow horn has been deleted from the
livery, the result on Norwood lifer L 162 (D162 FYM), but for the
yellow band, takes the look back to the all-red
that these buses wore when new. The location of
this shot is Anerley, where both the 249 and 432
were extended when Crystal Palace bus station
became too full to harbour everything terminating
there. |
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Just two Ls
could be seen on the 249 on Friday, but helpfully
they bunched up towards the evening, enabling me
to get them both as they arrived at Balham
together, headed by L 180 (D180 FYM) as N206.
This bus wore Routemaster registration 480 CLT
for twelve years, following a craze for
re-registrations that affected twenty-five of the
Ls. I've got to admit I thought the Ls were a
significant disappointment after the Metrobuses -
the Ogle design modifications applied to the
production batch were rather too fussy,
consisting of a straight staircase which reduced
seating capacity and made the downstairs saloon
dark and gloomy, and the split-step entrance
which just ended up being a nuisance. Quite why
they decided to balance out this extravagance
with such petty cheapness in deleting the
foglights is beyond me - it just made the buses
look incomplete and inferior. In its favour, the
Olympian is proven mechanically and many have
gone on for further service, but given the
cruelty with which south London's passengers have
treated their interiors, they will need another
refurbishment, even after the one given to 41 of
them just five years ago! |
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| L 4-263 made up the last yearly order
that London Transport would ever place. As tendering
began to destroy the old organisation from within,
bringing standards plummeting down with it, LT stopped
buying new buses and began redeploying what it had
already got to fill the gaps left by routes lost to
private sector operators. Concurrent with what happened
to the rest of the country's bus networks upon
deregulation, this collapse of demand rapidly brought the
bus manufacturing industry to its knees. Eastern Coach
Works was one of the first victims; L 263 was the last
bus it built, and its interior panels were signed by the
plant's workforce. Still, nineteen years is a good
innings for a modern bus, vandalism notwithstanding and
even without major refurbishment, and with that we salute
the L. Only one more month remains for the other buses to
carry that class code, the distantly related
Alexander-bodied Olympians on the 103, which will cease
on 14th October, and even the later Volvo Olympian is
coming to the end of its distinctly curtailed period of
service in London. |
