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It's touch and go to see whether
the Routemaster will outlive a full five
generations of buses built since; the fifth
generation being represented by the last handful
of Volvo Olympians, which are the AV class of
Alexander RH-bodied examples that migrated from
the 266 to the 4 this spring. At only eight years
old, they haven't really lived up to anything
like their potential, but this is due to TfL
having interfered with their life cycle. In fact,
TfL are so hell-bent on getting ramped buses onto
every route by 'the end of 2005' that they've
ordered Metroline to take hired Tridents from
First. There's a fair bit of this hiring going on
at the moment, with London United Darts appearing
on North Wembley routes (also at Metroline) in
order to displace accessible Darts to the 214. The AVs were strikingly
good buses - Volvo had made a tremendous success
out of the Olympian once they'd plucked it from
Leyland's ashes, and with the Alexander RH
bodywork (that was also taken by Stagecoach's
pair, London United and First Capital),
passengers got a much better combination than
that offered by the competing Northern Counties
body. Metroline's were the best, though, because
of their cosy interior with wall-to-wall grey
carpet, much like cars have - and that was about
the last chance a bus type got to compete with
the car on comparable terms, because after that
came the low-floor revolution.
Metroline
bought 38 AVs; early in 1997 the first 22 of them
took over the 52 from the mixed bag of Titans and
Metrobuses that Atlas Bus had bequeathed to
Willesden garage, while the next sixteen went
onto the 16 from Cricklewood a year later. The
Harlesden pair of routes 260 and 266 later became
their home, uniting the fleet at one garage, but
when they too went low-floor the AVs were split
again. Potters Bar used some to convert the 84,
while the rest turned up at Holloway to replace
the exhausted Vs from the 4. God forbid the 4,
which is a lot more important a route than it
looks, will ever get new buses - the new Enviro
400s that had been on order for this route have
now been switched to the 24, releasing Tridents!
On Monday 28th
November AV 13 (P493 MBY), as HT4,
passes through the Barbican. Although I'm not
sure post-London Transport types merit as much of
a eulogy as our usual favourites, this page may
serve as such, and I trust somebody will record
the last working of a Volvo Olympian.
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