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These days I
live and work far enough away from London to
escape the hustle and bustle but close enough to
visit if I still want. Accordingly, I got only
four hours sleep after getting home from
Thursday's activities just long enough to unload
and charge up the cameras again, and it was back
on the train again before the sun came up. Just
before 7 am I got into Waterloo and headed for
the nearest pair of stops under the railway
bridge in Westminster Bridge Road, where my first
southbound bus of the day to parade before the
lens (and my first journey south) was RML 2572 (JJD 572D) as BN136. I
mentioned yesterday that this routeing is
comparatively new to the 159, since the route ran
via Millbank and Lambeth Bridge prior to 18th
September 1999, when the withdrawal out of the
area of the once-trunk 109 forced the entire
north-south passenger flow onto the 159, leaving
Lambeth Bridge to the 3 alone. |
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As dawn rose
on the last day it revealed a heavy mist, so
thick that it didn't burn off till midday! That
made for some evocative shots at various
locations, with that on the cover of the Evening
Standard's first edition particularly special -
it was an RML half-shrouded in fog, heading over
Westminster Bridge with Big Ben just visible
through the haze behind it. The Westminster and
Parliament Square area were the only route 159
locations I didn't visit over the last week, due
to the seeming preponderance of armed police who
would rather bother bus photographers under
Section 44 of the Anti-Terrorism Act than do any
getting rid of any real terrorists (try the one
in City Hall).
The fog is thicker still at the Streatham end of
the 159, where at 7.44 am we see RML 2366 (JJD 366D) as BN138.
It's ironic that this bus should have survived to
the last day, because in May 1987 it was actually
officially withdrawn and sent to AEC's old site
for storage. It was in such terrible shape after
coming off the 207s after seven years at Uxbridge
that it could have been the first RML to be
withdrawn from normal service. A similar fate
threatened fellow Brixton diehard RML 2573,
another ex-207 bus but working from Hanwell. Both
were repaired and allocated to Norwood for the
2B, and in January 1994 transferred to Brixton
when that route (known for its last year of crew
operation as plain 2) was one-manned.
Brixton's RML fleet was one of the couple of
hundred of the old London Buses Limited
Routemaster stock that would be converted from
AEC to Iveco 836 power at the turn of the 1990s,
a couple of years before the refurbishment
programme would be set in train. Although not
particularly popular with mechanics or drivers,
the Iveco engines to me allowed the traditional
four-speed steering column-mounted gearboxes to
sing their familiar tune unmolested, although
introducing the catarrhous gargle of first gear
that would be joined at full throttle by a
deafening, full-throated booming sound, like you
get when you put the tumble dryer on and discover
you've left coins in your trousers! |
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Streatham
Station is the terminus of the 159 nowadays,
following successive falling back from South
Croydon (at its greatest weekend extent) to
Thornton Heath, Streatham High Road (Green Lane)
(1988) and finally to this point where there used
to be a garage. There still is, but it closed in
1992 after a pitiful five years of renewed
operation following a total rebuild that took
nearly as long. Intact but crumbling, and now
occupied by a go-kart racing firm, Streatham
Garage is a sad monument to the folly of London
Buses Limited's insane, government-mandated drive
to destroy itself in favour of small independents
of wildly varying quality, and proves that the
rot was setting in long before the first of the
last twenty Routemaster routes was lost on 29th
August 2003. At 7.42 am RML 2545 (JJD 545D) as BN134
pulls in beside RML 2572 (JJD 572D). |
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As well as
restoring RM 2217 to fine original condition to
carry out the official honours of performing the
last scheduled Routemaster duty, Arriva London
South put in some work on the highest-numbered
member of their fleet, the penultimately-numbered
RML 2759 (SMK 759F), working
today as BN142. This was in order to push the
commemorative brochures being sold over three
days (8th-10th December) by London's Transport
Museum (or at least the shop, re-sited
temporarily inside Covent Garden Market while the
Museum is being stripped and rebuilt over the
next four years. Unfortunately, they've rushed it
and only done a partial job, leading to what's
unhappily a bit of a mess. With only a day to
spare before they got started, they've only
painted the lower deck (look for the paint
'high water line' across the bonnet) and neglected to
paint a stone band (or a white one, or cream)
back on. Nor has the grille edging been picked
out, the mesh itself is still in the silver
favoured uniquely by Norwood garage (even during
its staff's exile period at Clapham), and the
numberplate, while a brave attempt to recreate
the original look, is in completely the wrong
font (Blue Triangle or Ensignbus can do you
transfers in the proper script!). This was as
close as I dared get to Marble Arch - at 9.36 am
there were comparatively few people around, but I
knew that would change), so I caught this bus
only as far as Oxford Circus and then took a
shortcut to Brixton by Victoria Line tube. |
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Brixton garage
was where it was all going to take place, so I
was loitering around here for most of the day. As
can be seen, the four-lane Streatham High Road is
a racetrack, and care was advisable. If there
really were any bulbs growing in the earth in the
traffic islands, they can't have survived
thousands of feet trampling them into bits! I
knew I wanted to at least photograph the last
inbound journey (BN143, leaving Streatham Garage
at 10:57) and had noticed during my morning
logging that it was being performed by RM 85 (VLT 85), the last of
the Enfield refurbishments. But at 11:08, when it
approached as seen here, people started getting
off so as to pick their pitches for the final
arrival and I seized my chance. With two coppers
on the platform and a police van straight behind,
away we went! |
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I knew I'd
have to sacrifice the last journey - due to the
conditions explained above I would conceivably
have missed both Marble Arch and Brixton garage,
so Marble Arch had to go. Comparing Thursday to
today certainly showed up TfL's organisational
abilities by comparison to those of Ensignbus,
Blue Triangle and the many others who performed
so valiantly and in such incredible quantity
yesterday! If twenty-four specials had run full
to bursting, three measly duplicates were never
going to do the business; anybody could see that.
So, having paid the conductor for one last ticket
(a practice repeated by quite a lot of people on
that journey, as it turned out), I disembarked at
Brixton station. Off goes RM 85 (VLT 85) for one last
time, its police escort bringing up the rear.
Just seeing police vans and bikes assigned to
tail these buses into town was bringing home to
me how huge this final event was set to be - not
just for me, but for London as a whole. |
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I now had to
make my way back to Brixton garage to stake some
small patch of concrete for the final arrival of
the convoy, which would already be somewhat late
given the ten minutes or so that RM 85 had lost
heading into town. And for what would be my own
last journey, I was determined that it should be
a normal member of Brixton's Routemaster
contingent - not an officially-sponsored special
brought back from retirement, or a Dartmaster
buyback or recent transfer (unless it was the
last continuously-owned RM 1124, which
unfortunately did not turn out on the last day
due to a breakdown), but one of the same band of
RMLs that had settled here ever since
transferring from Clapham on 7th February 1987.
And the bus that performed this feat for me was RML 892 (WLT 892), the oldest
surviving RML, one of just two prototype-batch
thirty-footers left in service, and a Clapham
veteran. It brought this pastime poignantly full
circle for me, because RML 892 was based at
Clapham when I was first getting into this, and
was rostered solely on the 37, then a local route
for me twenty years ago and one of the longest
and best crew routes there ever was. My first
recorded trip on it was on Thursday 18th April
1985 - and its fellow Brixton employee RML 2545
was actually the first Routemaster I ever
recorded going on at all, on Thursday 9th June
1983 when it was based at Holloway for the 74
(and 14). With everything that's happened to
bring the standards of comfort, ventilation and
safety down to such pitifully low levels, it's
not impossible that RML 892 will be the last
London bus I ever take. |
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At the head of
RM 2217's two duplicates was RM 6 (VLT 6), still in immaculate
gold three years after the Queen's Golden
Jubilee. It was at this point that some unwelcome
politics was introduced to the throng outside
Brixton garage - behind the 'The End Is Nigh!'
sign were a handful of disabled activists with
'Good Riddance' placards. How crass and
ill-mannered an attempt this was to hijack a
poignant event - and so unnecessary, given that
they'd 'won' - it just made them look like
bigots. And not only that, but hypocrites, since
they were brought by TAXI. Of course there's
nothing wrong with increasing the level of
accessibility on buses, and the only reason this
hadn't been attempted sooner was because there
was no money in it, nor did the numbers of
wheelchair-using passengers make it even remotely
viable financially. But nor was there any desire
to actively discriminate, as victim psychology
seems to believe. As I've said before, with a
little consensus, a little imagination and some
old-fashioned risk-taking, there was room in this
public transport game for everybody. I don't need
to be asked to get up when someone who might
benefit from my seat gets on, nor do I feel any
moral smugness when I've done it - I just do it,
because it's the right thing. Decent people don't
discriminate - so why has it become acceptable to
discriminate against the majority, because that's
what it's come down to. It's an ugly reflection
on society when the disabled, who deserve much
better treatment than what they've set themselves
up to get, can discriminate too. And so much for
inclusivity - the sham that has taken away the
real choice offered to the disabled of
purpose-built staffed, door-to-door Mobility Bus
routes and taxis which I would have been more
than happy to subsidise at far greater rates of
taxation than even I pay today - that's my
responsibility. For the last year of her life, my
mum was in a wheelchair and I would have never,
ever put her on a bus; I know what people are
like. If she was going anywhere, she was driven,
inconveniencing neither her nor the fifteen or
more people who would have had to cram on
standing to accommodate her. Anyway, the tables
were turned when the Policy
Exchange mob steamed in at the death,
distributing huge placards of the cover of their
excellent, fair and measured pro-Routemaster
publication that's been doing the rounds in both
print and PDF form. On that cover was a most
incriminating photograph of the Ghastly
Dehumanised Moron himself, gurning happily from
the platform of the same type of bus he swore
he'd never get rid of. He's lucky he stayed away
today, because he would have been strung from one
of the lamp-posts in Streatham High Road! Not all
politicians are lying scumbags, though, or at
least not local MPs Simon Hughes (Lib-Dem, North
Southwark) and Kate Hoey (Lab, Vauxhall), who
were at the forefront of the Policy Exchange's
appearance today - that's Simon Hughes on the
right. |
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Trying
desperately to hold back the crowds at Brixton
garage was an odd mix of local police, mostly
friendly, one bolshy, and absurdly youthful
community support officers, who tried their best
but were clearly overwhelmed. When the last buses
started to come through, the crowd of thousands
simply piled into the street, at which point the
police closed Streatham High Road at the
Christchurch Road junction to the north and from
south of Telford Avenue - something they should
probably have done a little earlier. Still, it is
excellent to report that no trouble was
encountered whatsoever - barely even any raised
voices, nothing was broken or stolen (even the
159's running number cards stayed in situ, making
me wonder why Clapton had to take all theirs out
on the last day of the 38). Maybe we didn't even
need policing as such - too much pressure to get
a decent shot to be bothered with any aggro! When
RM 54 (LDS 279A, ex VLT 54)
fought its way through the throngs at 1.56 pm, it
was so late-running due to the crowds waving its
type off that, allowing for thirteen minutes to
reach the full extent of the 159, and if a
thousand digital camera timestamps are to be
believed, it reached Streatham Garage one minute
after RM 2217 finished its own journey at Brixton
garage - making it the last Routemaster in
service! |
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Duplicate
number two was RM 5 (VLT 5), a special Routemaster
for a long time now and last example of its own
route 73 on the infamous Black Friday. Still
belonging to Tottenham garage at Arriva London
North but often loaned to the soon-to-be-doomed
Leaside Travel coaching and private hire unit, it
retains an AEC engine - still the best of the
powerplants, and arguably there was no need to
replace them with the rather smoky and noisy
engines that followed. But from AEC, Leyland,
Iveco, Cummins, Scania to even Cummins B-powered
Dartmasters, they're all gone.
Look at the Union Jack in the cab windscreen of
RM 5. What the people responsible for running
down the Routemaster have never quite realised is
how much this bus means to Britain and to London
- not just to Londoners as the last example of a
bus built to rival contemporary cars' standards
of comfort, built in Britain by a British-owned
company for the good of Britons, but how critical
it is as a symbol of London abroad - not only of
its former glory as imperial capital of the old
Empire but as a telling reminder that without the
Routemaster, how far London has fallen as a city.
Without the RM, London is just a dirty,
beggar-infested slum; too expensive to live in,
too crowded to work in, too unfriendly to visit
and now too uncomfortable to travel through. The
foreign media are aghast at how we seem to have
destroyed our own culture over nothing but lies
and politics. You don't see the Germans doing
that in spite of everything they've been through,
and you certainly wouldn't attribute that bizarre
trait of self-hatred to the French. It's not
normal, psychologically, to turn against your own
people, and what's more ominous is that it makes
us vulnerable - if we don't defend our traditions
and our culture in whatever form, and however
eccentric, we lay ourselves open to the kind of
people who would love nothing better than to kill
us, like on 7th July. The English are the most
tolerant people you can find if you get beyond
our infamous reserve; we're fascinated by other
cultures and everything to do with them, and
there's no obstacle we can't overcome if we set
aside our differences and put our minds to it.
There's room here for every background and level
of ability, to the best standards that can be
achieved. All we ask - all I
ask - is that I'm allowed to keep my own culture
and standards as well. |
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After a
bitterly cold morning where it looked as if the
fog would never lift, as if by magic the sun
broke out and burned it all off just in time for
the ideal angle facing Brixton garage - or at
least ideal if you've not got ten thousand other
people trying to get the same shot. When RM 2217 (CUV 217C), the
returning incarnation of BN143, finally pushed
through behind RMs 6 and 5 at five past two,
filmed all the way by a media pool on the top
deck of London Coaches' open-top Ayats-bodied
Volvo B7L VLY 605, the hordes crammed themselves
in front of it and this was the best shot I could
get. I should perhaps have tried to get back
across the road to the same position from where I
had captured RM 5 above, but the police were
still chivvying us from one side of the road to
another, not to mention that barriers had been
put up on the pavement outside Brixton garage -
although they didn't anticipate from which side
of the road we'd need to be positioned to take
the best shots with the sun at our backs, so the
barriers ended up on the wrong side of the
crowds! In the end the best you could do was to
hold your camera above your head and blast away
with whatever rapid-fire buffer it provided you
with. It worked better with my video camera,
which has an angled screen so I could still see
where I was pointing - so where basic digital
shots are concerned, you'll forgive the
skew-whiff angle; it adds to the atmosphere. As
for filming bus interiors, I took note of the
ludicrous ban apparently imposed on this practice
very recently, and disobeyed it entirely.
Thankfully the traffic, which was always going to
be heavy whether at 2 pm or 11 pm, was held back
successfully, and for that I thank the police and
their associates, who were briefed well enough to
be friendly and accommodating - as I said,
nothing untoward took place. Peter Hendy,
somewhere inside RM 2217 and already the
recipient of some well-deserved stick on the way
down, must have been relieved at that, if nobody
else! |
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As well as the
cover shots of the Policy Exchange's 'Replacing
the Routemaster' booklet, placards stating '81%
say Keep the Routemaster' were distributed, and
two make their way into this shot of RM 2217 (CUV 217C) in the final
seconds of Routemaster operation - you can't get
much better proof of the wishes of the majority
against a cynically pre-planned decision about
which nobody had ever been consulted, or even
politely asked.
One fantastic aspect of the last day was the
turning out en masse of an entire primary
school's worth of children onto Brixton Hill to
stand by the roadside waving Union flags at the
last three Routemasters as they came through.
That's how much it means to our culture - and I
mean everyone who's come to live in London and
made it their own. London buses provided steady
employment for so many local people, and what is
there left now for the kids of tomorrow to look
up to? Because now the bus is just an appliance,
to be used, worn out and thrown away; not
something to be cherished. As if accordingly, it
was less than two hours before I saw, with my own
eyes, one of the replacement VLAs having its
windows vandalised before it had even completed
its first full rounder. With Routemasters, the
mere presence of the conductor meant you got so
much less of that kind of thing. Nobody will ever
stop the vandals or remove them from society:
CCTV is not a deterrent, and far from being
punished, they've been rewarded with free travel.
What the hell has happened to people, and to
society?
The time is 2.06 pm; all the passengers are off,
and the bus is about to make its final left-hand
swing into the teeming forecourt of Brixton
garage, for one last time under the stewardship
of Brixton's two longest-serving members of
staff, who between them had racked up seventy
years of faithful service to London and its
people. It wasn't just the end for them, because
after forty-nine years, ten months and one day of
Routemaster operation in London, ever since RM 1
had first ventured tentatively into service on
the old 2, and for all the contrived 'heritage'
routes you can put together that go nowhere and
serve no-one, this was the end - it's all over,
and for nothing. Where
each successive generation of vehicles was
replaced by one of equal or superior quality,
nothing really has fit the bill since RML 2760
rolled off the production line in 1968. |
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The architect
of this ignominy, second only to the Ghastly
Dehumanised Moron himself, is of course Peter
Hendy, Director of Surface Transport. After all,
someone had to drive RM 2217 (CUV 217C) back to
Norwood after he'd put its driver on the street.
Because of this man's vanity, something great,
which people genuinely loved and needed, has been
ruined for everyone and London is a laughing
stock. I'm aware of the opprobrium with which a
lot of people hold him, and have warned against
untoward statements against his person, as it
doesn't help the cause, but this is the thanks I
get for my restraint. A lot of the statements
he's made to the press have been increasingly
ludicrous - one that comes to mind is his
comparison of the Routemaster to a Morris Minor.
More like a Cadillac compared to today's
three-wheeled Lada that you have to run along
behind because someone's stolen the seats - and
that you have to pay Rolls-Royce prices for
whether you use it or not! Peter Hendy's done
quite well enough out of the progressive breakup
and deterioration of London's transport that he's
never needed to work again; he's certainly fallen
far out of touch with what the everyday normal
passenger has to say, and he had no right to
treat Londoners this way - it was pure ego and
pure spite, and I can't understand what the point
of it all was. I hate his guts. |
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