About LOTS

The London Omnibus Traction Society (LOTS) was formed in 1964, following a short period when it was known as the West London Omnibus Society. The aims of the society were to document the buses and bus routes of London Transport, both now and in the past. At the time of its formation, London Transport's operating territory stretched beyond Greater London as far as towns such as Gravesend, Crawley, Guildford, Windsor, Hemel Hempstead, Harow and Tilbury. Despite operations in these areas later being removed from London Transport control, LOTS has continued to cover the whole of this area ever since. The main output of LOTS has been a variety of printed publications, as outlined below.
	The first LOTS newsletter was published in July 1964, becoming monthly from November 1964 and titled 'The London Bus'. As with many publications that followed, the names are usually abbreviated (in this case to TLB) and often followed by an issue number. As of early 2024, TLBs had reached issue 715. TLB was initially produced at Foolscap size, changing to A4 in 1971, then again to A5 in 1989. Photos have usually been included, these becoming all colour from 2002. Each issue gives a summary of route and vehicle changes (such as new deliveries and re-allocations) in the preceding month, along with other regulars looking at aspects such as publicity materials, bus disposals and special services.
	While TLB was focused on topical news, a new title was launched in 1972 to provide more photos and in-depth articles on current and historical topics. The London Bus Magazine (LBM) has been produced quarterly ever since and has always been 7in x 9in, with the number of pages growing from 32 to 60. LBM always has lots of photos, mostly in colour since 2003 (apart from vintage views).
	The third regular title was an annual review, first produced in 1973. To A4 size and with a summary of events (route and vehicle changes) in the year together with numerous photos, this was published each year until 1992. For the years 1993 to 1999, the reviews were articles within LBM, while 2000 to 2003 were covered by separate 'LBM Extra' publications. The Review returned to being a fully stand-alone, annual publication in 2004.
	1987 saw the launch of a pocket-sized fleetbook, listing all the buses used by companies within the LOTS area. This was updated in 1988 and 1990, then became an annual production from 1992 onwards. The book has run to 128 pages every year since 1993 and it is always densely packed with masses of detailed information.
	To complement these regular publications, LOTS has also published a large number of other titles on related topics. These are referred to as SUPs, since they are 'supplemental' to the main output, and each title (or series of titles) has a number. For example, the SUP17 series (which listed the current allocations of all London Transport buses) started with SUP17A in 1978 and ran until SUP17R appeared in 1991. By their nature, SUPs are more varied than the regular titles, with some being just a few pages of text/data while others had dozens of pages and lots of photos. As of Spring 2024, a total of 209 SUPs had been published.
	Some early 'supplementary' publications (1970-1973) had actually been branded as TLB Extras, and this name was resurrected in 1993 for a new series that provided a month-by-month summary of all fleet changes (eg deliveries, transfers and disposals) in a given year. Compiled by the late Les Stiston, these started with TLB Extra 1957 and ran through to TLB Extra 1984, published in 2013. Going any further was almost impossible, due to the complexities of covering the advent of bus route tendering in 1985. However, access to additional historical records allowed Les to go back and cover the years from 1948 to 1956, a task that was completed in 2021.

About this website
Many of LOTS' publications have a very long 'shelf-life', in as much as that people may still want to make reference to their contents many years after their publication. As such, it was felt that it would be good to make some of the older titles (which can be very hard to track down copies of) freely available on-line. This website was created to enable this, while also serving as a catalogue of (nearly) all the publications that LOTS has produced since it was formed in 1964.

The largest part of this website is a database of the publications, allowing the user to sort, filter and search the displayed results in various ways. 1,258 publications are listed (as of April 2024) and new titles will be added as and when they are released.

The addition of downloadable copies of the publications is still ongoing. As of launch in April 2024, 567 had been added, comprising 465 editions of TLB, 97 SUPs and 5 early Reviews. Publications that are still new (i.e. published less than one year ago) will not be added as downloads, nor will those where physical copies are still available from LOTS postal sales. No downloads have yet been added for Fleetbooks, LBMs or TLB Extras, though these may be included at a later date.

Note that the PDF files on this site were made using high-resolution scans of original hard copies. As such, the file sizes are quite large (up to 54 MB). Also, since some of the originals were 40 or more years old, the quality is sometimes somewhat patchy, either due to original printing issues, or to subsequent 'ageing'.

This website was built by me (Thomas Young) and uses a MySQL database to hold the information, and PHP pages to extract and display it. The site is currently hosted within my own LTSV domain, but may be moved across to the main LOTS website once the latter is upgraded.

Help using this website
The key to using this website is the Publications List page, which can be reached by clicking on the 'Publications' link in the menus at the top and bottom of any page. The Publications List will display up to 100 titles per page, with navigation tools provided to move to other pages. The default view is as a grid, with the cover of each publication shown (where an image is available). Hovering over any image will bring up outline details of the publication, or you can click on the image to view the full details.

The Publications List page can be sorted and filtered in various ways. For example, you could select to view only SUPs, or you could search for 'Thomas Young' to see only titles I have been involved in (either as author or editor). Most of the articles within LBMs are also indexed, so you could (for example) search for articles about 'Green Line'. Other useful filters allow users to view only those publications that are still available to buy, or which can be freely downloaded. To use the filters (and search), pick or enter your choices, then click on the 'Apply Filters' button. Click on 'Clear Filters' to revert to the full list.

In grid view, a box below the cover image (and title) will show whether the publication is still available to order from LOTS postal sales, or if it can be downloaded on this website. The list page can also be switched to List view (instead of grid), whereby more details of each publication are shown.

Clicking on any document cover image (or title) opens the Publication Details page. This has the full set of details, including information such as the year of publication, number of pages, quantity of photos etc. This page repeats the links to download PDF versions where available. Previous/Next buttons at the top of this page enable you to navigate through your results list. For example, if you had searched for 'Thomas Young', the Previous/Next buttons will take you to the previous or next publication that mentions my name. The order will be whatever you specified on the list page.

If you require any further assistance, or if you have found an error or problem, please get in touch. You can send me a message using the Contact Us page (links in menus at top and bottom of each page), or you can e-mail me directly at lotstlbeditor 'at' gmail.com.