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| This photo shows how peripheral details in a photograph can sometimes provide new information about a particular service vehicle. The main subject is DAF 2500 articulated lorry A869GRU, one of a pair acquired second-hand by London Coaches in the late 1980s to serve as driver training vehicles. London Coaches had evolved from the Tours and Charters section of London Buses, and ran open-top buses on London sightseeing tours and coaches on excursions and commuter services. It initially used Battersea bus garage before moving to the larger garage in Wandsworth. One of the first parts of London Buses to be privatised (in 1992), it was re-sold in late 1997 to Arriva, the recently-adopted new name for the Cowie Group. A869GRU was allocated fleetnumber DT1 on paper (with DT2 being similar B221PFX), and was thought to have been sold in about 2001. However, this undated photo has some clues that indicate it was taken in late-2002. The two buses alongside are MCW Metrobus double-deckers, many of which were transferred from the former Leaside and South London fleets under Arriva ownership. Most were converted to open top but this pair are closed top and, more interestingly, are blinded for London bus route 185. At the start of the new millennium there was an effort made by LRT/TfL to attract more companies to bid to run London bus services. One of the results was the unlikely involvement of Durham Travel Services, a company that had only been created a couple of years previously and which mainly ran National Express coach services from a base in Peterlee in the North East. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the company chose to use a different fleetname (London Easylink) when it was awarded the tender to operate route 185 in early 2001. It later added single-deck route 42 (which had earlier been operated from the National London base in Catford), but in August 2002 the company went into receivership. At 3pm on the 21st, all drivers working on the two routes were radioed and told to disembark their passengers and return to the depot immediately, where the buses were effectively impounded. This was an unprecedented and intolerable situation and within a few hours a limited service was restored to both routes using buses from various operators. Blue Triangle was tasked with coordinating the service on route 185 but, not having enough buses of its own, also employed an amazing variety of vehicles from Amberlee, Carousel, First London, London Central, Metrobus, Red Route and Sullivan Buses. From early September, 'Arriva The Original London Sightseeing Tour' became involved, this being the new name for the former London Coaches sightseeing operation and usually abbreviated (thankfully) to Arriva TOLST! They used closed-top Metrobuses, initially without blinds, though as this photo shows, fairly good blind displays were soon sourced. After six months the service was reassigned to East Thames Buses, at the time TfL's in-house 'operator of last resort', and used the buses originally acquired by Durham Travel to run the route! It was not to be the last time the 185 was involved in complications though, as I tried to describe back in 2006. The bottom line (finally!) is that A869GRU remained in stock until at least late-2002, and I will update the database shortly. |
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| Photographer: | Photo ID: | 7017 | |
| Photo date: | c.11/2002 | Size: | Regular |
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| Date added: | 11/12/2021 | ||