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RML 2435 at Oxford Circus on 19 February 1980. There were a few instances of 30` long Routemasters being allocated as driver trainers to garages that didn`t actually operate `long` Routemasters in service. Didn`t really matter if space existed but it was a strange idea to put three RCL trainers into Mortlake Garage where the three narrow openings precluded the use of RML`s on the 9`s. Plus quite a challenge for a trainee driver to get safely in and out of the garage.
Bizarrely after uploading a picture yesterday of a bus with no legal lettering, this one also has none displayed!
Forty two years ago today 16 April 1983 on Romford Road at Manor Park, Leyland engine RM 1599 looks as if it may have a problem. If someone had predicted back then that a few years later it - and RM 427 behind - would be running in service in Scotland along with dozens of other RM`s, I doubt it would have been believed.
RM 1092 heading along Main Road, Romford on 18 September 1982. It wasn`t usual to see a side advert space looking like this. I can`t find another similar picture. Generally an advert removed would be immediately replaced on the same night. Maybe this task was spread over two nights but it does go some way to explaining the use of pink blank paper to cover an expired advert much quicker than removing it and that would make the overall appearance a little nicer than here.
Capturing on film a bus en-route to or from Aldenham was a matter of luck given that the exact movement time or route details wouldn`t be common knowledge. Here near Turnpike Lane Station on 26 October 1981, RM 619 is on its way to Aldenham for overhaul having been collected from Stamford Hill Garage.
Just off Waterloo Road in Cornwall Road near the Old Vic Theatre was a very large bus stand used by multiple routes either as a terminus point and/or a scheduled meal relief location for routes that didn`t directly pass their operating garage. A few such `remote canteens` away from a bus garage existed around the network but this was the largest one really close to central London. The site did eventually become a bus garage - or to be more precise a bus base - when the Red Arrow network and the 11`s moved in. RM 1554 and a very new T 496 are seen on July 30 1982
RM 1116 heading south over Waterloo Bridge on 8 December 1982. A rather casual driving position! And having just had a quick trawl through around one hundred pictures, I can`t find another example of a wiper blade parked in the middle of the screen directly in the drivers main field of vision.
RM 538 on London Road approaching North End, Croydon, on 14 April 1983. 60 route was a reassigned number introduced to the Croydon area just as the first mass RM withdrawals began in 1982. It only lasted a few months before conversion to one person operation a few days after I took this picture along with several other views of RM`s on this route to record a short lived allocation.
RM 493 passing Bromley Hill Cemetery on 15 August 1983. This must have been towards the end of the terminus being described as `LT GARAGE` as the other pictures I took on this day show BROMLEY COMMON GARAGE. Looking at this picture it doesn`t seem possible that the word `GARAGE` would fit - but it did.
The refreshed paint on the wheels suggest that the bus had recently been through an MOT test - or FFD test as it was known on LT - freedom from defect.
MD 68 at Minories, Aldgate on 24 October 1981. Just to add to the usual poor presentation standards of Peckham Garage, it looks as if the wash brush that does the offside is contaminated with diesel or engine oil which is being deposited on buses.
RM 1633 and RM 2078 at the Highgate Archway bus stand on 7 April 1983. So many routes - nearly all of them RM operated - used this as a terminus back then but from what I`ve seen now on Street View, the road layout is very different with traffic flow in the opposite direction.
RM 134 heading south over Vauxhall Bridge on 30 November 1979. My first thought on seeing the lack of traffic was that this had to be a Sunday. But on checking, unexpectedly it was actually a Friday. It was also the day that Pink Floyd`s album `The Wall` was released.
RM 1300 at Bromley South on 25 June 1982. I was probably in the area to capture on film a few 94`s as the route would soon be adjusted into routes 208 and 261 which did at least keep RM`s for a little while.
I would have to admit that the concept of bringing a bus service to areas previously denied one because of roads being unsuitable for full size buses, was no bad thing. I just couldn`t get enthusiastic about the choice of vehicle for the routes concerned and thus I have few pictures of the FS class. To me, a Ford Transit was not a bus! FS 19 is at Golders Green on 20 October 1979 awaiting its next trip around the narrow residential roads of Hampstead Garden Suburb. The ethos behind the creation of this ground breaking community eluded me for almost forty more years until I researched it and came to understand how architecturally and socially important the place was. I subsequently ran several coach trips to it which were always popular.
At Addison Bridge at Olympia on 2 August 1980, maybe RM 456 has been rushed into service to replace a defective bus. The setting of the blinds looks a bit hurried and West Kensington would be a turning point rather than a scheduled destination. And if it was done in a bit of a rush, someone has forgotten the running number plate.
On diversion in The City of London, RM 836 is turning from Lothbury into Bartholomew Lane having missed out Princes Street on 24 October 1981. Typical scruffy New Cross Garage condition!
30 September 1982 and RM 1056 is on Edgware Road heading towards Marble Arch with the A 40 flyover in the background. Unusually presentable for a Peckham Garage bus but then I realised it was a recent transfer in from Upton Park as I have a picture of it on the 101`s taken a few weeks earlier.
Le Touquet - dunes and beach
This is in fact the first real photo I have taken with my "new" used Nikon D810. Those bodies got so cheap and I could lay my hands on one with just 9100 clicks on the shuttercounter
I will need to tweak the base-curve in darktable, but the detail (36MP) is incredible
Le Touquet (F) 2021
all rights: Stefan Schmitz
RM 194 on London Road, North Croydon forty two years ago today 14 April 1983. Do Crompton`s still exist as an electrical manifactures? I think they supplied electrical systems for BR diesel locomotives and the Class 33`s were known by the Crompton name.
Uploading this at Midnight on New Year`s Eve and thinking of how Trafalgar Square was the epicentre of celebrations before The London Eye had even been thought of. So here`s RML 2376 crossing Trafalgar Square and heading towards Whitehall on 16 September 1982. Happy New Year!
Apart from a few `casualties`, almost all of the original 117 members of the first batch of DMS`s went on to give ten years or more service with LT and many gained repaints into 1980 such as DMS 59 seen here at West Croydon bus station on 8 March 1980. By this time though, swathes of later into service DMS`s were gone when their initial seven year certificates expired as were several much higher numbered examples that were given up on through mechanical failure.
RML 2635 in Whitehall almost opposite Horse Guards on 15 November 1982. Given the architectural significance of the self supporting roof of Stockwell Garage, the bus is displaying the sort of roof damage normally associated with low roof girders. The front dome looks to have been repeatedly scraped and the offside of the rear dome looks to have taken quite a bashing.