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Routemaster Buses

Although ostensibly a London bus, the Routemaster with its driver/ conductor team, hand-rolled route number indicator, and hop-onhop-off doorway, has become an icon, instantly recognisable across the globe. It is the bus that all toy buses are based on, the bus that children draw with crayons, the bus that is emblazoned across souvenirs and which appears in countless film scenes where the director requires a shot that instantly says ‘London’.

Remarkably, despite the fact that Routemasters regularly drove up and down London streets until the end of 2005, the last one was manufactured as long ago as 1968. Launched in the late ’50s, they were made for just over ten years; 2,876 rolling off the production line in that time. It is a testament to their robust design and popularity that they hung around for so long.

Originally, the Routemaster was intended as a replacement for an ageing and expensive fleet of trolley buses and trams. It could hold 64 passengers, which was more than its predecessor, and weighed less, so was much cheaper to run. It was also remarkably light on its feet, making it an easier vehicle to drive. The driver was cut off from the passengers in his own cab at the front, and a separate conductor at the back sold tickets, helped old ladies with their shopping, and gave young scallywags a clip round the ear.

The most notable feature of the Routemaster was the open platform which allowed passengers to jump on and off, even if the bus wasn’t at a designated stop. This was back in the days when running for a bus was actually quite a good idea because, providing the traffic was slow and you had a reasonable turn of foot, you actually stood a chance of catching up with it and jumping on.

Of course, the open platform also meant it was a lot easier to fall off, and most Londoners have stories of poor unfortunate travellers who came a cropper. And then there were the cheeky oiks who would jump on for a free ride until the conductor noticed them and shooed them off.

London Transport started to introduce one-person operated buses in the 1970s, with many single-deckers being put into operation, but the Routemaster still hung on to many routes, especially in the centre of London. Even privatisation in 1984 didn’t kill them off, with many of the new companies refurbishing these buses from the ’60s and giving them a fresh lease of life.

In fact, these legendary vehicles survived well into the 21st century, when the then mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, ordered their decommissioning. This coming from a man who, just a few years before, had said that ‘only some sort of ghastly dehumanised moron would want to get rid of Routemasters’. To be fair, the main reason for the move was the need for disabled access to buses – the one thing the Routemaster could not offer.

The last route to be served by a Routemaster was the 159 from Marble Arch to Streatham, and the final journey took place on 9 December 2005. Such was the public interest that crowds flocked the route and sometimes even blocked the road. Hundreds of people turned up to bid a much-loved bus a fond farewell.

The Routemaster has not completely vanished. In London they are used for two special heritage routes, the 9 from Olympia to Aldwych and the 15 from Trafalgar Square to Tower Hill. There are also examples of the vehicle elsewhere in the country, with many local firms buying up stock as it was decommissioned. So there is still a chance to see a few of them for a while yet.

And in 2012, the new London mayor, Boris Johnson introduced an updated version of the Routemaster. The sleek new design is very modern, but keeps the classic open platform – something old, something new.

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