Wandering™
The End of the Line
Oct 20, 2005, 11:58

Growing up outside London, as a boy I found no more an exciting prospect than a day trip to the capital. I can clearly recall the tingle that ran down my spine as we climbed off the train and hopped onto the back of a Red London Bus.

Routemaster buses soon to be thing of past in London. Photo by: Tom Ravenscroft

I’d rush straight to the front of the top deck, open the window and let the bright lights and busy streets of the city flow over me. My mother would follow me protesting. “The tube is the fastest way.” She was right, it is quick, but it’s dark and disorientating, I like to see where I’m going. If it’d been up to me, we’d have stayed on the buses all day long, ringing the bell, hopping on and off at the traffic lights and enjoying the view. It was therefore with a mixture of shock and sadness that I discovered the iconic ‘Routemaster’ double-decker buses are to be fully decommissioned by the end of the year.

Wherever I travel in the world, there are always three things people can tell me about London; Big Ben, Black Cabs and Red Buses. If quizzed further and asked to describe the bus, they will in almost every case describe the Routemaster. The distinctive curved roof, bull nose and open access platform at the rear make them a unique and instantly likeable piece of transport history, not just practical but beautiful.

Immortalised in films as diverse as Cliff Richard’s Summer Holiday and James Bond; Live and Let Die, the Routemasters have been a permanent fixture on London’s roads since the 1950’s. The innovative lightweight bus was introduced to replace the Trolleybus trams that had served greater London until that time. Such an instant hit, in a ten year period, the buses were everywhere in the capital, with over three thousand being built. Since then it’s been impossible to imagine a souvenir hat, mug or t-shirt of London not featuring one of the big red people-carriers. Just like the gondolas of Venice, the red London bus romanticises urban travel, but unlike the gondola, it’s real people not tourists that use the Routemasters to get to work. Ironically, tourists prefer to pay £16 to travel on a modern tour bus that travels the same route they could see for just £1 in authentic style on a Routemaster.

Taking a look at Big Ben while traveling on the Routemaster bus. Photo by: Tom Ravenscroft

Transport for London (TFL) has been slowly decommissioning the Routemasters for the last couple of years. In 2003 there were still 18 active routes, today there are only three, the last of which will end on December 9. Armed with this news I jumped on the number 159 on Brixton Hill in South London and headed for central London. My immediate reaction was to cover my mouth and nose to shield myself from the overpowering smell of diesel, but then I remembered one should never use an old bus without both hands free. I clung to the pole by the open back door, trying my best to counterbalance the force of the bus pulling away and attempting not to fall back out into the road.

Joking aside, an official at TFL claims that at least two people every year are fatally injured in such incidents. Clambering up the tight spiral staircase the bus veered to the right to overtake a cyclist, I stumbled, managing to grab the back of a chair and hauled myself onto the top deck. Stooping low to avoid hitting my head on the low roof I selected one seat and then decided to sit across two. It’s true, there’s not a great deal of legroom, comfort, or safety on these buses but what they lack in those departments they more than adequately make up for in charm. In order to open the window you need to turn a small metal handle countless times for each inch of downward movement you require from the glass panel. I’ve never managed to fully open one as I don’t have the energy, but I’ve always suspected they have no stop mechanism and will simply drop off onto an unsuspecting pedestrian. An overeager conductor marched down the aisle, asking for my ticket before I’d had a chance to get my breath. I produced my bus pass and sat back to enjoy the ride. The bus rattled and rumbled through the suburbs, occasionally jolting and hissing to a standstill for a bus stop or traffic jam. Glancing around the top deck I couldn’t help but admire the guttered wooden floor and exposed bolts that hold everything together.

Touring the London Eye on the Routemaster. Photo by: Tom Ravenscroft

Douglas Scott, who also invented the quintessential English Aga, designed the bus. Just like an Aga, the design hides nothing behind the plastic or rubber; it is what it is, raw, unpolished and proud. Peering through the scratched glass I wondered who else had looked out of this window in the past few decades, where they were going and what they’d been thinking. As we chugged over Westminster Bridge the passengers onboard were treated to a view of the Houses of Parliament on one side and the London Eye on the other.

The Routemaster bus takes riders to Picadily Circus. Photo by: Tom Ravenscroft

Our tour continued as the conductor answered questions about connecting buses and local sights. This personal touch affords a security and reassurance to passengers that is not offered onboard a modern bus. Instead the driver collects fares from behind a glass screen, relying on close circuit television alone to police the rest of the vehicle. One could be forgiven for thinking we were playing Monopoly as Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus and Regent Street came and went. A fluid turnover of faces onboard is a testimony to the great ease with which a metropolitan commuter uses the Routemaster. “All Change Please, All Change!” cried the conductor as we approached Marble Arch. This was the end of the line for this service, but why would anyone want to stop such an institution for good?

Trafalgar Square is just one of many sights to see on the Routemaster. Photo by: Tom Ravenscroft

The simple fact is Routemaster buses aren’t politically correct enough for the 21st Century. Increasingly, and quite rightly, transport has been designed with the elderly, disabled and impaired in mind. Modern buses have low entrances, wide doorways and space for wheelchairs, pushchairs and shopping. They’re sturdier, safer, run faster, quieter and are more reliable. They are capable of reaching greater speeds, although this is irrelevant in London’s grid locked streets. Overall the Routemaster is a transport dinosaur. It requires a driver and a conductor, unlike the modern ‘bendy buses’ or new double-deckers that have automated ticketing and separate entrances and exits.

A belated campaign was recently begun to try and stop the total decommission of the Routemaster, but the cries are too limp and too late. It’s impossible to argue that the Routemaster is a sensible universal vehicle, as it can’t accommodate all. But there is a strong feeling amongst Londoners that at least some of the routes should remain. The price of progress needn’t be the complete loss of great institutions of the past. If the modernisation policy of buses were followed to its logical conclusion across the capital in general, Big Ben would have a digital clock face rather than the grand old hands that Londoners set their watches by. Yes, it might be easier to tell the time with a digital clock, but there are other clocks in London. In the same way, there are plenty of other buses in London that are modern, clean and accessible so why kill off the last few routes that still make a home for the old workhorses?

I’ll keep riding the Routemasters to the very end. Almost every Londoner I’ve spoken to has been keen to see the old buses stay. Some weren’t aware of the decommissioning, but most simply shrug, “what a shame, but there’s nothing we can do.” True to form, us English don’t like to make a fuss, so we’ve sat in silence, watching our heritage be stripped from us, month-by-month, year-by-year. I’m saddened that my children will never experience the same joy as I did on the buses. When inevitably at the end of this year, the last bus is parked for the final time at the depot, all of London will truly miss an old friend.

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