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Following a fairly frought five years with Capital Citybus/First Capital/First London East, the 25 has now reverted to Stagecoach East London operation. It is not often that major routes change operator, as the sheer scale of the task of finding perhaps 100 extra drivers to cover a route of over 30 buses makes this extremely difficult, so the original award to Capital Citybus on 26 June 1999 was quite a surprise; at 30 buses, it was and remains the largest London route to change operator as a result of re-tendering. Indeed Stagecoach will have had an even greater problem recruiting drivers, as the peak vehicle requirement had risen to 37 when they took over.

The first few months of First operation saw use of second-hand MCW Metrobuses, somewhat intrusive in a part of London which traditionally was firmly Titan territory. New short wheelbase Dennis Tridents were introduced as soon as possible; however, these new double deck low floor buses seated just 59, owing to very generous legroom provision. This led to extreme overcrowding; the buses had replaced 79-seat Volvo Olympians used by Stagecoach with no real change to frequencies! These early Tridents were quickly replaced with long wheelbase examples when the opportunity arose for cascades (first to routes 97/357, then 191), but that was not enough to solve the capacity issues.

The introduction of congestion charging saw a new schedule introduced with a hefty service increase to a requirement for 40 buses. This may have helped in the short term, but buses soon filled up again! Re-tendering again in 2004 brought the predictable and currently fashionable response of converting the route to articulated single deckers. These have a much higher theoretical capacity than double deckers, with around 140 passenger spaces rather than 90, although most of this is standing room rather than seated and it is questionable if it can be achieved in practice.

Photo © Lawrence Living.

Here therefore is Stagecoach 23048 (LX04 KZW), setting off from Ilford on Saturday 26th June 2004, the first day back with Stagecoach. The route inaugurated Stagecoach's new Waterden Road garage as an operational base, having previously been used for storage. There are three bus garages in Waterden Road; First call theirs Hackney, while Stagecoach have two on opposite sides of the road. The original one is called Stratford and goes back to London Buses days when it was opened to take on midibus work from Bow garage.

The artic conversion initially resulted in the withdrawal of three evening peak journeys and a consequent reduction in peak vehicle requirement from 40 to 37. A weekend routeing variation via Tower Hill instead of Bank was also withdrawn. However even the larger artics started leaving people behind – one theory is that, because they operate on an “open boarding” principle where the only means of revenue protection is random (and seemingly infrequent) checks, passengers are deserting the parallel District Line for the 25 and the prospect of a free ride. Either way it has now been necessary to introduce a further frequency increase, taking the PVR to 42, at the expense of route 453, which was reduced.

The 25, unsurprisingly, has a long history. The traditional route was from Victoria via New Bond Street to Oxford Circus, then the present route via Bank, Aldgate, Stratford to Ilford, then variously on to Seven Kings (25), Barkingside (25A) or Becontree Heath (25B). There was also the 25C, which diverted at Manor Park to East Ham, while the 25B was extended beyond Victoria Station to Ebury Bridge. Each route ran every 6 minutes on Mondays to Fridays, providing an incredible 40 buses per hour on the common sections; something like 150 buses must have been allocated, and the routes were operated from garages in Seven Kings, Forest Gate, Upton Park and (oddly) Hammersmith (Riverside) on the 25.

Various parts have fallen by the wayside over the years, the 25B variant from Victoria to Becontree Heath eventually becoming the main service and losing its suffix in about 1950. By 1982 the route was running in two overlapping sections, Victoria to Ilford and Aldgate to Becontree Heath; in that year the latter section was renumbered 225, albeit running to Limehouse instead of Aldgate. Both routes were Routemaster operated, but the 225 was soon converted to one-person operation using Titans — no doubt the original reason for the split. The 225 also reverted to Aldgate this time to match loadings. In 1988, the 25 (now Victoria to Ilford) was also converted to one-person operation, and consequently the 225 was renumbered back to 25 to match. The combined 25 was operated from Bow garage and needed no less than 60 Leyland Titans! The weekend diversion via Tower was also introduced at this time.

The first real cutbacks to this very long route did not come until 1992, when the Victoria to Oxford Circus section was handed over to route 8. The sections were retained however, with Seven Kings garage now operating Becontree Heath to Aldgate and Bow from Ilford to Oxford Circus. In March 1993 a local route scheme saw the 25 cut back to Ilford with a straight through service; new route 128, with the 129, covered the section to Becontree Heath.

However, this did give a reduced service between Ilford and Aldgate, leading to the very heavy loadings that have persisted to this day, especially between Stratford and Aldgate where the 25 is the only route. Capital Citybus, in their bid, proposed a reversion to sectional operation during the day on Mondays to Saturdays, with the sections being Ilford to Aldgate and Stratford to Oxford Circus. This very sensible suggestion was turned down on the grounds of service simplification! The inner section would have been operated by the above mentioned Hackney garage, with the outer section operating from Dagenham (some way off route!) – in the event the whole route went to Dagenham.

This base was moved to Rainham, and Rainham's inability to accommodate the long artics was cited as a reason for the route reverting to Stagecoach operation, though I would have thought a base in Hackney would be more economical anyway. An interesting coincidence is that First gave Rainham the code R, which was also the code for Hammersmith Riverside garage, which, as mentioned above, had an allocation on the 25 at one time!

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See also routes 97, 357, 191, 453, 8, 128

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