 | Photo © John Nicholas Bennett. |
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A surprise tender result early in 2005 was the award of two routes from London United to National Car Parks (of all people!). 27 Dart SLF/Pointer 2s have been obtained to work the routes, and a new base has been established in Twickenham Trading Estate, large enough to double the fleet size. (Rumours that the buses would be parked overnight in one of the firm’s car parks proved unfounded!) Many of the managers are ex-London United employees.
The buses are very similar to those used by London United but are painted in allover red. The class code is not too imaginative: here NCP 14 (SN55 HKV) sets off from Hammersmith, seen here in Hammersmith Bridge Road about to cross the bridge. Due to structural weakness the bridge cannot take double deckers, even though all the routes that cross it carry very heavy loads in peak times.
| Photo © John Nicholas Bennett. |
As can be seen the route now terminates at Fulwell, Stanley Road; previously it ran on round the corner to terminate in London United’s Fulwell garage forecourt, from where it was operated, but the change of operator meant a new terminus was needed, and closure of a former staff club located at the front of Travel London’s premises on land owned by TfL provided the perfect opportunity. It is to be hoped that the shortened route will also help the reliability of a route that has been performing quite badly for some time.
Low route numbers in London usually mean that a route has at least its origins in central London. The 33 is no exception, having been a Richmond – Aldwych service, operated by Mortlake and Twickenham garages, except on Sundays when the route was extended to Old Ford and operation shared between Clay Hall (Old Ford) and Middle Row (Kensington). There were also extensions at Summer weekends to Hampton Court. However, the section east of Hammersmith largely duplicated routes 73 and 9, and therefore from March 1937 the route was cut back to terminate at Brook Green, Hammersmith. By way of consolation, the 33 was extended from Richmond to Hounslow via Twickenham and Whitton, replacing route 27, and Hounslow garage became the main operator. Route 27 was reduced to run on Sundays only, and indeed on that day of the week the 33 was withdrawn.
For a few years in the 1960s, the 33 was replaced in its entirety by an extension of the 73 (thus Tottenham to Hounslow!) although the 33 was re-introduced on the same routeing from 1967.
Relatively recently, the section between Twickenham and Hounslow was taken off, being left to the 281. Just as, forty years previously, the 27 had been withdrawn from this section and diverted to run to Teddington (albeit in stages), now the 33 was diverted at Twickenham to run via Strawberry Hill to Teddington, with a projection to Fulwell, where was its new home garage. Thus, for the second time, the 33 replaced the 27!
In the last ten years, there has been much messing about with the frequency. The closure of Hammersmith Bridge forced the conversion to little Dennis Darts, and a 10 minute service was run, suitably enhanced at peak hours. More recently, the service was enhanced between Richmond and Hammersmith, but the section out to Fulwell dropped to every 15 minutes. Then the full 7-8 minute service was extended to operate throughout, a considerable improvement, albeit at the expense of part of route 290 into Richmond. Later, the frequency was very slightly reduced to every 8 minutes.
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