 | Photo © James Fullick. |
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No opportunities for strange workings on route 55, as Leyton garage’s service allocation consists entirely of these Dennis Trident double deckers. However, since the previous picture was taken the fleet has been renewed, with the early low height vehicles replaced by standard London specification vehicles. 17818 (LX03 BXN) was seen in New Oxford Street on 31 October 2005.
| Photo © James Fullick. |
The 55 is an extremely busy route, and despite improvements buses apparently cannot cope at certain times of day. Perhaps that is why the Mayor selected the route for a trial of crew operation on “ordinary” buses – the second time the route has been converted from driver only to crew! This was after Ken Livingstone's first election to office, on a manifesto which included increasing crew operation. Although some Routemasters were placed back into service any major increase would have had to use modern buses.
Crewed operation using doored buses is not always too successful, as passengers get confused and try to pay the driver even though there is a conductor on board. Of course, who can blame them with several different methods of bus boarding in force! Nonetheless trials were carried out to see if any time saving would be possible. The unsurprising conclusion was that although there was a small saving it was not enough to offset the extra costs involved, and the experiment was abandoned as soon as Ken thought he could get away with it.
The 55 started in October 1969 using RTs from Leyton garage running from Walthamstow garage to Marylebone via Walthamstow, Leyton Green, Clapton, Hackney, Cambridge Heath, Shoreditch, Old Street, Oxford Street and Baker Street. The number perhaps recalled trolleybuses 555 (Leyton Green to Bloomsbury) and part of 557 (Chingford Mount and Walthamstow to Shoreditch and Liverpool Street), withdrawn a few years earlier. The route diverted at Bloomsbury to Aldwych in April 1971. It was converted to one persion operation in October 1972 using DMSs from Leyton – the only OPO double deckers there at the time – and a peak hour extension to Waterloo was added, which lasted until April 1978.
It was however converted back to crew operation, using Routemasters, in January 1981, being cut back from Walthamstow Garage to Walthamstow Central and diverted again at Bloomsbury, this time via the 38 through to Victoria. In February 1983 it was diverted to Whipps Cross, with route 48 covering the section from Walthamstow, and longer Routemasters were introduced. The crew operation lasted until 1987 when OPO operation resumed, first on Sundays (using Leyland Nationals!) and then daily using Leyland Titans – the first at Leyton, with the type and garage codes matching as 'T'! At the same time the route was withdrawn west of Tottenham Court Road.
The route was lost upon re-tendering in February 1990 to Kentish Bus with new Leyland Olympians. As part of the scheme introducing route 56 the 55 was cut back to Clapton Pond, the shortest form the route has had. KB initially used the ex-BRS premises in Ruckholt Road, Leyton, although LT called it Temple Mills (TM). They later moved into the mothballed (and half-empty to this day!) former London Buses Ash Grove garage, which Kentish Bus called Cambridge Heath, although the London Buses TM code was transferred and was later adopted by KB – unusually being written onto the buses in neat marker pen!
The route was re-extended as far as Oxford Circus in the central London changes of July 1992, in compensation for the 22B being cut back from Piccadilly Circus to Tottenham Court Road. More ambitious in 1997 was a re-extension to Leyton, after the completion of an extensive bus priority scheme in Lea Bridge Road. At the time a major extension of a route of this kind was considered quite radical, although happily it has set a trend. In February 1998 the route was restored to East London's Leyton garage upon re-tendering – the recent extension having conveniently extended the route quite close to the garage! Initially Titans were once again used, but new Volvo Olympians quickly arrived, and then the planned Tridents late in 1999.
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