Following 11¾ years of operation by independent operator Armchair, the 65 has now been won back by its previous operator, London United — although in that time, LU has been privatised (it was part of London Transport) and subsequently sold by its management to Transdev. LU seemed to be particularly excited about re-gaining the 65, with celebratory balloons and little furry toys provided on-bus on the first day, 29 June 2002. New Dennis Tridents with Alexander ALX400 bodywork are now the order of the day on this 20-bus route. In this view, TA 239 (LG02 FBD) sets off for Ealing Broadway, seen here leaving Eden Street in Kingston.

Photo by John Delaney.

The 65, as might be expected, is quite an historic service, although inevitably has been cut back at both ends. In 1934 it ran from North Ealing (Cleveland Road) to Leatherhead. Buses ran every 6 minutes over most of the route, but on the sparsely populated section between Hook and Leatherhead the service was reduced to every 30 minutes. New route 265 began soon after the war, starting from East Acton to join the 65 between Kew and Hook, and then diverting to serve Copt Gilders estate in Chessington.

In 1968 there was a complicated re-shuffle, with the original 265 being withdrawn and the 65 reduced to operate between Chessington (via Copt Gilders) and Ealing, the 71 making up south of Hook. The section of the 65 north of Ealing was transferred to new route 273 and is now covered by the 297.

In 1987, London Buses set up Kingston Bus, a low-cost unit based at Norbiton garage, in an effort to prevent an independent operator from grabbing the many local routes being tendered by LT. They succeeded, but Kingston Bus quickly gained an unenviable reputation, and was disbanded in 1990. One of a number of service changes made in the 1987 scheme was to cut the 65 back from the north to Kingston, the 71 becoming the major route southwards to Chessington, also taking over Copt Gilders from the 65. This actually made the 65 into quite an ideal length for modern traffic conditions, with a running time of about an hour – make routes too long and regularity suffers, make them too short and they are of little use to passengers.

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Chronologically	505	175
Numerically	64	69

See also routes 260, 237, 71, 297, 465