Route 81

Route 81
13 December 2006

One of the longest established, and one of the most intensive, tentacles of central area bus operation beyond the London boundary is the 81. However it is probably even more famous for being the very first tendered London bus route. There is a connection, in that the level of subsidy required to operate routes outside London was a concern, and getting costs down by way of tendering enabled joint LRT/County funding, so cross-border routes were made a priority in the early phases of tendering.

The 1984 LRT act enabled London Regional Transport to invite tenders for the provision of bus services, and six out of the first tranche of 12 routes awarded passed from London Buses operation to other operators. The 81 passed to London Buslines Limited, a subsidiary of Len Wright Travel, one of two privately owned operators to win work, and the 05:00 journey from Hounslow on 13 July 1985 was the very first tendered bus service.

The base for the new bus operation was in Lampton, just north of Hounslow, with full maintenance facilities at Len Wright's Isleworth premises. Later expansion saw this replaced by new premises in Bridge Road, Southall, in October 1989.

Nine ex-London Transport Daimler Fleetlines were purchased from Ensignbus and painted into a yellow and brown livery. This also started a trend: many operators found these LT cast-offs perfectly serviceable once all the fancy gizmos that LT had specified were removed! The Fleetlines also restored double deck operation to the route following its conversion from Routemasters to SM class Swifts in 1970; latterly, Leyland Nationals had been used. That said, further tender wins resulted in an order for six new Leyland Lynx, which settled down mostly on the 81 after delivery in 1987.

The route was lost on re-tendering in 1995 to the newly privatised Westlink low-cost unit of London Buses, based at Hounslow Heath. Westlink was originally sold to its management, but they very quickly sold out to West Midlands Travel, who in turn sold out to National Express! However in September 1995 National Express disposed of the small Westlink operation to its neighbour, London United. Since then the two fleets have been gradually merged, with the 81’s allocation later transferring to London United’s Hounslow garage. After a second spell at Hounslow Heath the route is now run entirely out of Hounslow again.

The route is still mainly single deck, Westlink initially having used Optare Deltas. A mix of Lynx and all-Leyland Olympians were used during the first operation from Hounslow around 2000. Loss of route R70 later that year saw the fairly new low floor Darts on that route cascaded to the 81, which also had a frequency increase from every 20 to every 15 minutes to compensate for the loss of capacity; even then one double deck Olympian working was retained in the morning peak to cope with schools loadings.

Photo © John Bennett.

There has been little change since then, although contract renewal in July 2005 resulted in dual door vehicles being specified. These were cascaded from route H22 that November, being replaced thereon by shorter DPS class vehicles displaced from route 33. Here DP 81 (V781 FKH) starts off from the Hounslow end of the route on Wednesday 22nd March 2006.

The Olympian (latterly a Volvo/Alexander model) was finally displaced at the same time by cross-linking the morning bus with one working on the 120 that operated only in the afternoon, made possible by re-allocating the route to Hounslow once again. In addition to the one morning peak working, a second all-day working was converted to double deck to cover certain trips heavily used by shift workers in the Poyle area.

In addition to part of the Monday to Friday service, the Sunday service is unofficially double deck. The 81 has become incredibly busy in the last few years and with the frequency being halved on Sundays passengers were frequently being left behind, so use is made of double deckers spare on other routes. The main types at Hounslow are Alexander and Plaxton bodied Volvo B7TLs, and so we have respectively VA 92 (W126 EON) turning into Slough Bus Station and VP 109 (W453 BCW) setting off at the other end of the same bus station, both pictured on the occasion of the second Slough/Windsor running day on 14 May 2006.

The loadings in both pictures certainly appear quite healthy even for the first/last stop on the route, with more passengers no doubt being carried to/from the various town centre stops. Loadings are still a major problem during the week as well, and options for either a further frequency increase or full double deck operation are currently being investigated.

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