North London route 113 provides what is these days a rare opportunity to ride on a day bus route right from the outskirts of Greater London into the heart of the west end. The route commences from Edgware, and appropriately is now once again run by Edgware garage, having been a Cricklewood operation for some years.

However, Edgware is not the most distant point from the centre on the route, as buses initially head further north to join the Edgware Way! From there it is a fairly brisk run along the dual carriageway as far as West Hampstead. The 113 probably owes its survival at this length to the combination of the existence of this good road and the need to run frequent bus services along it. There are other roads that could run buses into London, but are served only infrequently or not at all due to lack of anybody much to serve: for instance the A13 to Southend (route 173), A20 Sidcup Road (not served), A3 Kingston By-Pass (265), A40 Western Avenue (route 95), A4 Great West Road (route H91). By contrast the 113’s A41 Edgware/Watford/Hendon Way runs through quite a lot of residential areas for which it is the main bus service.

A new contract commencing in April 2000 surprisingly did not specify new vehicles — even more surprisingly given that the existing vehicles were elderly Metrobuses rather than modern vehicles. Modern Dennis Lances were used on the route between 1993 and 1997; although these fast buses were ideal for the outer section of the 113, they could not cope with loadings between West Hampstead and Oxford Circus, where the route parallelled the 13. This resulted in their withdrawal and the return of Metrobuses; sale of the Lances proved very difficult, and they did not finally go until 2001.

However, consideration was given to upgrading the vehicles, perhaps to more modern but standard floor double deckers, which could have been ex-Singapore long wheelbase Olympians, except that London Transport was not too happy with them. In the end they were replaced by new Volvo B7TL double deckers, of the long wheelbase variety which so far only Metroline has brought to London. Here VPL 219 (LK51 XGO) passes along Oxford Street in the morning on 12 March 2002, nearing the final destination of this long route.

Photo by Robert Munster.

The 113 is certainly a survivor — it has been running over essentially the same route since at least 1946. However, before that it was a rather different service, running from Hendon to Canons Park, via the Watford Way as far as Apex Corner but then via Selvage Lane and Hale Lane into Edgware. The section from Oxford Circus was route 121, in fact running from Peckham Rye via route 12. The service between Hendon and Mill Hill is now rather less frequent than then; the present service on the 113 is every 10 minutes, compared to every 3½ minutes then! Even that is an improvement on the 20 minute service previously running between Hendon and Edgware, albeit that the service is now supplemented every 20 minutes during shopping hours by route 186. The 121 was however every 10 minutes, the same as the 113 now!

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Numerically	112	114

See also routes 173, 265, 95, H91, 82, 260, 186