Route 195

Route 195
12 August 2009

Route 195 recently had an extension from Ealing Hospital to Brentford. This serves the dual purpose of linking Brentford and Boston Manor with Ealing Hospital and Southall, and providing extra capacity on the busy section between Hanwell and Brentford. The extension means that existing double deck additional journeys on route E8 will be withdrawn when a new contract begins later this year. One significant drawback of the change to the 195 is that it no longer serves the grounds of Ealing Hospital, which has led to some complaints from passengers. Additionally, Southall's notorious traffic congestion provides unique challenges in providing reliable services on routes in the area, and the extension cannot have helped.

Until recently, the route was operated by Ealing Community Transport on a contract which began in April 2003 and had been extended to run until 2010. From the outset a batch of Caetano Nimbus bodied Dart SLFs had been the main allocation, and some additional vehicles were acquired secondhand for the Brentford extension from Dockland's Buses, where they had been displaced from route 167 by new vehicles.

However, for undisclosed reasons, the route was transferred to First Centrewest at extremely short notice, starting on 14 March 2009, as a temporary contract running until the original contract was due to expire (after 7 years, as it had already been extended by 2 years for good performance). It is understood that other local operators were also asked to take the route on, but Centrewest was selected, perhaps because they are able to run it from their own garage in Greenford, which is right next door to ECT's base, which would assist in providing some sort of continuity.

Nonetheless Centrewest have supplied their own vehicles, and ECT's Darts are currently sitting spare in their yard! By coincidence the buses used at first were yet again Caetano bodied Darts, recently made spare from route 165 at Dagenham by the introduction of new vehicles to that route. However, a further re-shuffle of First's Dart allocations has brought in the older Marshall bodied DML variant, and thus DML41754 (X754 HLR), a former Capital Citybus machine, is seen nearing journey’s end in Boston Manor Road, Brentford, on Saturday 23 May 2009. Somerset Road is to the left. Windmill Road, used by E2s to get to Northfields, is the turning off to the right in front of the block of flats.

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Chronologically 246 211

Numerically 194 196
See also routes E8, 167

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