Just as Connex was being ousted from its South Central train franchise, the company was beginning to become a more familiar face on south London buses. This process was accelerated by the company’s purchase of the troubled Limebourne operation, and a press release from London Buses at the time boasted of the improvements to services that would follow. Limebourne had been notorious for routinely coming bottom in London Buses’ league tables of operator performance; interestingly, what is now called Connex Battersea (the former Limebourne operation) is doing somewhat better performance-wise than the original Connex Bus operation out of Croydon.

One very clear improvement, albeit one that could probably have come about without Connex’s intervention, is the conversion of no less than three of the company’s routes from overcrowded single deckers to double deck. The first of these is the 344, which was also the last to become single deck, having been converted when Limebourne took over.

The 344 was, rather surprisingly, awarded to Limebourne just as the company was struggling to get itself out of receivership in 1999. Limebourne had been part of the Q-Drive group, but Q-Drive collapsed due to financial problems with the coaching side, causing an abrupt cessation of operations when the receivers arrived. After a period when various operators helped to provide some sort of service, the management managed to salvage the bus operations, and set up a new business called Independent Way, but trading as Limebourne.

Initially some old Metrobuses from London General and Darts from Metroline were purchased, and a variety of buses was hired, including some unusual single deck Volvo Citybuses from Arriva which had recently been made spare from the 210. However, for the routes contracted for low floor operation, 17 Caetano Compass bodied Darts were ordered (the only ones in London), and were quickly joined by a further 17 for the 344.

Conversion of double deck routes to single deck operation on a slightly higher frequency was quite popular at London Buses until recently, but the capacity problems such schemes invariably cause have at last been acknowledged. In this case, it had been suggested that Limebourne was not keen to operate double deckers in any quantity, but clearly they will now that those Caetano Darts are being replaced with new Tridents on the 156 and 344 (the other route that used them, the 42, having been lost). This is a mid-contract upgrade, and TA 90 (KV02 USF) departs from Liverpool Street along Bishopsgate for Clapham Junction on 7 June.

Photo by John Delaney.

Soon after Limebourne took over the 344, the service was diverted from London Bridge Station to Liverpool Street Station, ostensibly in replacement for a special peak hours only service on the 149, although about the only bit it actually replaced was the service across Southwark Bridge — the 344 remains the only bus route to use this bridge, once served by a large number of routes. The route also swapped termini with the 49 at Clapham Junction, now running just to the Falcon rather than through the shopping area to the Northcote.

The 344 dates back to the disastrous 1991 Wandsworth area scheme, which saw a large number of routes split into sections and/or converted to single deck/minibus operation. The 170 was drastically chopped down, now running only between Roehampton and Clapham Junction with new route 344 taking over from there as far as Vauxhall. This maintained the useful links from Clapham Junction to the Battersea and Battersea Park areas. The 344 then replaced the 44 beyond Vauxhall to London Bridge via Lambeth, St. George's Circus and Southwark Bridge Road. The 44 was cut back to Vauxhall but does overlap with the 344 between Battersea and Vauxhall. The section of the 170 between Vauxhall and Aldwych was not replaced, though it was already covered by the 77A.

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Chronologically	172	H22
Numerically	340	345

See also routes 156, 42, 149, 49, 44, 87