Route 380

Route 380
16 April 2008

Route 380 started life at the end of 1990, running between Abbey Wood and Lewisham via a number of residential areas close to the 180 route, from which it took its number. The route commenced from Abbey Wood Station, on Harrow Manor Way, and ran via current route 469 via Abbey Estate and Plumstead to Woolwich, then via Wellington Road, Frances Street, Woolwich Dockyard Station, Thorntree Road, Charlton Village, Blackheath Royal Standard, Prince Charles Road, Long Pond Road, Duke Humphrey Road, Hare and Billet Road, Wat Tyler Road and Lewisham Hill to Lewisham. During the day buses terminated in Molesworth Street, at the back of Lewisham Centre, but in early mornings and evenings they terminated and stood at Lewisham Bus Station. Buses ran every 15 minutes during the day and half hourly in the evenings, with no Sunday service, using 8 new Metroriders from Plumstead garage, the first production batch built by Optare (as opposed to MCW).

Since then there have been many changes to the route. First in May 1993 came a diversion via Charlton Church Lane, Priolo Road (return Wellington Gardens) and Eastcombe Avenue, and at the other end via Alsike Road. Buses terminated at the east end of the latter, and thus no longer served Abbey Wood station directly. The daytime frequency was also upped to every 12 minutes, the vehicle requirement rising to 11. In 1995 the routeing at Abbey Wood was altered again, with the termius reverting to Harrow Manor Way, but buses reaching there via Yarnton Way and Alsike Road rather than directly – also reversing the direction in which Alsike Road was served!

1996 saw more major changes. The service was withdrawn between Abbey Wood and Woolwich (apart from garage journeys from and to Plumstead garage), this section being replaced by route 177. Although the 380 was a relatively lengthy route, this actually made the 177 a longer than the 380 had been, running all the way to Peckham. The change was said to have been to increase capacity in the Abbey Estate area, as the 177 used 9.8m Darts which would not have fitted around roads in the Charlton area, but as the capacity has since been reduced again (the 177 being replaced by the 469 in Abbey Estate and B11 in Alsike Road) this does not appear to have been needed. At the same time, a Sunday service was introduced.

In 1998 the Lewisham terminus was standardised to Molesworth Street at all times. The new contract also saw the elderly minibuses used swept aside by brand new Mercedes Varios, although these proved somewhat troublesome.

The next change occurred at the end of 1999, and was in reaction to Greenwich Council's plan to return some of the roads on Blackheath to natural heath, with Long Pond Road and part of Duke Humphrey Road being stopped up. As a result the 380 had to be re-routed; the odd routeing across the heath was purely to avoid the many traffic restrictions in the area. The best option was to divert the route via Tranquil Vale, as this would allow the route to stop closer to Blackheath village, and to facilitate this the width barrier in Tranquil Vale was altered with a bus gate in the middle. Other non-car traffic wishing to pass between the two sides of this barrier now has to take a 2-mile detour via either Belmont Hill or Blackheath Hill!

Garage journeys between Plumstead garage and Woolwich were withdrawn when a new contract commenced in January 2003, which also specified new low floor Darts. These are represented by 34373X (LV52 HGL) on the Molesworth Street stand on 15 February 2003. At the time, Stagecoach had recently introduced a new national fleet numbering system, putting an end to the London alphanumeric system. To distinguish different length of buses suffixes were added locally, with X being the very shortest length, S for 9.4m, M for 10.2m, and L for both 10.8m and the 11.3m SPDs. However, these did not seem to have much impact on the garage's (non-)ability to allocate the right buses to the right routes, and generally seem to have been dropped. That said, the 380 is restricted to these short 8.9m buses, so there is no mixing there!

Photo © John Bennett.

The last major change occurred later in 2003 when the route was extended from Woolwich to Belmarsh Prison via Broadwaters and Thamesmead West. Although this merely duplicated route 244, the change was needed to provide extra capacity to this rapidly growing area. Indeed, as more roads were built and opened, the opportunity was taken in February 2006 to divert the 380 via Hillview Drive and Battery Road, giving it a new unique section!

Photo © James Fullick.

The route alteration in February 2006 required a couple of extra buses, and two Alexander ALX200 bodied Darts, which had been hanging around at Bromley without a proper home ever since route 273 was lost to First in January 2002, were drafted in. One of these is 34252 (Y252 FJN), two views of which are seen at more or less the same spot on 14 November 2006, so we now have a pretty good all-round view of this location!

Operation was transferred from Plumstead to Catford garage on 4 November 2006. For some time, a number of routes in the Catford area, such as the 54 and 202, were operated from Plumstead as Catford was full, but Selkent has been losing a lot of routes in the south of its territory in recent years, and the situation has now reversed, with several Woolwich area routes operated from Catford. However, that may change later this year when Selkent take on several routes in the Bromley area from Metrobus.

Returning to the 380, the evening and Sunday service, which had already been improved to every 20 minutes, was further increased to every 15 minutes from October 2007 – but the Monday to Saturday daytime service remains stuck at every 12 minutes!

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Chronologically 102 183

Numerically 379 382
See also routes 180, 177, 469, B11, 244, 54, 202

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