 | Photo © James Fullick. |
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The 453 was formed from the trunk route 53 on 15 February 2003, the weekend that the central London congestion charge began. The 53, traditionally Plumstead Common to West Hampstead, later Camden Town, and until recently Oxford Circus, was cut back to Whitehall and reduced in frequency. The 453 operates from Deptford to Oxford Circus over the same route, and then on to Marylebone, but despite effectively being a split off of part of route 53, the new route was tendered, but was awarded to Stagecoach from Plumstead garage, which operated the 53.
The route was specified for Citaro Gs, known as “Bendy Buses,” although standard double deckers had to be used for the first four weeks as Mercedes could not deliver enough in time. However, the route has generated above usual interest in that it has become the first artic route to be tendered and awarded to a different operator. This potentially created a problem for Selkent, which had lost its only artic operated route. As with other companies, the drivers selected to drive these large vehicles were put on improved pay and conditions, and the route loss means they had nowhere to go. Forcing them back onto standard pay would not be acceptable, so they would either have to drive normal buses on the enhanced pay, or transfer to the new operator.
The contract change also prompted the first order for new artics for over 2 years. The last artic conversion was of route 29 in January 2006, which more-or-less completed the list of obvious routes for the type. The vehicles are leased, so Selkent do not have the problem of disposing of them – it has been suggested that they may be used as a float to cover while the rest of the artic fleet have their rear door steps modified to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act (they are running on a special exemption at present), and in the longer term are likely to be used for much needed frequency increases on other routes.
| Photo © James Fullick. |
The new vehicles are the first Euro 5 engined Citaros in London – previous examples were Euro 3, which is no longer allowed under emissions regulations. MAL97 (BD57 WDA) typifies the new London General fleet, seen at the top of Whitehall on 16 February, the first day of the new contract. The last few vehicles were late being certified, and some Red Arrow vehicles had to be borrowed from Waterloo garage for the weekend (their normal routes, 507 and 521, fortunately run Monday to Friday only).
Some cosmetic changes have also been made to the design, most notably inside and around the rear end, and so here is a view of MAL105 (BX57 WDR) at County Hall on the same day. Although not the most scenic location, with construction work and the former Waterloo International rail terminal just visible in the background, the recent demolition of the hideous building in the middle of the roundabout here means it is possible to see the Houses of Parliament, situated on the opposite bank of the River Thames, reflected in the rear window.
 | Photo © James Fullick. |
The 453 has taken a lot of pressure off of the 53. The 453 starts from the first really busy single stop on the 53, at Deptford, outside Addey & Stanhope school, then follows the 53 via New Cross, New Cross Gate, Old Kent Road, Bricklayers Arms, Elephant & Castle, St. George's Circus, Westminster, to Whitehall, then Regent Street, Oxford Street, Great Portland Street, Regent's Park and to Marylebone. The section north of Oxford Circus was a new service designed to create a new south – west link at Regent's Park Underground station, and doesn't seem very busy from my observations.
This was the second of the “bendy bus” routes to operate out of Zone one (after the 436; the 507 and 521 were the first Bendy Buses, operating from the 5th of June 2002). In common with all bendy routes in London, it is a ticket-less route – which is to say, tickets are not issued by the driver; whether they are issued at all is another question! Anecdotal evidence suggests that fare evasion rates are quite high despite more intensive ticket checking than normal, sometimes backed up by the British Transport Police stopping a whole bus and then checking everyone’s tickets.
A daft situation arose to begin with, because the originally planned terminus at Deptford’s Seager development (by the DLR station) fell through. As there was nowhere else suitable to turn an artic, buses run empty all the way to and from Lewisham (Jerrard Street) to turn round and stand. This meant up to 3 buses were tied up all day just running to and fro empty! This also resulted in the quirk that buses started and finished their journeys at a request stop – despite being so busy, the Deptford stop is not compulsory.
One wonders if Stagecoach's agreement for the 453 to be tendered, rather than negotiated, may have influenced the outcome of the tendering exercise, as running the route from Plumstead was rather inefficient. The loss of the route to London General came as little surprise given those circumstances. Stagecoach proposed to extend the whole service to Catford garage, where the route would then have been based, allowing some Woolwich area routes to be operated from Plumstead rather than Catford. This would have solved both problems and made the operation a lot more efficient, but it was not TfL's idea, and so they were not interested.
A surprising change from 15 January 2005 was the reduction of the Monday to Friday frequency from every 6 minutes to every 8 minutes, although there are a couple of extra peak hour journeys. This was mainly to free up 5 Citaros for route 25 in East London, which is even busier. The intention to terminate at Deptford Bridge was finally realised from 9 September 2006, releasing 4 vehicles to First where they allowed route 18 to be increased. So the original batch of vehicles for route 453 has already been split into 3, and is likely to be further distributed among the other London operators in the coming months.
Thanks to Jordan Young for compiling most of this article
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