During the late 1960s London Transport launched an experimental series of Flat Fare bus routes around London. Quite why it was deemed necessary to differentiate them from other services I am not too sure, but they were, the affected routes being renumbered into a new series with letter prefixes to denote the general area. Three of the routes were in the Ealing area and consequently became the E1, E2 and E3 from 1968, although the E3 did not serve Ealing itself. Since that time the routes have enjoyed a remarkable degree of stability. The E2 replaced the 97, running from Brentford via Northfields and Ealing to Greenford. The 97 had had a Sunday extension to Ruislip but this was absorbed into the new daily route 273 (now E7).

Since then the E2 has been unchanged except that the Brentford Terminal was moved from the traditional County Court stand to Armchair’s depot in Commerce Way/Road when that firm took over from Centrewest (the former London Buses subsidiary) in 1997.

For the E2 and route E8 taken over at the same time, a batch of Plaxton Pointer bodied Dennis Dart SLFs was purchased. However, being single door, by the time the contract came up for renewal in 2002 they were not compliant with the latest whims at London Buses, and so had to be replaced by further new vehicles. They are the same combination, although by now upgraded from the early Dart SLF adaptation of the Pointer to the more modern looking Pointer 2. Other differences is that the original vehicles did not have wheelchair ramps, and were painted in Armchair’s traditional orange livery. Orange does still feature in the colour scheme, but is very indistinct; on the picture below, the orange sweep can just be made out over the front wheel.

Photo by Martin Hazel.

The picture shows DP1028 on the Red Lion stand at Greenford, where the E2 terminates, shortly after entering service. Armchair did not use fleet numbers until recently, referring to buses by their registration marks, but the difficulty in remembering the new style registrations accurately (this one is KP02 PVO by the way) has prompted their introduction.

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See also routes E1, E3, E7, E8