Yet another First London-issue Marshall bodied Dart SLF! The recent run of the type in these pages was not intentional, but the next few pictures will be a bit more varied! This time it is a short wheelbase example again, to be more precise DMS 262 (T262 JLD) of Greenford garage on route E10 on 26 June 2001. The location is shown on the bus map as Smith’s Farm, which according to my A-Z is behind the concrete slat wall, which in any case seems a bit of an odd place to find a farm. The heap of sacks in the background turned out to be compost!

Photo by Robert Munster.

Until recently, the E10 terminated here by going round in a clockwise loop round some side streets. Now the route has been extended beyond Smith’s Farm to Northolt, and the bus pictured here is just exiting from the aforementioned side streets after navigating them anticlockwise. Why buses still run round here I am not too sure as they do not stop except for one stop just in from each end, while running direct along the main road would allow them to stop closer to some other side roads on the other side of the main road.

The E10 is quite a long route as local bus services go, with a running time of around 45 minutes. But it is not a route you would be likely to ride from end to end, as it runs from Ealing Common to Islip Manor Estate via a lot of back streets.

The Ealing end of the route replaced parts of former route E4. The E4 was introduced after the E1-3 and E5-9, taking up a vacant number left when the previous E4 was renumbered H40 (and that is soon to be split as 272 and 440). However, the E4 had run between Ealing Hospital/Windmill Park and Perivale Tesco and thus served neither Ealing nor Greenford town centres. Although routes of this type are becoming more common, it was decided to abandon the E4 in the 1997 Ealing area re-tendering exercise.

In order to maintain a service along the roads through Castle Bar Park and Elthorne Heights the E10 was started. After West Ealing it served Ealing Broadway and ran on out onto Ealing Common. At the other end, it was diverted into Greenford and thence to Smiths Farm, ending the unusual two-pronged service structure on the E9. The extension beyond Smiths Farm has finally become possible after extensive road layout alterations in the Northolt area, and as can be seen is already doing good business. Some new roads are served, but in addition the E10 took over a local link between Northolt and Islip Manor Estate from route 398, improving the frequency over this section from every 45 minutes to every 20.

Navigation

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Chronologically	P5	D6
Numerically	E9	G1

See also routes 440, E9, 398