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The N29 has the distinction of being the only N prefixed night bus route operated by articulated buses. Although there are several 24 hour routes operated by the type, these merely duplicate the daytime services. N prefixes are retained where night services differ from the corresponding day route, e.g. by being extended beyond the normal terminus, as is the case with the 29 which runs beyond Wood Green to Enfield, covering route 329.

The complication where artics is involved is that their "cashless boarding" mode of operation requires ticket machines to be installed at all stops along the route. Whilst this is fine for the intensive day services they normally operate, it is much less easy to justify for night services, and earlier artic conversions such as the 38 and 73 retained double deck operation on their night bus variants. However, when it came to the 29 – the last artic conversion – it was decided to operate the artics on the night route as well. Ticket machines were installed at certain key stops, and the idea is that passengers boarding at other stops without a ticket would be taken free of charge to the next stop where there was a machine to buy a ticket there. In practice, this is likely to happen very rarely.

As mentioned above, the N29 is operated using Citaro artics drawn from the day route 29 allocation, and MA136 (BX55 FWW) is seen near Trafalgar Square in the early morning of 23 June 2006. Like the daytime variant, the N29 is operated from Edmonton garage, as neither Wood Green nor Palmers Green (the traditional bases of the 29) are able to accommodate articulated buses.

Photo © Brian Creasey.

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Chronologically	145	Line 2
Numerically	N21	N47

See also routes 29, 329, 38, 73

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