Route X26

Route X26
11 June 2005

The X26 is one of few remnants of the original Green Line network. The alignment through Bromley, Croydon, Sutton and Kingston was first established by route 725, which ran from Gravesend and Dartford through to Staines and Windsor. The 726 was introduced as a — probably more useful — variant, running from Dartford to Heathrow Airport.

As the Green Line network collapsed, the 726 came under control of London Transport, whose soon-to-be-privatised London Coaches subsidiary operated it from 1992 using DK class DAF/Ikarus dual purpose type vehicles (i.e. coach seating in a bus body). Such was the success of the service that in 1994 a number of extra journeys were added to the basic hourly schedule at busy times, with three extra DKs purchased to service the increased vehicle requirement.

London Coaches originally ran the 726 from their Wandsworth garage, which operates the London sightseeing tour and is now in the hands of Arriva, but operation was moved in two stages to Northfleet, home of the former North Kent Express commuter coach routes. All journeys ran in service with the result that the first bus left Dartford at 0320 with the last bus back to Dartford arriving at 0209 — almost a 24 hour service!

But, inexplicably, London Transport seemed determined to get rid of the route, and for a long time a cloud hung over it. The first step in its destruction was when London Coaches, who had been struggling to run the service, gave up, and the route was transferred to Capital Logistics, which operated it from the other end; numerous journeys were deleted from the timetable.

But, amid much protest and a substantial campaign, LT still wanted to axe the service. Eventually a compromise was reached, and early in 1999 the service was cut back to run between Bromley and Heathrow only, and yet more journeys were cut from the timetable, returning the service to regular hourly, and with no early morning or late evening service. The first journey to Heathrow arrived around 0745, two hours after the first plane departures, and after the 0600 shift change at the airport. This journey was invariably packed to the gunwhales.

Needless to say, the usefulness of the service east of about Croydon was considerably diminished; what happened to all the passengers whom LT said would be transferring to local buses to complete their journeys to Bexleyheath remains a mystery. On the other hand, the Heathrow end of the route remained very busy, with severe overcrowding at times!

Capital Logistics was bought up by Tellings-Golden Miller (TGM) on 1 June 1999, co-incidentally just after a new contract for the 726 had been awarded to TGM in their own right, for takeup during 2000. The original DAFs, which had transferred from London Coaches, transferred again, although new low floor buses were specified, and 7 ALX300 bodied Volvo B10BLE buses were purchased.

If this all sounds a bit irrational, that's because it is. Nearly everyone who commented said that the service should go up to half hourly all day to make it more attractive; furthermore, the route was retracted from Dartford just two weeks before the huge shopping complex at Bluewater, near Dartford, was opened! It would have been far more forward-thinking to extend the service there, to carry in the crowds from across South London!

As if that wasn’t enough meddling, contract renewal in 2005 resulted in further changes. The 726 was renumbered X26, withdrawn between Bromley and East Croydon and had many other intermediate stops withdrawn. From my observations, around 90% of passenger journeys on the 726 either started or finished at one of the stops that was originally proposed for withdrawal, typical usage being people travelling between a stop near their home to Heathrow, Kingston, Croydon or other major stops. With a couple of notable exceptions, the logic of withdrawing any of these stops escapes me, and it has had little impact upon journey times, the new timetable quickly having proved just as unachievable as the old one had latterly been, compounded by a substantial reduction in recovery times at each end.

Tellings were said to be quite keen to dump the 726, with punctuality figures as low as 30% being quite common. The award of the route to Metrobus was not therefore a great surprise, although the present operation from Godstone is hardly ideal. New Scania OmniCities were obtained – thankfully not Darts! Here 543 (YN05 HFG), Scania-East Lancs OmniCity, is in Cromwell Road, Kingston (outside Cromwell Road Bus Station), taken today Wednesday 11th May 2005.

Interestingly the tender was specified as a double deck route, but loadings on the revised service – which seem pretty light, as predicted – are highly unlikely to justify them anyway. This is despite several stops being restored to the specification post award, including a new stop at Teddington – the route previously ran via Hampton Court. One quirk of the timetable is that the first journeys in each direction arrive at 07:25 and 07:26 respectively – one wonders if the compiler had a little nostalgia for the roots of the X26!

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