Saturday, July 23, 2005

Routemasters no more...

Today the Routemasters on route 14 and 22 were replaced by new modern double deckers.

The number 13 which I sometimes use to get from Golders Green to the city will get new double deckers on the 21st of October. From the 28th of October, route 38 will start using bendy buses. The final route to use Routemasters will be the 159 from Marble Arch to Streatham. It will be replaced on the 9th of December.

I really can't believe it. Come 2006, there will be no more Routemasters on the London bus map! Removing Routemasters is like replacing black cabs with souless yellow Fords. The new bendy buses are alright, but they just lack any character.

There is some hope though. Ken Livingstone has promised that two new heritage routes in Central London will use the vintage buses.

It is still sad though. The days when we could freely kill ourselves by running and hopping on the bus while it is pulling away, chat with the conductor and then jumping back out, is long gone.

3 comments:

elb said...

darn, I miss being able to hop on or off at any point of the road!

Jon Choo said...

A physical art will be missed once all of these are gone.

Anonymous said...

what about people feeling safer with the conductor helping there to get where they want to get. especially in the society we are nowadays