What's The Longest London Bus Route That Goes Through The Centre?

[rennie]

There's a trend for bus routes to get shorter and shorter, which is annoying when they all stop at West Norwood and you wanted to go to Crystal Palace

Tell me about it.

 

[knatchbull]

I think basically they stopped doing the long routes that go through the centre of town and out the other side, because congestion screws up the timetable too much. There used to be loads of long ones that went all the way from one outer suburb to the one opposite. There's a trend for bus routes to get shorter and shorter, which is annoying when they all stop at West Norwood and you wanted to go to Crystal Palace

There are various websites available that give details of the history of bus routes - see http://www.busesatwork.co.uk/ for example

 

[PacificOcean]

There are various websites available that give details of the history of bus routes - see http://www.busesatwork.co.uk/ for example

Blimey, wern't bus routes long in 1948?

The 12 went from South Croydon to Harlesden

 

[Streathamite]

doesn't the 36 still go from peckham to queens park? now THAT's long!

 

[Gavin Bl]

29 from trafalgar square to enfield town is a fair old pull - alot of the buses going that way actually - 279 up to Waltham Cross, is it?

 

[RubyToogood]

doesn't the 36 still go from peckham to queens park? now THAT's long!

New Cross to Queen's Park apparently, via Peckham, Camberwell, Vauxhall, Victoria, Marble Arch, Paddington, Royal Oak.

 

[PacificOcean]

29 from trafalgar square to enfield town is a fair old pull - alot of the buses going that way actually - 279 up to Waltham Cross, is it?

The 279 starts at Manor House now though.

 

[Gavin Bl]

The 279 starts at Manor House now though.

fair do's, its got to be 15 years since I took a bus trip up the Hertford Road

 

[PacificOcean]

fair do's, its got to be 15 years since I took a bus trip up the Hertford Road

A rival to Oxford Street now.

If you like pound shops and "chicken" & chips for a quid that is.

 

[Dick_Richard]

Longest bus to Central London is the X68
Longest bus through Central London is the 36
Hope this helps sorry for late reply

 

[DaveCinzano]

Longest bus to Central London is the X68
Longest bus through Central London is the 36
Hope this helps sorry for late reply

Excellent first post - polite, informative, concise

 

[Pickman's model]

Longest bus to Central London is the X68
Longest bus through Central London is the 36
Hope this helps sorry for late reply

and that's further than from oxford circus to ilford

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Excellent first post - polite, informative, concise

2nd post is a blinder too

 

[DaveCinzano]

2nd post is a blinder too

*FOLLOWS*

 

[Dick_Richard]

Cheers guys

 

[DaveCinzano]

Ah. That difficult third post

 

[wtfftw]

 

[Puddy_Tat]

at 8 year bump.

I think basically they stopped doing the long routes that go through the centre of town and out the other side, because congestion screws up the timetable too much. There used to be loads of long ones that went all the way from one outer suburb to the one opposite. There's a trend for bus routes to get shorter and shorter, which is annoying when they all stop at West Norwood and you wanted to go to Crystal Palace

in large part, that.

until the mid 80s (from a Brixton-ish perspective) the 109 ran Purley - Victoria Embankment, the 159 from Thornton Heath to West Hampstead, the 3 from Crystal Palace to Camden Town, the 137 from Crystal Palace to Archway, the 2B from Crystal Palace to Golders Green, and so on.)

Converting the outer ends to one-person buses was one reason for chopping routes in to smaller chunks, reliability another, and also since each route is now franchised, it's not so easy to have buses and drivers from both ends of the route (the 3 generally used to have buses from Chalk Farm garage and also from somewhere south of the river - traditionally Norwood.) Not many of London's bus operators have depots in multiple corners of London.

Having said that, some of the longest routes were really only that long on paper, and buses either never or very rarely ran all the way through - when the 12s got as far as South Croydon, buses from Croydon didn't go north of Oxford Circus, and I have a recollection of Saturday 12s from Forest Hill not going north of the Elephant, so if you wanted to get to the west end, you had to get a 12 and change to a 12 somewhere north of Peckham.

And meh to 279s to Waltham Cross - again until the early 80s, they ran as far as Hammond Street out in the wilds of Hertfordshire (again, on paper this was from Smithfield, but generally Hammond Street buses only ran as far south as Manor House.)

 

[DaveCinzano]

On the one hand I feel I must applaud everyone on some fascinating insights and commendable folk knowledge

 

[DaveCinzano]

On the other