On Sat, 14 Feb 2004 08:02:18 -0000, "Malcolm Knight"
wrote:


"Bill Hayles" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 12 Feb 2004 20:57:32 -0000, "Malcolm Knight"
wrote:

"Bill Hayles" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 11 Feb 2004 09:19:27 -0000, "Henry"

1 to 199 - London General Double Deck services in the Central
Area

How does this fit in with the 101 which I regularly rode in the
early
1950s and possibly the late 40s (memory beginning to fail me here)?
How does it not? The 101 was double deck.

Wanstead (Essex when the route was started) is the Central Area of
London. Really? You surprise me.

Ahh, I see the misunderstanding.
We are talking about London Transport's definition of "Central" and
"Country".


To repeat what I said a couple of days ago:


Pre-1970 "Central" was
anything covered by the red buses - roughly Greater London.
"Country" was the (doughnut shaped) area beyond this but still part
of the London Transport area - roughly, going clockwise from the
Thames, Gravesend, Hildenborough, Edenbridge, East Grinstead,
Crawley, Horsham. Guildford, Staines, Windsor, High Wycombe,
Aylesbury, Dunstable, Luton, Hitchin, Buntingford, Bishop's
Stortford, Harlow, Brentwood, Grays.


To add to that, Country Buses were painted green. Green Line
Coaches were also painted green, but had a subtly different livery
and ran limited stop services from one side of the area, through the
centre and (usually) out the other side. Green Line was always run
by Country Bus Services, but the majority of green bus services were
NOT "Green Line" - a common misunderstanding even forty years ago.

On 1st January, Country Bus Services and Green Line Coaches were
hived off to London Country Bus Services, a part of the National Bus
Company, and the London Transport Special Area abolished.

I worked for LCBS as a driver in the 1970s, when it still retained
much of its London Transport practices (to say nothing of vehicles,
both good and bad)

http://billnot.com/lcbs

for my reminiscences of that period.

So Wanstead was very much in the Central area of London Transport.

I had the good fortune to spend my childhood in Orpington, right on
the border and served by both Central and Country buses. so I could
buy a Red Rover and go riding round the Central area, or a Green
Rover and go riding round the country. I could also buy a Twin
Rover and go riding on both the Central Buses and the Underground.

So, to come back to your original query, the 101 was a perfectly
normal Central Bus Service, operated by the Central Road Services
division of London Transport.. Indeed, route 10 ran more or less to
the edge of the Central Area, to Abridge, route 84 went to St.
Albans and on Summer Sundays route 47 got as far as Knockholt Pound.
But they were still Central Buses. There was no geographic
distinction whatsoever within the Central area. Wanstead was no
less "Central" than Trafalgar Square.

I hope this clears things up.

--
Bill Hayles

http://billnot.com