On Sun, 5 Sep 2004 10:34:41 +0100, "Solar Penguin"
wrote:

Compare that to the sleek, stylish lines of
modern buses, designed by proper designers, not a committee of bean-counting
bureaucrats.


Whatever the merits of keeping them now, the implication that the
Routemasters didn't have any input from 'proper designers' is patently
untrue. London Transport had a policy of sponsoring good design from
the 1930s onwards and this certainly had an impact on the Routemaster.
I've mentioned Douglas Scott who was responsible for the look of the
bus, inside and out, elsewhere in the thread. He was a very
reputable, and rather unassuming, designer, who trained under the
presigious American designer Raymond Loewy in the 1930s. There is an
interesting book about Scott's work by Jonathan Glancey - reference at
the end of this post.

Also the implication that the Routemaster was designed down to a
price by 'bean-counters' is ludicrous. On the whole the Routemaster
was over-engineered and very few were sold outside London because they
were so much more expensive than other buses of the period. The
designers did have an eye on (to use the current term) total cost of
ownership, but they could never have predicted that a significant
number would see 35-40 years of service on busy routes in London, so
must have repaid their development costs many times over.

Leaving the platforms open was hardly a cheeseparing measure.
Routemasters were made with doors for the former Green Line services,
and the open platform was a common characteristic of double decker
buses until the 1960s, and not just in London.

In fact I would be interested in learning about the designers involved
in some of the newer buses: personally I wouldn't call any of them
sleek and stylish and the quality of design is variable, but it
certainly isn't all bad.

Martin

Reference:

Glancey, Jonathan (1988): Douglas Scott. London, the Design Council.
ISBN 0-85072-215-2