Mizter T,

Pessimistic, bleak and realistic! I also write from the experience of
the predetermined way things are done in British transport, with mere
lip service being paid to public opinion.

Many of the railway lines deemed unprofitable and ripe for closure
under Beeching's infamous report were made unprofitable and it became a
self-fulfilling phrophesy. Trains were run at times deliberately
inconvenient to passengers, ticketing was made unnecessarily difficult
etc., and so the arguments in favour of retaining these lines withered
away. To add insult to injury, reduction of crews and unstaffed
stations was just around the corner anyway, and would have altered the
economic arguments significantly, but those inevitable developments
were not allowed to play any part in the mad rush to close down the
many branchlines that closed.

The Routemaster saga is starting from a similarly uneconomic situation:
5 buses per route on 2 routes that run only during the day and exclude
both peaks, using buses that are going to be so dilapidated that 3
spares have to be kept for each route (60% spare capacity!) and a
likely high staff turnover (what sort of "career structure" can the 50
odd conductors have, except moving on to better-paid jobs elsewhere?!),
low morale, with inevitable passenger disenchantment. What is worse
than conductorless buses? Buses with surly, uninterested
conductors.....

I don't believe that T.F.L. have any genuine long-term commitment to
keeping Routemasters in London, on any basis at all. Their abject
disdain for the Routemasters and the rush to get rid of the few
remaining proper routes as quickly as possible is proof enough of this.
The 14s (and 22s I think) had at least a year more of their contracts
to run - but they were peremptorily curtailed in the rush to
de-Routemaster London as soon as possible.

"Pestering them to promote" the service etc., will be whistling in the
dark. Of course the final nail in the coffin will be the poor
maintenance of the buses - inevitable without the regular overhauls
which kept them going so superbly for their first 30-40 years. Just
look at how shabby the Routemasters on the 3 remaining routes are.
Frankly, they are an embarrassment. Almost daily I see one on route 38
being towed back to Clapton. When there were around 2,700 on London's
streets, I doubt that so many broke down every day!


Sorry to continue in such pessimistic vain: the people running London's
transport now are morons and/or intellectual pygmies: Bendibuses are an
abhorrence in our crowded streets and that one fact alone shows that
the powers that be haven't the first idea or care about either public
opinion or the practicalities of running a World-class transport
service.

Marc.