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Paul Corfield · November 12th 03, 08:22 PM posted to uk.transport.london

On 12 Nov 2003 01:45:14 -0800, (Boltar) wrote:

Ok , this is a hopeless anoraky question but something I suddenly wondered
last night... How come most bus routes have a simple number (eg 13, 221) but
some have a letter in them , eg W6. Why do some routes have letters too? Its
not like they've used up all the numbers in the universe so do these letters
denote something special (ok , I know what the N in the night bus routes mean ,
I'm talking about daytime routes)?

The use of letters on bus routes goes back to changes in the late 1960s
when LT introduced the Bus Reshaping Plan that introduced short suburban
routes, Red Arrows and attempted to spread one person operation. Notable
at that time were W routes introduced in Wood Green and Walthamstow -
the W3 being a notable survivor from that time along with the W7 and W8.

When LT dabbled in minibuses in the 70s a number of these were letter
routes like the B1, P4, H1-3, W9. Some of those have grown to the extent
that the buses used today are certainly not "mini".

We then get the 1980s when the tendering regime led to network changes
in places like Walthamstow, Bexleyheath, Harrow. Other areas adopted a
similar strategy using mini and then midibuses - the Hounslow area and
Roundabout (a subsidiary set up to run the routes) in Orpington being
examples.

You therefore got B routes in Bexleyheath, W routes in Walthamstow plus
some fill in routes in the Wood Green area like the W4, W5 and W6.
Harrow got H routes higher than H10 but less than H20 while Hounslow got
H20 up to H37 plus oddities like the H98. Orpington got "R" routes,
Uxbridge got U routes etc. Docklands got "D", Kingston "K", Central area
"C", Ealing "E",

The use of letters seems to have stabilised a bit these days. There
aren't that many gaps in the numbering cycle if you work on 1-400 or so
being London Area routes, things in the 500s being Red Arrows, 600s
being Schools typically and 700 was the old Green Line series and to
some extent still is.

If there are more knowledgeable bus historians reading this then I'm
happy to be corrected.
--
Paul C
Admits to Working for London Underground!