On Thu, 17 Dec 2009 20:21:33 +0000, Neil Williams wrote:

Strangely successful for a route that originated from the hourly
Stationlink!

what was the original route then? Just Paddington to Liverpool St then?

On 17 Dec, 22:53, Martin Petrov
wrote:

what was the original route then? Just Paddington to Liverpool St then?

Of the 205, it was Padd-Mile End. Stationlink was a loop serving most
of (all?) the mainline termini once an hour, starting/finishing at
Victoria Coach Station. It used single-decker buses with 4 wheelchair
spaces, as it'd be unlikely that anyone *not* in a wheelchair would
have chosen to use it given that it was hourly and excruciatingly
slow.

It was turned into the 205 in the north (which has thrived) and the
705 in the south (which didn't and was withdrawn).

Neil

On Fri, 18 Dec 2009 19:51:13 +0000, Paul Corfield
wrote:

Err I don't think so. It was originally Paddington - Whitechapel. The
extension to Mile End followed later.

I sit corrected

The huge difference though was that the 205 was given a 10 minute
frequency serving all stops every day of the week at main travel times
while the 705 was half hourly only and limited stop and I'm not even
sure it was a daily service. I think that if the 705 had been every 10
minutes serving all stops then it would have done equally as well.

Valid point, but it (like the RV1) would still have been quite slow -
an advantage of the 205 is that it's basically just straight up the
Euston/City Roads so there isn't much weaving about to be done, unlike
Sarf ov da Rivva.

But I guess the RV1 in a way *is* part of the southern Stationlink -
it certainly links Fenchurch St with Waterloo, at which you can take a
Red Arrow to Victoria (I think)...

Neil

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Neil Williams
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On Sat, 19 Dec 2009 11:14:07 +0000, Paul Corfield
wrote:

Fair enough - I think the RV1 was really a tourist route by design but
it seems to have grown into something else again. Your comments about
commuter flows were a surprise to me but they make sense if you think
about the places the route serves.

Yep. So far as I can see, it's become the main way (other than
walking) to get from Waterloo and London Bridge to the Tower Bridge
part of the City, and tends to get quite busy.

Which makes it all the more of a joke when First put those tiny, nasty
little Dennis Darts on it rather than the Citaros. But I think the
demand has increased to the point that deckers are necessary, and they
do fit as I've seen one in service on that route before.

Neil

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Neil Williams
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