On Thu, 17 Aug 2006 00:37 +0100 (BST), (Colin
Rosenstiel) wrote:

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

As many of the old and long trunk services have been chopped up into
bits, to ensure that the suburban parts of these routes were not
devoid of buses due to congestion in the centre, these numbers have
had to be used. Add in the hugely increased density of the network
today compared to the sixties due to lots of local routes then you can
see why a much larger numbering series is needed.

That's not the reason for the 3xx and 4xx series. It's because they have
scrapped suffix letters. You could have had 44A and 44B suffixes for
short runs like the 44 and 344 but they didn't want that.

But someone on high decreed that suffix letters were not 21st century so
they have all gone, with the last being the 77A (now roughly the 87).

But there were loads of bus routes numbered in the 3xx and 4xx series
long before TfL even existed or there was a policy to remove suffix
letters. Not sure I agree with you that it is as straightforward as you
say.

The 11 in Birmingham goes up to 11E doesn't it? So the Outer Circle can
be divided into sectors?

As someone else has said "E" indicates a short, extra?, trip on TWM
routes. TWM don't seem to use letters for local networks or anything
else such as X for express - they are simply buses in the 9xx series.

double checks Centro bus maps

They do have some "A" and "H" suffixes and "C" for clockwise on
circulars and "N" for night buses.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

In message , Iain
writes
Paul G wrote in
:

Potters Bar falls outside the TfL area (although there is some cross
over in the TfL funded routes also operate within Potters Bar), so
it's up to Hertfordshire County Council what the routes are called.

The 313 goes from Chingford, through Enfield, up the Ridgeway and into
Potters Bar, and according to the timetable I've just downloaded from TfL
it's "Operated by Arriva London for London Buses".

That will be the TfL funded routes, as mentioned above. That route dates
back to at least, an amazing (to me), 1940 with the same route number;
although it only went Potters Bar to Enfield Town at that point.

--
Paul G
Typing from Barking

Just to muddy the waters further, my recollection is that routes
starting with a letter were originally fare box routes with flat fares.
Ken wrote:
On Wed, 16 Aug 2006 01:31:34 +0100, "John Rowland"
wrote:

MIG wrote:
Iain wrote:
"Orienteer" wrote in
k:

There used to be, but no longer!

Central bus routes were 1 - 199, single deck routes 200-299, country
buses north of the Thames 300-399, south 400-499, trolleybuses
500-699, Greenline routes 700 - 799.

What about the W-prefixed buses? I've variously heard that the W
stands for Walthamstow, Woodford, and even West (which seems
unlikely seeing as they're mostly based around northeast London).

Is there any official reason why (a) the W prefix was brought in, and
(b) why they still use it?

Iain


I am sure that there hasn't been a W based on Woodford, at least for
many decades. I think there were two versions of W relatively
recently. Mainly it was routes around, and based at, Wood Green.

The W8 and W9 went nowhere near Wood Green, but they did serve Winchmore
Hill.

But they were close to, and similar to (i.e. PAYB standee vehicles)
the W1-6 which were in the Wood Green area.

From memory the W1-6 were the first in the W series, and were all in
the Wood Green area. (The W21 came not long after in a separate stage
on the bus restructuring plan, so we'll ignore that). W7 came slightly
later as a direct replacement for the 212. Although it didn't go that
near Wood Green it could be considered to form part of a network with
the other W routes, as two of them also served Finsbury Park station
and they also interested at the base of Muswell Hill.

W8 was not much later and a replacement for the 128. It was quite a
way outside the Wood Green area, it's closest approach to an existing
W route was, I think, Ridge Avenue which wasn't TOO far from Winchmore
Hill, where the W4 could be found. W9 came quite a bit later and was
different, as it was a minibus with hail-and-ride sections.

The other very early lettered schemes, all modelled on Red Arrow with
single-decker PAYG vehicles, turnstiles and very few seats, were at
Ealing (e1-3) and the M1 (Morden - Wimbledon or something like that).

Paul Corfield wrote:
On Thu, 17 Aug 2006 00:37 +0100 (BST), (Colin
Rosenstiel) wrote:

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

As many of the old and long trunk services have been chopped up into
bits, to ensure that the suburban parts of these routes were not
devoid of buses due to congestion in the centre, these numbers have
had to be used. Add in the hugely increased density of the network
today compared to the sixties due to lots of local routes then you can
see why a much larger numbering series is needed.
That's not the reason for the 3xx and 4xx series. It's because they have
scrapped suffix letters. You could have had 44A and 44B suffixes for
short runs like the 44 and 344 but they didn't want that.

But someone on high decreed that suffix letters were not 21st century so
they have all gone, with the last being the 77A (now roughly the 87).

But there were loads of bus routes numbered in the 3xx and 4xx series
long before TfL even existed or there was a policy to remove suffix
letters. Not sure I agree with you that it is as straightforward as you
say.

Some new routes don't really fit in, either; for example, the 360
(Albert Hall - Elephant & Castle) is a completely new route. Some other
new 3xx & 4xx routes were created by splitting existing routes, but took
on an unrelated number because the obvious one was unavailable (e.g. 74
+ 430).


--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

Dave Arquati wrote:

a) Think it is based on the bus garage, so you get U buses around
Uxbridge and H buses around Hounslow.

There's also H around Harrow and Hampstead, and E for Ealing, C for
Chelsea-ish, P for Peckham, K for Kingston, D for Docklands, B for
Bexleyheath, R for Orrrrpington or Richmond, S for Sutton or Stratford
etc...

It might make the routes easier to identify in places like Ealing, where
there are quite a lot of these E-routes; whenever you're outside Ealing,
you know that E-routes go there. That doesn't really work for some of
the others though (like C).

There is a stop in Ruislip High Street which is served by the E7, H13
and U1 routes. Can anyone beat three different prefixes at one bus stop?


--
John Ray

In article , (Dave
Arquati) wrote:

Paul Corfield wrote:
On Thu, 17 Aug 2006 00:37 +0100 (BST), (Colin
Rosenstiel) wrote:

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

As many of the old and long trunk services have been chopped up
into bits, to ensure that the suburban parts of these routes were
not devoid of buses due to congestion in the centre, these
numbers have had to be used. Add in the hugely increased
density of the network today compared to the sixties due to
lots of local routes then you can see why a much larger
numbering series is needed.
That's not the reason for the 3xx and 4xx series. It's because
they have scrapped suffix letters. You could have had 44A and
44B suffixes for short runs like the 44 and 344 but they didn't
want that.

But someone on high decreed that suffix letters were not 21st
century so they have all gone, with the last being the 77A (now
roughly the 87).

But there were loads of bus routes numbered in the 3xx and 4xx
series long before TfL even existed or there was a policy to remove
suffix letters. Not sure I agree with you that it is as
straightforward as you say.

Some new routes don't really fit in, either; for example, the 360
(Albert Hall - Elephant & Castle) is a completely new route. Some
other new 3xx & 4xx routes were created by splitting existing
routes, but took on an unrelated number because the obvious one was
unavailable (e.g. 74 + 430).

I thought the 430 was derived from the 30?

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Colin Rosenstiel wrote:
In article , (Dave
Arquati) wrote:

Paul Corfield wrote:
On Thu, 17 Aug 2006 00:37 +0100 (BST), (Colin
Rosenstiel) wrote:

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

As many of the old and long trunk services have been chopped up
into bits, to ensure that the suburban parts of these routes were
not devoid of buses due to congestion in the centre, these
numbers have had to be used. Add in the hugely increased
density of the network today compared to the sixties due to
lots of local routes then you can see why a much larger
numbering series is needed.
That's not the reason for the 3xx and 4xx series. It's because
they have scrapped suffix letters. You could have had 44A and
44B suffixes for short runs like the 44 and 344 but they didn't
want that.

But someone on high decreed that suffix letters were not 21st
century so they have all gone, with the last being the 77A (now
roughly the 87).
But there were loads of bus routes numbered in the 3xx and 4xx
series long before TfL even existed or there was a policy to remove
suffix letters. Not sure I agree with you that it is as
straightforward as you say.
Some new routes don't really fit in, either; for example, the 360
(Albert Hall - Elephant & Castle) is a completely new route. Some
other new 3xx & 4xx routes were created by splitting existing
routes, but took on an unrelated number because the obvious one was
unavailable (e.g. 74 + 430).

I thought the 430 was derived from the 30?

Hmm - having looked it up, you're right in that the 30 used to run that
route to Roehampton. However, there was a gap between 1981 and 2002 when
the route was operated as part of the 74, and it was the curtailment of
the 74 that led to the creation of the 430. The suggestion is that 430
was chosen for historical reasons.

http://www.londonbuspage.com/021123b.htm

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

"Paul G" wrote in message
...
In message ,
You live and learn. Apparently the PB1 was started in 1977 by
Dial-a-Ride; although a different website says PB1 was based on the 284
bus route at that time. Anyone know any more? I wasn't born and only
lived in Potters Bar 1987 to 2000

Just looked on busmap.org and the 284 appears in the 1970 map (doing a
loop around Mutton Lane, Darkes Lane and the High Street) but not the 1958
map.

The 284 was a one bus working that started in 1968, initially and for only a
few months, operated by an RF (AEC Regal). This was not a type of bus
allocated to PB at that time (or any other?) and the opportunity was taken
to replace it with an MB (AEC Merlin) type bus when the 84 and 242 were
converted from RT to OPO, using MBs, in late 1968. Incidentally, one of
these PB allocated vehicles is still in existence, although I cannot
remember the fleet number off hand.



In the early 1970s the unique rear engined FRM Routemaster was transferred
to PB for use on the 284. Unfortunately the FRM was badly damaged in an
accident in about 1975 and did not return to PB after repair.



The 284 was a circular service that operated anticlockwise until about 1100
and then clockwise for the rest of the day until about 1700/1800. Its route
was, as you say, plus Church Road. It was not the best used route and a
Transit FS type vehicle was introduced to a new PB1 service (presumably in
1977) that served many more, residential type, roads, not deemed accessible
by larger buses.

In message , J Lynch
writes

[snip interesting details]

The 284 was a circular service that operated anticlockwise until about 1100
and then clockwise for the rest of the day until about 1700/1800. Its route
was, as you say, plus Church Road. It was not the best used route and a
Transit FS type vehicle was introduced to a new PB1 service (presumably in
1977) that served many more, residential type, roads, not deemed accessible
by larger buses.

Thank you - a very happy, more knowledgeable, ex-local resident!

--
Paul G
Typing from Barking

In message ,
Colin Rosenstiel writes
The 11 in Birmingham goes up to 11E doesn't it? So the Outer Circle can
be divided into sectors?

It's not *quite* as simple as that.

The Outer Circle 11 (and the Inner Circle 8) have suffixes as follows:

A Anti-clockwise journeys

C Clockwise journeys

E Short working journeys in either direction (the "E" here stands for
"Exception" and is used on other short-running TWM routes, too).

Before deregulation, WMPTE adhered to this system rigidly but since then
a few "A" suffixes have crept in here and there for variations.

Incidentally, in Birmingham city Transport days, each short working had
its own individual suffix, with the point closes to Birmingham City
Centre being suffixed "A", the next "B" and so on. I think that *that*
system reached "K"! A sort of Brummie Bassom!
--
Ian Jelf, MITG
Birmingham, UK

Registered Blue Badge Tourist Guide for London and the Heart of England
http://www.bluebadge.demon.co.uk