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).