Spring Gathering

British technical genius - pre-war RT113 passes Concorde 202

The first ever Spring Gathering at the Brooklands Museum was held last Sunday and I was delighted to be asked to preside over proceedings. For many, it was the first visit to the London Bus Museum in its new home.

My first role was to host a reception for our sponsors and for those who we hope might become so. Becoming a sponsor entitles you to access a unique facility for conferences, training, and events. Large organisations normally spend considerable sums on ordinary hotel and conference facilities anyway. A small proportion of their budget for this generates significant funds for the Museum. We are especially grateful for the existing sponsors and those who signed up on the day.

I acknowledge the support already received from:
Alexander Dennis
Arriva London
CBS Outdoor
London United
Epsom Coaches
Metroline
Oracle Creative
Wrightbus

We then moved outdoors and I was delighted to again meet Denise Morgan, sister to the late Colin Curtis OBE, our former President, who was for some 36 years at the heart of technical developments at London Transport.

Denise expressed to all assembled, how she had no real idea how her brother had been such an important person to this industry, and how many friends he had. I presented her with a signed painting depicting Colin's favourite vehicles posing outside the original Museum building, now demolished.

Next we welcomed into the Museum's stewardship and thanked their owners: RT2657 from the Paris Transport Museum, RML2760 from Stagecoach, and RW3 from Chris Stanley and friends. On behalf of the Museum, I can promise that the hard work to date will be rewarded by making these vehicles available for the outside world to see. 

Finally I was joined by Mark Threapleton, MD Stagecoach London, and George Psaradakis who was the driver of the bus on route 30 destroyed in the terrorist attack of 7th July 2005. A brand new ADL Enviro 400 bus was built to replace it and poignantly named 'Spirit of London'. Shockingly, vandals set fire to it last year causing huge damage. It was unthinkable that this bus - a testimony to the strength of feeling of Londoners to 'carry on' despite the tragedy of 7/7 - would be scrapped. It has therefore been completely rebuilt and here at Brooklands was unveiled again, once more as the Spirit of London, demonstrating Londoner's absolute determination not to be put down by cowardly acts.

So on this beautiful sunny spring day there was plenty for all to see; a collection which is now properly exhibited in the context of other pioneering forms of transport. The museum lies in the shadow of the famous Brooklands racing circuit, and the various exhibits are intermingled with such notables as the ubiquitous Vickers Vanguard and pre-production prototype Concorde.

The original founders of this enterprise would be amazed at the progress made.

True Blue

For some years there has been a plan - codenamed Operation True Blue - which set out in some detail the arrangements for Baroness Thatcher's funeral. As is the way of these things the plan is robust enough to make sure that it can swing into action at a moment's notice but leaves some details to be progressed at a later date.

It might seem a little morbid to be discussing these arrangements whilst the person is still alive, however there is so much to do in the 10 days or so from death to funeral that this advance planning is essential.

Therefore, minutes after 1128 on 8th April, Operation True Blue swung into action with the funeral service on the following Wednesday a little over a week later. For us that means road closures, street furniture removal, bus service diversions, and a thousand other issues all to be done jointly with all the agencies each having their own long list of things to do. In the middle of this mix are the niceties of protocol and overseas diplomacy (so for example the Argentinian President was not invited but his Ambassador to London was).

The risk of protest, disruption, and terrorism was always present and a quite separate plan to deal with those issues was also devised. Thankfully wet weather helped dampen the Saturday protests down and gave us a clue as to what we might expect on the day of the funeral.

The funeral of course is only part of the story - there are many other movements to arrange. The body itself had to leave the Ritz Hotel with the undertakers and return to the Palace of Westminster later. A full rehearsal of the funeral procession had to take place at 0300 a couple of days before the actual event.

A hierarchy of daily meetings sorts out the issues and enables information to be exchanged. Best of all, it provides an excellent forum for problems to be solved by inter-agency co-operation.

A fairly recent addition to the plan was the introduction of receptions at Mansion House and Guildhall for the significant number of important guests especially from overseas. This enlarged the closure area affecting a larger chunk of the City of London and guests from St Paul's Cathedral were faced with a walk along closed streets to those venues. Not all are able to walk so far or fast enough. Three single-decker buses were laid on for those who couldn't.

DMLs 44264, 44266 and 44267 were provided from First's Lea Interchange depot. They were chosen as the buses had to have enough seats, the facility for one wheelchair user, and be small enough to turn around in the streets involved and make return journeys. They were very well used and guests were delighted they were available. It isn't very often so many high-ranking overseas officials travel together on a London bus! 

After the funeral there were movements to the Royal Hospital Chelsea and Mortlake Crematorium before finally London returned to normal and the period of undoing all of the changes got underway.

Naturally, by Thursday morning, London was back to its old self again. It would be tempting to say that all those involved breathed a huge sigh of relief but of course over the next three days the London Marathon has to be delivered..........

The team in action and under escort!

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The stream of New Buses for London starts

In only a couple of months route 24 will be converted, overnight, to a fleet of New Bus for London vehicles and so delivery of the fleet of 600 production vehicles is now underway. This photo shows LTs 9,10 and 11 leaving the factory for the docks.

Construction started last year. The vehicles take advantage of volume production, with lighter materials, latest developments, and increasing production line familiarity. Vehicles will be despatched from Ballymena at an increasing rate and vehicles will be stockpiled for each conversion.

We have two conversions to do this year, starting with route 24 at Metroline. (No this blog won't let on what the second one is....yet!).

Meanwhile most of the prototype fleet are at work on route 38 and operating very reliably indeed. This will continue. Further testing work has been underway as well as work to bring LT1 into line with the other prototypes. There is a significant demonstration programme to other operators being devised following numerous requests, so you will see examples making some unusual journeys. Details of these will be announced shortly.

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First London sale

If you are here to learn about the sale of most of First's London bus business then I suggest you visit

http://www.firstgroup.com/corporate/latest_news/?id=009241

to see the official announcement


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Armchair ramblings

I was delighted to receive in the mail "Ramblings from my old Armchair" by John W Watts cataloguing, over 232 pages of the history of Armchair Passenger Transport, the famous London operator.

For the greater part of the story of Armchair, it was led by Simon and Ann Newman - very old friends of mine who were smart and brave enough to keep going through tough economic times by continually shifting the balance of their operations, whilst maximising the benefits of long and trustworthy long-term relationships with both suppliers and customers. Those relationships, described in detail in the book, helped enormously towards the success of the company.

Continued attention to quality in a consistent way was a hallmark of Armchair. It never gave way to a snazzy livery or joined the legions of operators buying even more outrageous foreign coaches for a market which was always sensitive to price. Foreseeing lean times in coaching it diversified into buses and went on to capture new areas of coaching business both with the cruise market and for commuters. I had a small part to play in the latter, which is also acknowledged in the book.

John Watts goes into significant detail quoting extensively from Simon's personal archive of diaries as well as official material. His style is very chatty - one feels like one is being read a story. What sets this book apart is a refreshing inclusion of the names and personalities which are part of the Armchair story, rather than a catalogue of dates and vehicles usually found in transport books. This one talks extensively about the people and how they were involved. How chance encounters with people at airports delivered new business; how Simon's extensive networking through CPT (where he was President 1988-89) and elsewhere was rewarded; and so on, all painting a colourful and enjoyable picture of the story of Armchair.

No one in the industry would have begrudged Simon and Ann's retirement after a successful trade sale. The book describes the heartache not only over the sale itself but the harsh change of policy by the new owners which led to the dismantling of the entire coach operation, the disbanding of the team and the disappearance of the familiar Armchair name and the distinctive orange vehicles.

So whilst Simon and Ann were able to realise their investment and enjoy their retirement, the book expresses the sadness as to what became of the business they had nursed and cherished for so many years and at great personal cost.

As with all authoritative books, once it is in print it will be regarded as definitive. The author does go off into one or two areas of fantasy which could be mistaken for fact. It is, for example, an interesting notion that Ian Fleming gave James Bond his '007' codename because he saw East Kent coaches on route 007 go through his home village of Bridge showing that number. However historians will know that this route number was only adopted years after Fleming's death so cannot possibly be true.

Nevertheless, I did enjoy reading the book. Armchair is a piece of London transport history.

Available from John W Watts, 47 Woodgate Road, Liskeard, Cornwall, PL14 6ET
bertybus@freenetname.co.uk

£20 including postage

Red noses

"The highest paid bus crew in London"

The much-trailed Red Nose Day dawned wet and miserable in London but the spirits of Londoners weren’t dampened as they came to work in their pyjamas, carried out sponsored events, made collections and raised money.

In London we ran the Commissioner’s RM1005 on route 24 all day, raising several hundred pounds in the process from delighted passengers. The bus ran between Hampstead Heath and Pimlico just as route 24 has done for just over 100 years.

For the final round trip at 1500, Peter Hendy and I crewed the bus and were followed by a TV camera crew who are making a programme for broadcast in a few months time. It is about staff and passengers of course so surprised and delighted members of the public and bus enthusiasts all got the chance to appear on camera. Friday’s shooting will form part of one episode focussing on buses.

Our TV Producer in front of the camera
for a change, as a bus conductor

The characters and reactions rewarded the film-makers’ patience with the young and old spontaneously commenting on “this nice old bus” whilst I observed it was probably the highest-paid bus crew in the history of London Transport - whether or not driven by a 'Knight of the road'!

The smile says it all..

Children and adults all wanted to use the 1950s Gibson ticket machine and eventually even our TV Producer decided she wanted to try her hand at being a conductor. When it dawned on her there were two decks and a stop every other lamp post, she really did appreciate what a busy job it is.

Eventually night fell and RM1005 went home to bed. Londoners went home and switched on their televisions to Comic Relief. By the time it ended a record £75.1m had been raised which is an amazing total in such difficult economic times. For us – all in a day’s work!

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Last day in Hong Kong

For several years in the 1990s, I paid broadly monthly visits to Hong Kong - then governed by the British - whilst my company Capital Citybus was a wholly-owned subsidiary of CNT Holdings. It had a number of business interests of which we were one.

Those were heady days - booming economy, expansion, and with the return of the colony to China some years away.

Fellow subsidiary Citybus, under the direction of venerable British (Welsh, actually) busman Lyndon Rees, was breaking into the franchised bus market at the expense of China Motor Bus and bringing hugely improved standards at the same time. Lyndon would often recall that when he arrived there in the 1960s every bus had two axles and two conductors. He succeeded in making sure they had three axles, no conductors and air conditioning as well!

After my management team and I bought Capital Citybus ourselves my trips to Hong Kong were far less frequent and more recently hardly at all. So it was very exciting to be able to visit again this past week, flying in from Sydney and using it as a base for my visit to BYD in Shenzhen (see last blog).

I did have a couple of hours between meetings to explore some old haunts. Back in the 1990s I did drive on Citybus route 260 between Central and Stanley - it caused a real stir as Europeans certainly didn't do jobs like bus driving in those days. I recall Lyndon following me in his car for a bit such was his anxiety. So I retraced those steps - as a passenger this time. What a contrast from my first ever trip - a white knuckle ride on a China Motor Bus DMS driven by a white-gloved racing driver. Now with highbacked seats and air-con, we travelled with ease, but no less speed, the winding roads past Repulse Bay and into Stanley.

The village itself has been transformed (and not in a good way in my opinion) - the world-famous market is still there but the rocky beach area now has a broadwalk, with a Starbucks, McDonald's and Pizza Express. A few old landmarks are still there but it has gone the way of tourist destinations. I retreated to some nearby, unspoiled locations, needless to say.

There was barely time to catch up with my old friends in Hong Kong but I did reflect on the changes which have taken place since I last visited. The Star Ferry is exactly the same but it now has an App; so do the trams. The MTR is building more railway at a great rate; and the road network into China is better.

But essentially the place remains buzzing with huge volumes of people all urgently travelling to and from work, play and home. Container ships crowd the docks area, bamboo scaffolding still supports unbelievably tall constructions, and tailor's shops sit side by side with electronics retailers in Kowloon.

And lastly - one other improvement since the 1990s. Improved diplomatic relations mean civil aircraft can take a more northerly route, and since the world is narrower at the top than in the middle, journey times are now faster. A late plane out of Hong Kong is now the first arrival into Heathrow. So a final contrast - from the 'new' Chep Lap Kok airport (actually opened 1998) to Heathrow's 'new' Terminal 5 - neither of which were in existence when I first headed east. And next time - indeed by the end of the year flight BA28 will be in the hands of the new British Airways Airbus A380....

This ends my series of blogs relating to my recent trip. Although I have been updating this every few days the trip itself was done in six. Indeed I have been back for over a week. Thanks for all your messages!