I was never keen to use an ordinary RM on the staff bus route at Mortlake.
In the days before the extensive Night Bus network we have now, the roads covered by the Staff Bus were devoid of any buses in service in the early hours and on Friday and Saturday nights especially an approaching bus was often seen as fair game for drunks and mischievous persons to cadge a lift.
Not so much of a problem when staff were on the bus and could try to oversee the platform but a driver on his own didn`t stand a chance. Pulling up outside Richmond or Hammersmith Police Stations to eject unwanted passengers wasn`t uncommon as was putting your foot down at the first sign of trouble. Amazingly, a bus with L plates never attracted as much unwelcome attention. Quite how the average drunk could work out the difference, I really don`t know but using a training bus was less trouble!

Here`s RM 92 very early on August 17 1980 en route to Hammersmith where a timed connection was made with the first District Line train and one of the very early Route 220`s thus affording transport to many staff other than those working at Mortlake. The whole staff bus route was a timetabled operation available to workers at Shepherds Bush, Putney, Riverside and Fulwell garages plus Underground staff too with a couple of round trips made between 2330 and 0200 then again from 0430 to 0615.

Wonder if that Barnes Bridge Southern Region sign is in someone`s garage or loft...........

Hi Neil
Your account of unwanted passengers reminded me of the time I was travelling through my local town and had to pull up at Traffic lights,3 young lads jumped on the back for a bit of fun and assumed I would stop reasonably soon,how wrong could they be.
Luck was on my side and the rest of the traffic lights were with me so I ploughed on regardless of the bell ringing and finally dropped them off about a mile out of town.
I'm not a small bloke and when I climbed down to tell them exactly why I wasn't going to take them back they admitted defeat and slunk away.
I have seen them since and luckily they have taken it all in good part,but we try now to never move the bus without there being 2 of us.

Graham

My bus number (if any): RML2478