Well, had a very enjoyable day driving my favourite Routemaster RM1353 to Lathalmond for her MOT and look forward to collecting her on Friday after she has passed. Prior to this, I yet again watched the excellent Route 9 video from 1974 about the bus crews from Dalston and Mortlake, 1353's immediate predecessor 1352 featured but unfortunately after studying Ian Smith's Routemaster bus page discovered it was one of the majority of standard length RMs long since scrapped. As we know, the majority of RMLs have survived to this day, probably because of their greater 72-seat capacity so it makes me wonder if all Routemasters from 904 to 2217 had been built as RMLs,then even more may have escaped the scrappie as the lower 64 seat capacity possibly counted against them?

I've heard that after the initial 24 RMLs from 880 to 903 were built, the over-militant Union decreed that new Routemasters went back to the standard 27'5 length and seating capacity and it wasn't until 1965 that they finally relented on agreeing that all Routemasters should be constructed to 30 FT specification with RCL2218 to 2260,then RML2261 to 2760.

My bus number (if any): RM967 (Driver/Restoration consultant)