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By RM to Leatherhead, orininated by Neil G, reposted from ROOM by request

Neil G
Nov 11, 2016 - 11:17PM
By RM to Leatherhead


I was trying to think if there was another example of a regular, frequent RM operated service that went far beyond `central area` territory to terminate at a `country area` garage - even if it was a former one latterly in LCBS ownership . Not sure that there were any others that reached out so far into `green bus` domain as the 71 to Leatherhead Garage.



Quite a few central area routes went a long way beyond Greater London without finishing up in an LT / LCBS garage and there were instances of RT`s reaching garages such as St. Alban`s and Swanley.

RM 1315 is on Petersham Road heading away from Richmond on March 1st 1979.


roythebus
Nov 12, 2016 - 8:37AM
Re: By RM to Leatherhead


That route was the favourite haunt of LT's first lady bus driver, the late Jill Viner. She worked at Kingston and Norbiton on the 71 and 65 roads, and even followed the 65 when the route went privatised.

What was the route from Romford to Ongar? that was RMA operated for a while? and probably the furthest south you could go on an RML was Forest Row, south of East Grinstead.

When I operated Nostalgiabus, we had a Sunday route 93 from Morden to Horsham via Dorking and used an RM on that occasionally. our other Sunday routes saw RM operation, the route to Guildford, the 433 but not the whole route, and the one we ran from Dorking to Westerham.

My bus number: RML2532


Mark Kehoe
Nov 12, 2016 - 9:35AM
Re: By RM to Leatherhead


I think the 71 to Leatherhead was where I caught the bus bug.

This was when the 65 and 71 were RT operated. The run from Chessington down to Leatherhead was better than any ride in what is now the World of Adventure, in 1975 it was an RT at speed. I even remember it being RT 990 on the first trip!
Sitting behind the driver watching the speedo swing about as though it was a widescreen wiper and the cab and engine cowling looking as though they were going to part company, with a noise that was on a par with a Merlin engine on full throttle! And in the summer with the windows all open, as good as being in an open top sports car!

My pal Dave and I did that trip several times on a Red Bus Rover or paid 4p to Chessington from Ealing Broadway and usually switched to a 71 and then bought a Green rover at Leatherhead Garage.If pocket money allowed - A Golden Rover!
The challenge was to find a way via LCBS routes back to a single red bus back to Ealing. 8 AM start and parents going bonkers when we are still somewhere obscure on a bus at 8pm!!

We preferred RTs then, party because of their antiquated look amidst the orange and purple era of the modern 1970s but more to do with heaters that worked on cold winters days, the front opening windows in the summer, the sound they made and how they leaned round corners but always felt sure footed.

The RM was then, second best, and I remember being none to happy when the 65 and 71 lost it's RTs to RMs in 1975.

The thing that endures is that a pristine RM looked great but does not look so good when weathered or bits of detailing disappear, but an RT seems to look good whether pristine or with a patina of wear.

During that period the most enduring feature was the rare site of a clean bus of any type.
Many were really filthy to the point of the lower panels being indistinguishable as red. That's something that is very rare today. Most serviceable buses are quite clean -even the wheels.

My bus number (if any): RMs 238, 471 and 2213, GS17

Re: By RM to Leatherhead, orininated by Neil G, reposted from ROOM by request

[quote
Many were really filthy to the point of the lower panels being indistinguishable as red. That's something that is very rare today. Most serviceable buses are quite clean -even the wheels.[/quote]

Many of the RMLs in the last couple of years of service looked as if they hadn't seen the buswash since being repainted. IIRC Arriva's were the worst of the lot.

All credit however to Brixton Garage who had obviously made an effort to tidy them up in the last weeks of operation. It must have been disheartening when so many were defaced by the mindless, obsessed with promoting their gang's tag. No doubt much 'disrespect bruv' was felt about the attempts to clean it off.

Re: By RM to Leatherhead, orininated by Neil G, reposted from ROOM by request

Each of the three replies contain anecdotes that are memories from my past.

I started on LT as a `bus operating trainee` spending time in a multitude of different departments across London that contributed to the operation of LT buses. The first year of the trainee scheme was 1973 and in the early part of 1974 I was sent to The Training School at Chiswick to spend a week seeing how drivers and conductors were trained. Somebody must have thought that as I was the first `trainee` to do this it would be appropriate to put me with a Driving Instructor who was training the first female LT bus driver. And thus I spent a couple of days on an RT being driven by Jill Viner.

But perhaps of more interest, her instructor was a chap called Maurice Patchett who just a few months before had a enviable secondment to Jamaica on account of having a passing resemblance to Roger Moore. This was the James Bond film Live and let die which has a sequence in it of Roger Moore driving an RT at speed under a low bridge - though it was actually Maurice who did that bit. The roof was cut off in advance and then bolted back just enough to stay in situ during the high speed drive whilst facilitating the immediate detachment when the bridge was hit. I`m sure I took on board much to do with driver training but my main memory is of Maurice relating how the filming was done - and of the constant ribbing he was getting from his colleagues in the Training School canteen both for his `holiday in the sun` and about Jill being prepared by Maurice to be a stunt double!

So much of the text by Mark mirrors my childhood/teenage Red Rover travels.
There was something really satisfying about being able to walk legitimately into Potters Bar Garage to buy a Red Rover ticket without fear of being ejected from the premises as could often happen when `bus spotting ` at other garages! I too remember the bouncing speedo and wobbly bonnet so characteristic of an RT at speed which was a regular event on my school bus that thrashed along the Barnet By Pass. Sometimes that trip was on a Green Line RMC which always seemed to get to 60mph in a far more subtle manner than an RT. I also recall how certain routes were so entrenched in RT operation that when RM`s replaced them, I resented it. Long before I started on LT at the age of seventeen, I had been to every central and country area garage during the course of Rover tickets. Great days.

Roy`s comment about the state of Routemasters in their final days is so true. For those of us who had known better times prior to the fragmentation of the LT that had knowledge, experience and infrastructure, the last years of those same vehicles looking so down at heel was sad to see when in the ownership of outfits that woefully lacked those three attributes. For all the years of enjoyment I had working with Routemasters, in the final years I kept away from the last routes to use them, didn`t attend the final day of any of them (especially the 159`s) and rarely admitted to having once worked on LT such was the embarrassment of being associated with what the public was seeing regarding Routemasters in their later years.

Re: By RM to Leatherhead, orininated by Neil G, reposted from ROOM by request

What you say about Jill on your post confirms what Jill told me all those years ago about Maurice being the Roger Moore double!

It seems a bit odd that some of the far-flung central routes into the country never saw RM operation, going straight from RT operation to rear-engined things.

My bus number (if any): RML2532

Re: By RM to Leatherhead, orininated by Neil G, reposted from ROOM by request

That all brings back some memories.

RT 990 was a top bus at Norbiton it was one of a quite a few that ran beautifully but as Mark says always looked good even when a bit careworn.

There was period in the 1970s when dirty seemed to be the thing.
Even at NB the RTs were not just careworn but filthy on the outside, but when alongside the few other remaining RT routes the 65 and 71 came into contact with ( HW's route274 springs to mind) they still looked clean! That's how bad it had gotten. The RMs shipped in in 1975 were all pretty average and it was a while before a freshly overhauled one appeared. I wonder if anyone can remember which one it was at NB or K. I can't recall myself. But I think it may have been RM336 with blue seats which were replaced after just a couple of months.

Then there was that slight hiatus in the late 1970s- early 80s when things did improve, along with the NBA debacle more or less until the GLC demise and the subsequent cuts and that was what I called the 'Mortlake Effect'

What the two Neils started, did radiate out to other garages. The showbus thing seemed to occur in South East London through social clubs but in South West London it was Mortlake turning out an entire allocation of pristine buses that had Riverside, Norton, Falwell and Kingston upping their game.
Whilst Riverside and NB had showcases ( RMs 89 and 254) the rest of the allocations were at least cleaned and tidied up - albeit not to Mortlake's standards. Even V started to improve.
Sadly this did not extend to HL which somehow managed to make our almost entire allocation of refurbished RMLs look tatty in less than 14 months!

Happy Days....some of the time!!

Re: By RM to Leatherhead, orininated by Neil G, reposted from ROOM by request

They even had the balls to spray last days on rml2572 on its ad i think they were paid to do it

My bus number (if any): Lt60

Re: By RM to Leatherhead, orininated by Neil G, reposted from ROOM by request

Jack Norie
That all brings back some memories.

RT 990 was a top bus at Norbiton it was one of a quite a few that ran beautifully but as Mark says always looked good even when a bit careworn.

RT 990 went onto Riverside in 1975 as an Aldenham staff bus!

My bus number (if any): RTL 960, RMC 1458, RM 1585 and several RTs