A cold foggy morning that turned into a golden but cold sunset that saw the streets of London from Oxford Street to deepest South London lined with people, mainly Londoners of all ages creeds and colours. Not something that happens when organised by officialdom and at great cost but this time it was spontaneous and almost by word of mouth.

This was the day that Routemaster buses with a proper conductor, consigned to history, a daily era that began with Horses and ended with a card reader.

The 9th December 2005.

For those who spent the day riding about as one by one, as each Routemaster was replaced until the afternoon when thousands gravitated to Streatham to see the final entourage emerge into the bright winter sun and the final official Routemaster terminated at the Garage whilst the final scheduled RM slipped through the masses to reach the end of the route.

Only the epitaph remains...Just! In the form of a few Heritage buses on a route choked by cycleways and displaced traffic and facing severe curtailment and thus their withdrawal. I understand that the refurbishment program has been stopped. With a Mayor uninterested in London's Transport heritage, this is probably it.

A remarkable day. But over a decade passed already.

I wish I could get this to easily post pictures but it's not having it !

Mark - if you`re having a problem getting pictures from your source to the forum and think that I might be able to get them there I`ll gladly try...

The heritage RM refurbishment programme is still continuing : RM1941 is currently away being seen to, and another is due to go to H&D Trim early in the new year. No plans for withdrawal in the short-medium term that I am aware of.

Thanks for clarifying. That's probable...at least for the moment.

But rumours abound, yet, for no apparent reason, authorities are reluctant to officially confirm or reaffirm any commitment. Nor fully dispel a range of these rumours.

So it's good to hear any facts from the coal face. Or anything verifiable.

What is an undeniable issue is how gridlocked and void route 15 has become. It is now under a consultation as part of the removal of services in Oxford Street and proposed to be cut to what will be almost a local hoppa bus route. A far cry from a trunk East London to Kew Gardens ! Ironically to be covered by cycle routes.

Unfortunately the East - West Cycle route has had a major traffic ripple effect in the East - City through to Westminster with once quietish Eastcheap jammed all day every day.

It can now take an age for a 15 (heritage or normal) to get along it's route and the timetable, since being reduced, makes the heritage route a huge gamble in wasted time for tourists and anyone wanting to take a trip on an RM.

Whilst RMs were designed for stop - start traffic, I don't think this degree of stop, stop, still stopped..start, crawl, stop, hour after hour, day after day can be doing the vehicles any good at all.

The Cycle Highway works have been completed, but the traffic has not dispersed or returned to lower levels. The sheer amount of large HGVs in Upper & Lower Thames Street has become really noticeable day and night, Whatever happened to the Lorry ban?
Then it's the numerous roadworks and weekend closures for cranes etc. that lock up the City almost every weekend of the year. Then Tower Bridge closed for a few months and possible to be closed again . It never ends.
All this affects the ability to run any bus route reliably enough to be trusted by users.

It was the H9 that was supposedly a victim of congestion but that was before the Cycle Highway and now route 15 makes the 9 look like a Red Arrow route!

It could be an alternative route is or was being planned. But it's a case of watch this space for now.

Lower and Upper Thames streets are only subject to the London Lorry control scheme which is in force at night and at weekends after lunchtime on Saturday. Unless things have changed recently these are not roads subject to the permanent overall length restriction zone. They are however within the 3.5 tonne safer lorry scheme zone which only governs technical construction issues.

The LLRC scheme issues set routes to hauliers to use specific routes to reach destinations within the proscribed area. In order to prevent lorries using certain 'sensitive' roads they are routed to travel along other less touchy roads. The scheme is policed far more rigorously, by officers and cameras, than the public realises. Both driver and operator can be, and are fined for contravention, the driver's fine being £500. The operator's ORC (compliance score) will be affected by any conviction quite possibly resulting in a hearing with the TC (traffic commissioner).

Travel from one delivery to another within the area is forbidden during operational hours, the vehicle must return to a designated road and use that to get nearer to the delivery and then use another set route to reach its destination. Some of the routes are simply ridiculous, the critera obviously being based upon who shouts loudest and whether anyone who thinks they are important lives on a particular road.

For some time to reach the Elephant from Kent required access via the South Circular all the way round to Kew Bridge, because it was found to be 100yards shorter than the previous designated route on banned roads.

Increasingly hauliers are refusing to accept consignments for delivery within London. FORS (Fleet operator recognition scheme) and the Safer lorry scheme requirements have added such significant costs and aggravation to make acceptance not worth the candle.

The only reason the vehicle is there is because someone wants what is on it. To go further than this most lorry drivers hate the place and its obsession of pandering to the cyclist lobby with a vengeance and would dearly like there to be a total ban on ALL lorries ever entering London. The ideal would be for the precious cyclists, on their butcher's bike, to collect what they can carry in the basket from a dumping ground within London. As for effluent and rubbish the inhabitants and their mayor can lie in it.

The rest of the country is not there simply to serve london.

"I understand that the refurbishment program has been stopped"

"But rumours abound, yet, for no apparent reason"
No I can't think why either LOL !

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

Just to reiterate the point above, the programme has not stopped and RM1941 is currently undergoing refurbishment at Eastleigh.

My bus number (if any): RM1368