Looking through old family photographs I came across a picture taken of this bus in Trafalgar Square sometime in the 1980s or '90s. Ian's bus stop lists it as sold to Tom Daly sometime after 1997. Was this bus scrapped in the end or is it now someone's project?

Which route number is RM 1158 on, Roy? That might help date the picture.
Probably outside your likely date range but it was a Mortlake bus until overhaul in the Summer of 1979.

It's a London Northern bus with the orange ringed bulls eye on route 139. The ultimate is either badly faded or it the angle of the sun is reflecting off it. Adverts for "Five Guys" at the theatre and Dublin £32 by coach. I cannot decipher the other advert for what is on at the Palladium which might read ******* 'query' with a harp underneath.. It is heading towards Pall Mall.

RM1158 is still operational with The Bus & Boat Tour Inc in Toronto.

Interestingly it was rebuilt in USA some 15 or so years ago with reversed platform and staircase. Numerous photos of it are available on the web.

Seasons Greetings.

Andrew

My bus number (if any): RM1368

Thank you Andrew, and seasonal felicitations to you as well. That is a coincidence I have just received an xmas card from my cousin who lives in Toronto. I'll send him a copy.

139 route in Central London dates the photo to not before early 1992.

Digressing a bit.......
I mentioned RM 1158 as a Mortlake bus which it became through a mid 1970`s overhaul cycle. We never had many 11xx series bonnet numbers but at that same time we also got RM 1192 which sticks in my mind for something that happened whilst I was a conductor on it in 1976.

I think we would all agree that the LT Training School was well regarded as being thorough in upholding high standards of driver training that remained un-bending even in times of dire driver shortage.

It was quite normal for a new driver to be `visited` in service for either a uniformed or plain clothes assessment. Two or three such observations would be `planned` in the first few weeks of a newly qualified driver. The driver would be unaware of these unless a dis-favourable report resulted. And if the high standards of the Training School were being adhered to, the drivers record was marked as `ok` and no further action resulted.

It was incredibly rare for a new driver to be taken off driving duties for poor performance in the weeks after passing the legendary `Chiswick` standard. But it happened to a guy at Mortlake. A nice bloke, mid twenties, not at all gobby or impetuous, not fast or aggressive - but also not cut out to be a London bus driver.

In his couple of few weeks on the road he had numerous `minor` scrapes with other vehicles or inanimate objects - almost daily, sometimes more than once in a day. Being a new driver and yet to gain a permanent place on the rota, he worked with a different conductor every day and some of these began to dread what would happen during the course of a duty.

I got him one early turn and having completed an incident free first half, we set off on RM 1192 for the first trip of the second half. It was an absolute necessity that buses had to take the centre line of the road under the brick arch that is Barnes Bridge. In coming to a halt to give way to an oncoming bus, we paused right by the former River Police base as three `cops` hauled a bloated body out of the water and onto their jetty. Nowadays that would probably involve a cordon and rolling road block. Back then the thinking might have been that nobody in a car would be able to see over the low wall so it would be an un-noticed task. Then along comes a bus and stops right by it!

Stood on the platform, I was uncomfortably close to the action but my driver had seen it too and in the few moments that we were stopped he was looking back over his shoulder at what was going on. If truth be told he was still doing that when he started to move off towards the bridge and, inevitably, he got too close to it. There was this awful sound of metal against brick as dust and particles fell down on the car that was following us. I think I was expecting that we might pull in at the request stop just beyond the bridge to examine the damage but, no, we carried on into Barnes High Street where, by the bus stop, was Barclays Bank with a glass frontage big enough to contain an entire bus reflection. I went round to the front of the bus assuming that some acknowledgement might be forthcoming of what had just happened - but he was in total denial. Until I pointed to the reflection in which it could be clearly seen that each bay of the nearside roof was pushed in from front to back.

And that probably sealed his fate a few days later when he was suspended pending a disciplinary. The result of which was not the requirement of re-training but a simple choice of a conductors job or termination of employment. He took the former.