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RMs at Mortlake For Neil Goodrich

For Neil Goodrich
Neil, a poster of Facebook wanted to know who the member of staff is, I said I know a man who'd know..........

Can you identify the member of Mortlake staff in this picture? Hope you can see this :)



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

Re: RMs at Mortlake For Neil Goodrich

Hi Brian

Sorry, can't see the picture. I'm out of UK on holiday. Could you send it to my email address please?

Re: RMs at Mortlake For Neil Goodrich

Just managed to open picture.
It's Paddy O'Hara, a day General Hand. Good bloke. Quite a character!

Re: RMs at Mortlake For Neil Goodrich

He looks familiar to me as well. Was he previously a conductor at Fulwell and possibly Twickenham before that. I am certain I used to pick him up on Ham estate when I was a conductor on the 71s?

My bus number (if any): RMC1469

Re: RMs at Mortlake For Neil Goodrich

Thanks Neil, that is who Paul Ameroth thought it was, I knew that you would know as I have seen other pictures of RMs 1&2 at Mortlake.

On the same day, supposedly the eve of the Chiswick Open day in July 1983, and after Mortlake had closed, RM 678 was also seen there and photographed sporting 33 route blinds (alongside RT 329 and an RLH on the side wall) even though it was supposed to have gone to Hounslow and the 33 had gone OPO at Fulwell, any recollections of this, just to tie up the loose ends. :)

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

Re: RMs at Mortlake For Neil Goodrich

Just for clarification, the rest of the 33 moved to Fulwell when Mortlake closed in 1983 but was converted entirely to Crew M, the Fulwell operation already was M. It didn't convert to OPO until 1985.

My bus number (if any): RMC1469

Re: RMs at Mortlake For Neil Goodrich

I have seen the picture of RM 678 at Mortlake alongside RLH 23 and RT 329 and can confirm that it wasn`t taken after the garage closed.

Here`s a picture of RM 678 leaving Mortlake on garage closure night - 24 June 1983 - being driven by the Night Foreman to Hounslow Garage.



All of the service buses left Mortlake on garage closure night except for RM 1623 which Rolling Stock forgot to allocate to a new home. It sat for several days and Neil T and I wondered what the chances would be of getting away with taking it out of London to a remote barn and hiding it! Unfortunately we had neither the barn to hide it in or the bottle to do it and it was due to the District Stores people (who were in and out of Mortlake daily removing stuff) asking why RM 1623 was still there which triggered its move to Norbiton. That left just the heritage vehicles - both LT and privately owned - and they went within two weeks of the closure being able to stay in the garage because the `operational` end remained in use as the Route 9 terminus.

Here`s a picture taken on 5 July 1983 when just the last two privately owned buses remained to be moved after FRM 1 and RM 1 had gone to storage at Bus Sales - which is where I`m about to take RM 2. RML 2276 is visiting from Hanwell on a stores retrieval mission.