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The myth of Mortlake Garage?

Mortlake Garage consistently turned out its Routemaster buses for service in a much better condition than any other central area garage. This has been put down to various factors, the garage foreman, the quality of staff, pride in their work etc, but how much of that was true and just how did Mortlake manage to turn out it’s buses in such good condition when other garages apparently could not?

Mortlake did have good staff; they also had a strong forceful Dock Foreman but so did a lot of other LT garages, so what was different about Mortlake? Its proximity to Chiswick? No, it had no direct supplies of parts from Chiswick, or Aldenham for that matter, it got its parts from it’s District stores at Hounslow, the same as any other garage in the district, so why could Mortlake regularly turn out its buses particularly its Routemasters in far better condition that other LT garages?

Well the main reason was it had the time and resources to do so. It was a very small garage, in terms of allocations, “a pram shed” as it was known by other garages’ staff, housing only around 35 to 38 buses and this is what really gave Mortlake a tremendous advantage over other larger garages from 1973 onwards.

In 1973 London Transport introduced a work-study based bonus scheme in line with a lot of companies to try and recruit and retain garage engineering staff and get round the Government’s strict pay policy. This bonus scheme was manning based and the scheme “allocated” staff at various grades and trades based on the number of buses operated, it also took into account factors like towing vehicles, the scheduled run in times and the proximity of the garage to main roads, so that adequate staff were allocated for the towing lorry and to get buses through the run in and keep the surrounding roads clear of parked up buses.
It was a complex assessment of manning hours and staffing levels for the various grades and trades which I will not try to explain here, but the end result was bands of manning levels for unskilled and semi-skilled staff aligned to the numbers of buses in each band. The first band went as far as I can remember from 0-50 buses then 50 – 75 and so on.
If a garage had less than 50 buses it would get a minimum manning to provide a roster giving the minimum for the run in of five general hands (G/Hs) and the same number of day shift G/Hs and bus mechanics (B/M’s) for the running shift and dock work as if they had 50 buses. Garages with buses in the higher manning level bands got extra B/Ms and G/Hs pro-rata to the amount of work required to be done on more buses and in larger garages, any unscheduled excess being picked up by overtime. District garages with a chassis wash and/or a towing lorry and garages with special circumstances like the proximity of the Fuel Island to a main road like Tottenham and Hackney also received additional staffing to keep the queues down, provided of course all the buses ran in on time!!

With the craftsmen, the fitters, painters, coachmakers and electricians, staff were similarly allocated based on an assessment of the scheduled work arising from rota inspections and accident and casualty work like engine, gearbox and axle changes. Trimmers and coppersmiths (panel beaters) were allocated on a district not garage basis.

This is where Mortlake did very well as opposed to other and particularly larger garages. The number of buses required for a garage to warrant more than one coachmaker, painter, electrician etc was around sixty, below that it was impossible to divide up a craftsman, so garages with 60 or less buses got one of each. So Mortlake got the same craft staffing as if it had had 60 buses and each of its craftsman had about half a week’s work, whereas a garage like Peckham, with 120 buses, had enough buses to keep two coachmakers, a painter two fitters etc fully occupied with scheduled work with little or no time for additional work.

Add to the spare time, a strong Garage Foreman, drivers with one of the lowest accident rates in the fleet and staff who had a pride in their job, which increased as time went on and it becomes clearer as to why Mortlake was able to achieve the impressive turnout of vehicles. However, did the staff at Mortlake work any harder at it than the staff at the other garages? Well the answer is that they worked in their spare time whereas other garages with spare time may not have used it so well!!

We well never know how Mortlake would have coped with 60 buses, but would they have achieved such a good turnout with less “spare” time? Somehow I doubt it.

What is known is that at Aldenham, the body shop staff loved country buses (not Green Line RMCs though, too much roof damage) and Mortlake buses and that the worst garages in the fleet for bodges, (repairs not made to the proper standard or using inappropriate materials like packing out pillar and rail damage with cardboard or plywood) and unrepaired damage at overhaul were Cricklewood and Riverside, Cricklewood was a large and militant garage with well over a 100 buses and Riverside had 60 buses.

My bus number (if any): RTL 960 RML 2667 and an RMC

Re: The myth of Mortlake Garage?

Brian, What a nice write up! Having spent much of my LT life at contrasting garages I can concour that your obs are about spot on, however..

I started at TB with an RM allocation of 23 the rest of the fleet was LS and BL and a very burly mddle foreman by the name of Charlie Thurling. Now Charlie would hound his staff beyond belief and I was always under the impression that TB was quite a good smallish shed. When TB went OMO I transferred to PM with an RM allocation of over a hundred (Hellfire!)and by far were better maintained. They looked scruffy but boy did they go like stink. I would have though that TB would have looked after the fleet but seemingly not. It just goes to prove a small shed is not always better.

Andy

My bus number (if any): RM2059, RMC1490, RCL2243

Re: The myth of Mortlake Garage?

Mortlake did have a much bigger allocation in the 50's and 60's to the degree that buses were often overnighted in Avondale road and along the railway.
The allocation was reduced in part due to falling bus use and environmental laws relating to the surrounding residential areas.
However the service allocation was not reduced until the scrapping of the fares fare policy. Mortlake also had several RMC and RM trainers and staff buses to maintain.
Much of the credit comes down to several staff who did indeed, do stuff in their spare time, the many retired staff who were always welcome for a cuppa in the running shifts mess and two blokes called Neil, one a driver and the other an engineering bloke who did a lot to propagate the attitude at the depot into a concerted effort to keep their fleet a notch above the rest. The Foreman and likes of Ginger and the 2 Neils really made a difference.

I would have though my own depot, Hanwell has to come in as the worst.
It was ruined by the militant elements who politicised anything. A real shame, but it had a mix of Irish and Indians who hated each other but were also as militant as each other. One fuelled by Labour, the other by the IWA. and all courted by the TGWU who revelled in it.
It never let up, from the arrival of Merlins to the 2nd departure of the RMLs.
Had that nonsense been sorted properly then HL would probably still be an operational depot and not a branch of Lidl.

My bus number (if any): Undisclosed but in London

Re: The myth of Mortlake Garage?

From the mid 60's to closure Mortlake never had an allocation that reached 40 buses, so yes it was a 'Pram Shed' and the inside staff had time to do their jobs without rushing. The same, however, did not apply to the Platform staff who had to work a main road route through central London and try and keep up with the Dalston crews.

If there had been no solidarity with the crews we would have soon finished up like todays bus drivers, underpaid, excessivly long duties, appalling conditions of employment and serious stress levels.

The T&G got you a good job and a good rate of pay which is why you can wear those rose tinted glasses when you look back at your working conditions on London Transport's buses :-)

Claire

My bus number (if any): BL49

Re: The myth of Mortlake Garage?

I don't think I could ever see what it was like with rose tinted specs. The engineering job is now cleaner, safer and the facilities much better, as are the employment conditions - at least while working.
But when the TGWU and others achieved their goals of better pay and conditions they did not stop. At HL strikes and disputes would occur over a droopy bell cord it became a big game between shop stewards and rival factions, the Irish and the Indians in our case. LT though, was a better employer with better pensions than most and better than what is offered today by comparison.
It's a shame unions allowed these antics, even though I am now a director so on 'the dark side', I believe they have never been needed more in so many areas of employment. I hope thats not too political!!

My bus number (if any): Undisclosed but in London

Re: The myth of Mortlake Garage?

I was careful to say from 1973 when the allocation at M was very small. In the early 1950's they indeed had over 60 RTs (changed to RTLs in 1955), but with the RTLs they certainly didn't have the reputation for good looking vehicles that they developed with the RM. I agree with Jack to a point about some of the garages being too militant for their own good, it is no secret that London Buses couldn't wait to close down Chalk Farm, and whether we like it or not, the strength of the unions (or weak management) at Chiswick Works in the late 70's and early 80s ultimately led to the degeneration of the bonus scheme which then priced them out of the market and their jobs along with a bit of help from the then Government.

My bus number (if any): RTL 960 RML 2667 and an RMC

Mortlake Garage - 20th anniversary of closure

I'm collecting RM471 from Blackpool on Sunday 20th April and taking it to the Manchester Museum of Transports London Bus event on the way back home.

http://www.gmts.co.uk/events/index.html

The theme of the event this year is 20th anniversary of the closure of the once famous Mortlake Garage in London.

If anyone reading this is going, please introduce yourself to me at the event.

My bus number (if any): RM471 and RM2213