fbb was "very excited" to purchase a scan of a LT Red Book for 1958 from Ian Armstrong of bus routes web site fame. He was so convulsed with awe and wonder that he bought a hard copy for 1977 to contrast and compare.
For most of its life, the book was strictly for LT staff only.
Much had happened with London's iconic red buses in the 20 years or so that lay between the two similar-in-scope volumes.
But first, an apology. It has been quite tricky to get photograhs of this book - the pages tend to twang and the combination of print quality and faded page age has led to some poor efforts. But you will get the idea!
1958 - Internal Phone numbers GONE
Everything is now BT!
Bell Punch becomes Gibson
And we no longer have the luxury of Fire Brigade numbers!
Index no change
Pleasingly, the index is still mammoth ...
There is still no locality beginning with X!
Since the 1958 edition, however, Zoological Gardens has gained an explanatory "Regents Park".
The timetables, shock horror, are now using the 24 hour clock and in increasing numbers show the full timetables where frequencies have been cut back, especially on Sundays.
The policy appears to be to show all journeys when the headway is evey 15 min or wideer
Some services have "repeat patterns" with journeys that do not run the full length of the route ...
... an even bigger shock to LT management today when everything runs "all the way". Well it does unless "turned short" to regulate the service and infuriate the passengers!
Showing all journeys does make for some huge tables, especially when occasional and unpredictable journeys do not run all the way as with 27.
More Lettered Services
We see the early days of W for Wood Lane, H for Hampstead and E for Ealing ...
... which enables us to sample the usual crackpot LT frequencies.
What daft thinking ever decided that a bus every 24 to 27 minutes was ever a sensible service to operate. Surely, make it every 30 min!
Red Arrow routes
We also have the Red Arrows ...
Inter station bus
From something quite distinctive, by 1977 it has become a service that is all but moribund, operating on Sunday Night Monday Morning only.
The half-upper deck was to allow room for heavy luggage in the "boot".
Night Services
These are now prefixed with letter N and some of them now operate on Saturday night and Sunday morning.
Holborn was the terminus of those Saturday night only trips on the N98 from Romford.
Oddities?
Again apologies for poor quality reproduction. Sightseeing tours were yet to proliferate into the vast business that they are today..jpg)
But the top two are weird. Wembley Stadium and Wimbledon Stadium "Special Services" are designed to operate for sporting events, but the rubric on the timetables says "will only ooerate if staff are available".
.jpg)
Seems tough if you are expe9cting a bus!
Wimbledon Stadium was the home of greyhound racing ....jpg)
... and speedway.
.jpg)
The stadium was closed in 2017 and demolished one year later.
Trolleybuses and Excursions GONE
Which provokes a challenging puzzle picture.
Where is this picture located?
Please Note : the final instalment from Lyme Regis should be published tomorrow.
Next Lyme and Chips blog : Thursday 1st August
The photograph was taken to the east of Silvertown with the Tate and Lyle factory to the left (one of the few large industrial buildings still in London ) and Silvertown church in the far distance straight down the railway lines. Most of the rest has gone. Note the bombsite to the right of the trolleybus. AlanJS.
ReplyDeleteNowadays long Elizabeth Line tains speed through here on newly-laid track with a concrete base - vastly different to any rail traffic that trundled tkrough here previously!
DeleteAnd nowadays it's the railway line that is electrified, not the road.
W is for Walthamstow and Wood Green . . . NOT Wood Lane !!
ReplyDeleteAnd H is also Harrow and Hounslow.
ReplyDeleteThe version with the phone numbers etc was indeed (and obviously!) only available to LT staff, but at least until the 1970s the timetable without the internal stuff was sold to the public. In 1962 it was 5s (25p) which must have made it the most expensive timetable in the UK at the time.
ReplyDelete