Not Silly Yet - Sense with 477s
There was no date on this London Country Area bus map found on-line; but a careful perusal shows a route 477 from Dartford (top) via Swanley (somewhere in the middle) and terminating at Orpington Goddington Lane and occasionally Chelsfield (bottom left).There is no date on the map, presumably because that piece of historic information was on the front cover which is not pictured!
For the record, the 477 still runs between Dartford and Orpington today!
Please also note that there was a route 431 at Chelsfield which ran from Sevenoaks to Orpington.
The 431 timetable was never frequent ...
... latterly degenerating into a Monday to Friday only service
To get to Chelsfield today you have either the R1 which doesn't go to Chelsfield ..'
... but serves Chelsfield station; which, obviously, is nowhere near the village (station left, village at PH, right).
The R1 runs every 20 minutes and was once part of the Orpington Roundabout network.
The R3 does serve Chelsfield village, NOT Chelsfield Station ...
The Challenge of Chelsfield
... and also runs every 20 minutes.
Today's operator of both is Metrobus with no sign of any local branding.
Neither route materialises in the somewhat confusing Metrobus web site. It is a good web site if you already know where you want to go.
It has been a nightmare sorting Chelsfield out and it is only by the grace of Robert Munster's bus timetables, Ian Armstrong's London Bus Routes and, via Ian, Mike Harris' bus maps. The R1 and R3 are London buses RED routes.
London Buses web site? No proper maps, no proper timetables, so USELESS.
After a slight modern diversion via Chelsfield, we revert to history.
Back To GREEN
The "477" area was, from the formation of London Transport in 1933, a Country green operation.
The 477 itself was operated variously from Dartford ...
... and/or Swanley depots.
The picture below shows the last conductor operated 477 on its final trip to Swanley, shown with its proud but saddened clippie no linger clipping but lovingly clutching his ticket machine.
It looks as if they gave him a Routemaster double deck coach for his final day!
You can get a model of the Dartford garage ...
... which didn't change much in later days.
The 477 continued under National Bus Company ownership ...
... and still ran to Chelsfield where the terminus was the historic Five Bells pub ...
/// quaint but ancient.
Sadly this iconic depot has been demolished.
Buses ran every 30 minutes all the way in London country bus days.
So, London Country South East became Arriva via Kentish Bus.
Arriva's 477 will feature tomorrow.
Next Silly Swanley blog : Tues 16 Sept
No comments:
Post a Comment