A day in London (14.3.2026)

[whole diary]

[grahame]

from Home, 14th March 2026.
- bus running day, London route 38 Victoria to Clapton Pond
- and an opportunity to try out a new travel computer setup before longer journeys

Near perfectly to plan outbound journey to The Angel. On the way back, just about anything that could go wrong did go wrong. Never the less, a very much enjoyed day and huge understandings;  I had my eyes open - or perhaps they are different eyes of places which were haunts of my youth and Uni days. And I met and I saw some lovely people along the way; in parts they were sprinkled along many carriages of a train, in other parts there were too may of them crammed in. Within almost every situation, the most unlikely people will interact, helpfully, if they are in their comfort zone and we are polite to them.

B -> Melksham Station
T -> Swindon
T -> Paddington
U -> Victoria
HB -> Angel
U -> East Finchley
U -> Mill Hill East
B -> Mill Hill Broadway
T -> Kentish Town
U -> Angel
HB -> Clapton Pond
HB -> Angel
W -> City Thamelink
T -> St Pancras
U -> Oxford Circus
U -> Lancaster Gate
W -> Paddington
T -> Bath Spa
B -> Melksham Town
W -> Home

# awk '/^[A-Z]/{print $1}' yj| sort | uniq -c | sort -nr

20 "legs" - 6 on the underground, (5 of which were the tube, 1 on a subsurface line), 5 on trains part of the National Rail network, 3 on regular bus services, and 3 on the heritage buses that were there as the string that tied the day together.  And the final 3 legs were walked - totalling 6.7 miles (10.8 kms) according to my phone.  And it also says "18 floors climbed".

[Ralph Ayres]

"18 floors climbed". I hope some of those were to make top deck trips!

I was amused to see a report by one journalist who got excited about seeing a "Routemaster" bus being corrected by another pointing out that it was a far more noteworthy and older RT.  Routemasters seem to get all the glory, a bit like the Spitfire over the Hurricane.

[grahame]

"18 floors climbed". I hope some of those were to make top deck trips!

I was amused to see a report by one journalist who got excited about seeing a "Routemaster" bus being corrected by another pointing out that it was a far more noteworthy and older RT.  Routemasters seem to get all the glory, a bit like the Spitfire over the Hurricane.

Here are some pictures from the day ... you can probably fill me in on what's what

[John D]

First picture has a RM, RT and STL side by side

[Chris from Nailsea]

3.  Islington Tunnel, on the Regent's Canal.  We could do without the graffiti there.

[Chris from Nailsea]

2.  Clearly a full English breakfast - but there are too many liquids right next to the keyboard there for my liking.

[grahame]

Wasn't really a quiz but - yes - first picture is an STL, an RT and an RM alongside each other.  My understanding is that this are the three generations of rear entrance London buses.   I rode on the STL and a notice on board said it dated from 1935 (first brought in 1932) and ran until replaced by RTs in the 1950s. The RT bus was introduced in 1939 and ran to 1979.   The RM was introduced in 1960 and ran in normal service until 2005.

Picture taken at the Clapton Pond terminal bus park - and that one (picture) may turn out to be a classic.   The 7th picture shows the mythical "Clapton Pond" itself which I set out to find having photographed the buses!

The third picture is indeed Islington tunnel - a stone's throw from the Angel, with the toe-path, and Chapel Market, being favourite spots when at TCU (The Ciry University) from where I graduated 50 years ago.

[John D]

A little known fact was the RT type was almost universal in London in late 1950s, there were a few other bus types, and single decks etc.   If include the RT, RTW, RTL were 6956 of the type produced

Nowadays I understand the most common type is a Yutong electric bus in China.  They have a huge production line factory (in eastern Zhengzhou) that can produce over 300 buses per day.   The factory is 112 hectares (roughly 5 times the whole site, or 10 times size of factory buildings of the closed Cooper tyres site in Melksham)

[Red Squirrel]

"18 floors climbed". I hope some of those were to make top deck trips!

I was amused to see a report by one journalist who got excited about seeing a "Routemaster" bus being corrected by another pointing out that it was a far more noteworthy and older RT.  Routemasters seem to get all the glory, a bit like the Spitfire over the Hurricane.

RT's are for the connoisseur. They are almost as good as KSW's... I went on the 'Farewell to the RT's' tour (and, for that matter, the 'Farewell to the KSW's').

I note that the last few Routemasters were recently auctioned off by TfL^» (Transport for London - about), and got silly money. https://www.wilsonsauctions.com/news-and-insights/news/legendary-1960s-london-routemaster-buses-go-under-the-hammer