1970 London Bus Map
The 171A ran all the way from Tottenham and served the Abbey Wood estate – not quite Thamesmead, yet. The helpful Sunday timetable (c/o Ian Armstrong) …
The 229 appeared in 1951 but eight years later Abbey Wood appeared in the route description but not the timetable. By 1970 the full route became Orpington to Woolwich …
For a while the 229 was part of the Bexleybus “company”, an attempt by London buses to inject more local identity into their often impenetrable mixture of services. It’s a model from EFE.
Harris Bus was established in October 1986 as bus and coach operator in Grays. In 1997 it diversified, operating routes under contract to London Regional Transport winning tenders to operate routes 108, 128, 129, 132, 150 and 180.
In December 1999, Harris Bus was placed in administration with its London services taken over by London Regional Transport’s East Thames Buses subsidiary.
Lewisham Link and Eltham Link liveries …
But let us go back to today’s Thamesmead network. With genuine respect for Mike Harris and his excellent cartography, the bus network is baffling in the extreme. Like many parts of London, routes have been started, finished, diverted, shortened or extended in what seems a very haphazard fashion.
The obvious biggie is the routes using the Thamesmead North Bentham Road and Crossway loop. Here they are in 2010 on a London Buses “spider” map.
But Thamesmead takes a whole lot of fathoming. And without a detailed map most visitors and newcomers will struggle. fbb has done so; and really needs to delve deeper into the history – BUT …
And that 2010 “spider” map. Don’t bother to search for an up to date version, dear reader, because …
… there ain’t one! London Buses do not want you to know where the buses run in Thamesmead!
As part of this posting, fbb was eager to inform his readers that there has been no through bus from Thamesmead to central London for ages and ages. But he failed to remember the N1.
There is no bus service to London at any other time. It is a long way and folk can use the much more expensive National Rail service or the Purple one.
In tomorrow’s blog, however, we shall meet a brand new express route to the estate.
P.S. It’s arriving today? (a parcel for fbb not the new bus service!)
Next Thamesmead Troubles blog : Thurs 15th Feb
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