A loss of any one of those routes may have caused us problems, London Central also kept it's 21, 63, 321, 363.

Note that a number of tenders retained by various companies recently have been mostly with existing buses. I actually think this is right, replacing buses before they are life expired just didn't make sense.

Now, who is going to buy all those expensive Bendies?, I notice the London General bendies from the soon to be converted Red Arrow routes are advertised in Bus & Coach for sale. Arriva will have the same problem when their bendies come off the 38.

I think the bendies should have actually remained on the Red Arrow routes (507/521), probably the only Central London routes were they were suitable for the business offered. They could clear those Q's from the Waterloo Station stops very quickly.

Now, with all this talk of going green, it's a big issue at London General and I suspect other London companies as well, when are we going to sort out all the light running which is reaching staggering heights.

There are buses running light from Potters Bar to/from Victoria for the 82, and to/from Trafalgar Square for the N91.

At London General, at the weekend the first 13, yes, the first 13 buses from Aldwych to Morden on the N155 all run light from Sutton Garage or from day routes in the Croydon/Cheam/Morden area's to Aldwych to start work.

There is very little flexability in the timetables that TfL insist on. In a way, TfL have tied the companies hands in this matter. There has to be a better and greener way.
I note that at a recent meeting between TfL managers and some passenger groups this matter of light running was raised but quickly glossed over or shot down by the TfL guys.

I'm not here to give TfL a bashing, they have done many good things and have vastly improved the bus services over the past few years, but at what cost and just where is all this money coming from? certainly not the fare box. In my view there are far too many services with over inflated frequencies.

For example, our N87 to Kingston runs every 15 mins Sun to Thur, I believe you could drop this to a 20 or even 30 min headway, on a number of occasions recently I have carried less then 15 pax over the whole route!!!!, between Wimbledon & Kingston we pick up very little even at weekends, on the 93 Putney to Nth Cheam the night service is running around with just a handfull of pax every journey every night.

The most extreme examples I've come across is the night service on the 472 Thamesmead to Nth Woolwich and 474 Manor Park to Canning Town, I would say they are totally under used, in fact while driving my staffbus over in east London I would come across a 474 and it was weeks after it first commenced before I had spotted a single passenger on one of those buses, same almost with 472.

However, looking at it from another view it is keeping our drivers working at times that suit them, and hey, who am I to argue or complain about that.

But surely this bubble will burst at some point in time, but for now, lets enjoy while we can!!!!.

Anthony.