Picture Archive Post 43

Normal posting will resume shortly. Well, it sorta has already with the Picture Archive Series!

London General VP7 on Route 185, Lewisham Station, 23/02/13 (© Aubrey)

These buses (including this example, X158 FBB) were ordered by Durham Travel Services, more known as London Easylink for the win of the 185 in January 2001. Based at Old Kent Road, they were paraded for a year in full London Easylink livery with 185 route branding, with where the route went on the sides and vertically on the rear, weirdly. They also had way too many London Easylink logos on them! In August 2002, Durham Travel Services liquidate, and the buses have no effective operator (and the 185 has no operator). Whilst other buses from, erm... practically everywhere cover the 185, the buses awaited their new owner in East Thames Buses - the TfL-owned operator that tried to prove to the private operators that it is possible to cheaply run bus routes well. Formally, the route transferred in April 2003 to ETB at Belvedere and eventually Mandela Way as well. The bus also gained the fleet number VP7 at ETB. East Thames Buses were bought by Go-Ahead London (thanks to Boris) in October 2009, and the bus moved to Go-Ahead, still on the 185. The route (and this bus) moved to Camberwell Garage in May 2010. The bus stayed on Route 185 until the 4th November 2013 when it was withdrawn from London service. The bus then was bought by EOS for the 66/66A route launched in September 2014. The bus ran as usual on those routes until it hit a low bridge out of service in early 2015. And that's the end of that, at the moment.

Route 185 started as a tram replacement route back in October 1951 running between Victoria and Blackwall Tunnel (where North Greenwich is now), initially based at Camberwell and Walworth with RTLs. Camberwell lost the allocation on the route in 1952, with Catford Garage gaining part of the route in 1972, by that time the RTLs had been replaced by RTs. The RTs were then replaced by DMSs and the route turned OPO in 1973. In 1978, the route was partly retracted from Blackwall Tunnel to Lewisham and was completely retracted up to Greenwich Church in 1982. The route became its Victoria-Lewisham state in 1987. A Camberwell allocation was reintroduced in 1985 with Walworth closing. Titans were also introduced at that time. That went in 1991 as 185 turned to Selkent (and later Stagecoach Selkent) with Titans from Catford Garage. London Easylink won the route in January 2001 with those Volvo B7TL/Plaxton Presidents. The company liquidated in 2002, and buses from all sorts of places contracted by Blue Triangle covered the 185. TfL took over under East Thames Buses in 2004, with the B7TLs returning. A politically motivated move came next as the contract was novated to Go-Ahead London General in 2009 as ETB was sold to Go-Ahead. The route moved to Camberwell (London Central) in May 2010, where it is now, albeit with newer B7TLs with Wright Gemini I body and nearly any other double decker from Camberwell Garage.