My Picture Archive Post 28

First London TNA33364 on Route 295, Hammersmith 29/05/11

This bus was ordered in 2003 as part of the batch ordered for the conversion of Route 23 into OPO buses from Routemasters, using these Transbus Trident/ALX400s. They were nominally allocated at Westbourne Park Garage, hence they strayed on routes like the 7, 10, 27, 28/31 group and 295, as seen here. The bus moved on before the sale of First London because of the 23 getting new buses, ending up at Glasgow for the 'simpliCITY' network of routes.

Route 295 itself is actually older than the 23 (in its present life). It is an example of how what a seemingly pointless route changes to a regionally important route. It started out running East Acton-Hammersmith via White City via Westway in 1967, but after an extension to Wandsworth Bridge in 1968 and the diversion of the route from Shepherd's Bush via St Anne's Road to Ladbroke Grove in 1972 caused the Monday-Friday route to look closer to today's incarnation. It gained a Saturday service in 1972, extended to Clapham Junction in 1975 and gained a Sunday service only in the 90s! Post privatisation, it ended up at London General from Victoria Basement, Battersea Base and later on Stockwell, before handing over to First London from X in 2000.Since then, the route has gotten stronger, and is currently running today with its own B9TL/Gemini 2s, with the odd stray at times.