My Picture Archive Post 30

First London TNA33382 on Route 31, White City, 04/02/2012

This batch of Trident/ALX400s were ordered initially for the 23 in order to convert the route from Routemaster operation to full OPO low floor operation back in November 2003. The 23 itself is a relatively new creation, made in 1992 as part of the large Central London changes where the 15 was withdrawn between Paddington and Westbourne Park. Since then, the route has been a stalwart in Westbourne Park Garage, where this bus was based until 2011-2012, when it moved with the 28/31/328 group to Atlas Road Garage (which relieved Westbourne Park) and became part of the pool of double deckers used for those routes. Notably, by this time, it still had not received White City blinds, so it was displaying Shepherd's Bush Green Station (or Shepherds Bush Grn *roundel* as it was showing literally). It also received a repaint from First "willow leaf" livery to plain red.

This bus later moved to Dagenham by late 2012 to double deck the 498 before moving on after First left London (and thus after the last First routes went to Stagecoach) in 2013. It moved to Taunton when it was converted to one door and received the new First corporate livery in January 2014, even though many buses were being painted into the "Buses of Somerset" livery. This bus followed into the green livery only by May 2014, and is currently in that First fleet.

Route 31 was one of the two notable routes that converted from Routemaster operation to minibus (Mercedes Benz 811D/Alexander) operation in 1989 (the other being the 28), thinking that high frequency minibuses can replace lower frequency double deckers. Whoever thought of that did not realise that even if it would work in the theoretical world, it did not translate into a success. The 31 later got larger Dennis Dart/Wright Handybus.  The massive batch of Mercedes minibuses were then dispersed to various places across London Buses. Some went to Hanwell for the 195, Uxbridge for the R1, Alperton for the 224, and Selkent to add to minibus pools and the 202. After the initial DWs, Dennis Dart SLF/Marshall Capital converted the route to low-floor before the 31 was re-converted to double deck in 2004. The route was then extended to Shepherd's Bush in 2006, and was extended to its present form in 2008. It had since passed to Transit Systems under Tower Transit on the 22nd June 2013.

Christmas is in five days. So have fun, and keep capitalists happy! :)