Picture Archive Post 52

First London TNL32929 on Route 10, Hammersmith, 27/05/08 (© Aubrey)

TNL32929 started out as TNL929 at First Uxbridge Buses (UX) for Route 207, although it moved fairly early on to Westbourne Park (X) for routes, including the 7 and 23. Most of its batch mates stayed in Uxbridge through most of their career and then moved to various provincial areas. In about 2010-2011, this bus moved to First Berkshire for the 200 Legoland shuttle, amongst other general Berkshire routes. It never gained LEDs. It was later scrapped in 2014 at Ensignbus.

Route 10 is deemed to be the western half of the older 73 route. The route number became free because the original route 10 (Victoria-Wanstead-Abridge) was truncated and then withdrawn back in January 1988.
On 13th August 1988, the 10 was introduced between King's Cross and Hammersmith with Routemasters from Shepherd's Bush (S). Garage journeys ran to Shepherd's Bush Garage. April 1989 brought in a Holloway (HT) allocation with a Sunday Chalk Farm (CF) allocation. This changed part of the OPO Sunday side from Metrobuses to Titans. Garage journeys to Tufnell Park, as well as extended journeys to Archway Station were introduced.  March 1992 saw the Chalk Farm Sunday allocation move to Holloway. May 1993 saw the withdrawal of London United from the 10 as the Shepherd's Bush allocation moved to Holloway. This helped with the privatisation of LBSL units, as London Northern ran Holloway. This ended up being MTL London in 1994, before being bought by Metroline in 1998. Also in 1998, the whole 10 service was extended to Archway Station. TPs (Tridents) were introduced on Sundays in 1999.
On 1st February 2002, the 10 was split. The "old 10" contract was renumbered 390, and was truncated to Marble Arch. The "new 10" contract was awarded to First Centrewest, and ran between King's Cross and Hammersmith. New Volvo B7TLs were introduced into, erm... Wood Lane, as Westbourne Park was not ready to fully operate the 10, initially. It took until November 2003 before the whole route was allocated at Westbourne Park (X). Soon enough, the 10 ended up getting any double decker at X, including the working above.
The route returned to London United in January 2010. The N10 was replaced by the 390N, 10N and 33N, which meant that the 10 became a 24 hour service. New Scania Omnicity double deckers (SPs) were allocated to Stamford Brook (V). The route converted to LT in 2014 and those SPs went to the E3! After a re-routing to avoid Warren Street and instead go via Russell Square, this is the current state of the 10.

Hiatus update:
I'm (Aubrey) still on hiatus, however, I've decided to put out this Picture Archive post to ensure at least something gets out whilst certain personal issues are sorted out. I have no date on when I will fully return to blogging normally, as it depends on when this situation is dealt with. The quicker it is dealt with, the sooner I return, and the sooner everything gets back to normal.