"Improving" West London: Bell Corner, not End

Metroline VW1048 on Route E8, Hounslow Treaty Centre (© Aubrey)

The long awaited double decking of the E8 has finally happened, in conjunction with an extension to Hounslow. It relieves the 235 (hence it was awarded with single deckers) and the 237 between Brentford and Hounslow, as well as giving a new link from Hounslow to Ealing. TfL have recently awarded the 235 with single deckers, which shows that the E8 is a pretty darn useful extension.


Metroline VW1262 on Route E8, Hounslow Bus Station (© Aubrey)

No fancy new hybrids, not even any refurbished buses. Just used, ex-Holloway Volvo B9TL/Wright Gemini 2s, as well as native Brentford examples. With new blinds that shout out "BELL CORNER" in one direction. On the first morning, not many people were using the extension, however by the Bank Holiday Monday afterwards, the extension is well used, including the through route facility from Hounslow towards Hanwell and Ealing.



Metroline VW1213 on Route E8, Hounslow Bell Corner (© Aubrey)

At Hounslow Bell Corner, the stand for the E8 and H22 is closed due to roadworks. Instead, it is standing on the side of a road next to an Aldi supermarket.
The E8 has been subject to numerous aborted double decking schemes, with TPs, and this batch of VWs. Some were transferred to AH with the intent on converting the E8 to double deckers, but that did not happen completely. This explains the half-half treatment of the blinds, where the white on black is new to when the bus was transferred to AH, whilst the yellow on black is a spare destination set for VWs.


Metroline MM783 on Route E8, Brentford Commerce Road (© Aubrey)

The E8 was previously allocated the MAN 14.240/MCV Evolutions which used to run on Routes 90, 206, 232. In practice before that, the allocated buses were anything out of Brentford depot.


Metroline VW1216 on Route E8, Ealing Broadway (© Aubrey)

The original plan was for the E8 to replace the H28 at West Middlesex Hospital and Amhurst Road. This would give the route a kink at West Middlesex Hospital to serve it. However, it would have made journeys longer. There was also a large opposition to the route along Amhurst Road. The H28 was also supposed to be rerouted away from Wood Lane and Amhurst Road, which was unpopular to those living on the route, despite the consultation showing that it was a popular decision to extend the route to Brentford (by 29% to 22% against). The main reasons against the rerouting/extension of the H28 were West Middlesex Hospital access and the loss of service on Wood Lane and Northumberland Estate affecting especially elderly customers. Therefore, the E8 was extended directly via London Road, and the H28 was unchanged.


London United TLA7 on Route 635 and Abellio London 8573 on Route 235, Brentford County Court (© Aubrey)

Route 635 is cut back to Hounslow Bus Station because the E8 is able to provide the excess capacity. The 635 was a useful reliever route between Hounslow and Brentford, but with the E8 providing better distribution of capacity, it was deemed unnecessary to double deck the 235 and have the 635 to Brentford. It will be interesting to see how the Hounslow-Feltham corridor will cope however.


London United DPS659 on Route 110, Ivybridge Retail Park (© Anthony)

Also, another change the E8 extension has dealt with is the rejigging of the 110 to run from Hounslow Bus Station to West Middlesex Hospital via Twickenham and 267 (providing more capacity there). It is removed from West Middlesex Hospital to Hounslow via London Road due to the excess capacity now met by the E8 extension. The whole section was supposed to be directly replaced by the E8, but as the E8 does not serve West Middlesex Hospital, it is no longer a direct replacement.


London United DPS691 on Route 110, Busch Corner (© Aubrey)

The 110 will no longer serve this part of the route, which is slightly a parallel to the 117 service. The 117 is infrequent by itself (every 20 minutes), but with the 110, it gave 6 buses per hour from Hounslow directly to West Middlesex Hospital (the H28 is indirect). Now, the 117 has to take the 110's load back, and as the 117 is one of the two routes that does Hounslow-Feltham, could things get better?


London United DPS681 on Route 110, Ivybridge Retail Park (© Aubrey)

This does mean that the 110 will now return to terminating at Hounslow "Bus Station". They all added links at the expense of not many links being taken away. Most of the opposition of the restructuring of the 110 came from the affected areas in Isleworth. The 110 is effectively a loop service, when joint with the old 110 routing, and the route is now in a horseshoe shape.


Metroline VW1255 on Route E8, Ealing Broadway (© Aubrey)

Overall, the changes made are a good set of changes to relieve the busy 235 and 237, as well as help bolster up the 267. The 235 is one of London's busiest single decker routes, and it is one route that is on the border of being single decker and double decker. Full-sized single deckers cannot run on the 235 due to Sunbury Village. The Brentford-Hounslow section of the 235 and 237 has just gotten a little bit better, and the E8 provides a new link between two large centres in West London.
Two more unlinked centres that will be linked this year is Ealing and Harrow which will be linked later on this year.

No Centrewest in E-Routes

No, Metroline Travel does not count as Centrewest, even though the same parent company owns what was Centrewest. The Metroline successor is called Metroline West, and they have just lost the E5, E7 and E9. Route E9 was covered as part of the "Improving" West London post series as the route was converted to double decker buses. The two routes with new buses are the Southall residential route E5 and Route E7, a route made by splitting E2.

Abellio London 8869 on Route E7, Greenford Avenue (© Aubrey)

Abellio London West have gained the E7 and E5 off Metroline West from Hayes Garage (WS, originally from the name Wing's). New Enviro200 MMCs were ordered. They have Allison gearboxes, so there is no juddering of sorts when ridden (as seen on the ZF gearboxes).


Abellio London 8143 on Route E5, Southall Station (© Aubrey)

Both routes have different histories, but were born in the minibus era of the Ealing network. E5 was born in 1988 out of the 105 Havelock Estate section. It was also a Southall North local route, running around the residential streets of Southall North between Greenford and Southall.


Abellio London 8152 on Route E5, Perivale Tesco (© Lewis)

It started with the not as predictable Mercedes-Benz 709D breadvans (which were wheelchair accessible). Serving initially just the residents of Southall North, Golf Links Estate and the Havelock Estate south of Southall Station, the route was later extended to the Toplocks Estate, and north to Perivale's Medway Estate. Many estates are served. Later on, when all those estates were served, the route was further extended from the Medway Estate to the Tesco in Perivale.


Abellio London 8145 on Route E5, Perivale Tesco (© Aubrey)

Now this route provides the link to the supermarket from the nearby estate without either a long-ish walk or a large amount of crossing roads. A small but significant extension done only in 2006.
The route was only extended to Medway Estate in 2002.


First Centrewest DMS44408 on Route E5, Southall Town Hall (© Aubrey)

Route E5 was with Centrewest from when it was created in 1988, through the buyout of Centrewest by First and later Metroline, stayed under Centrewest until 28th May 2016, where it has finally moved operator under contract, breaking a long standing operator connection.


Abellio London 8142 on Route E5, Perivale Tesco (© Anthony)

Now at Abellio London (former Travel London/TGM/Wing's Buses), it is part of the large amount of Ealing prefixed buses that have been based at WS (E1, E5, E7, E9 now and E6 under Wing's Buses/TGM/Travel London). Seems interesting that the garages that was intended for the Ealing routes are either closed (Hanwell, HL) or/and have no Ealing routes (Greenford, G).


Abellio London 8866 on Route E7, Ruislip (© Lewis)

On the first day of the E7 with Abellio, Ruislip Gardens curtailments did happen. However, not from the Ruislip end (that'd be pointless), but ex-Ealing. E7 has an interesting routing out of Ruislip that changes over the course of the day. During shopping hours, it goes via Ruislip High Street and Wood Lane Waitrose. Outside shopping hours, it goes straight to Ruislip Station from Ruislip Gardens.


Abellio London 8873 on Route E7, West Ealing (© Aubrey)

It is formed from the split of Route E2 in July 1990 with the usual Renault breadvans. Since then, it has run between Ealing Broadway and Ruislip.


Abellio London 8868 on Route E7, Gurnell Leisure Centre (© Aubrey)

It converted to low-floor in 1997, with new Dart SLF/Marshall Capitals. Ex-London Buslines Darts joined in, so yellow Darts made an appearance mainly on the E7. They were cleared away by newer Darts and eventually, Enviro200s.


Metroline West DE1676 on Route E7, Greenford Avenue (© Aubrey)

It later moved from First Centrewest to Metroline West in 2013, before leaving Centrewest with new Enviro200 MMCs.


Abellio London 8873 on Route E7, West Ealing (© Anthony)

Overall, both batches of bus seem to be decent rides, especially with a less jerky gearbox. The Enviro200 MMC is, as it has been for some time, a fairly smoother bus than its predecessor. The E5 batch in particular can be pretty fast, breaching 50 mph when on the U9 fast section.


Abellio London 8145 on Route U9, Harefield Village (© Lewis)

This is likely to be the future order of the U9 anyway, as it is retained by Abellio London with new buses.

Other than the usual hiccups of most of the buses being on one side of the route on the first day, especially with the E5, there seems to be no issues with Abellio on these routes at the moment. Hopefully, it will stay this way, and as Abellio expand in West London, this pushed out the H28 from Hayes (WS) back to Fulwell (TF) garage after 9 years of operation at Hayes (WS). There are the usual trials and tribulations of Southall traffic to deal with for the E5, but operations should be decent at least under Abellio London West for both routes.

"Improving" West London: Yield to Yeading Deckers

Abellio London 9456 on Route E9, Greenford Avenue (© Aubrey)

Route E9 has been subject to a recent change. Alongside Metroline West losing the route to Abellio London, the busy route got a second deck. Which was already well used, in contrast to the E8 double deckers.


Abellio London 9461 on Route E9, Greenford Avenue (© Aubrey)

This introduces a double deck route hail and ride section, at Barnhill Estate in Yeading. Fixed stops are proposed for this (it was included in the consultation), but at the moment, it is one of the very few routes with double deckers and a hail and ride section.


Abellio London 9463 on Route E9, Greenford Avenue (© Anthony)

The E9 is double decked with refurbished Enviro 400 diesels that are ex-Walworth. This means that the buses can be prone to doing this:


Abellio London 9463 being towed, Ealing Broadway (© Anthony)

Yup, this bus leaked oil a bit too much and broke down at Haven Green.
But when these buses are working, and are not substituted with banditised hybrid Enviro 400s from the 350, these buses do provide needed relief for the ever busy Ealing-Greenford corridor. Considering this route (and most of the other E routes) had minibuses in the early 1990s, double deckers is a large upgrade.


Abellio London 9462 on Route E9, Greenford Avenue (© Aubrey)

As seen with the various photos, and a few rides on the E9, the extra capacity is definitely necessary, as the single deckers on the E9 did get fairly full, especially between Ealing and Greenford, but also beyond Greenford towards Yeading.


Metroline West DE1692 on Route E9, Greenford Avenue (© Aubrey)

From introduction on July 1990 until the 28th May 2016, E9 was with Centrewest and the subsequent owners of that sector: FirstGroup and Comfort DelGro (Metroline West). It progressed from Renault minibuses, through Dart SLF/Marshall Capitals and Enviro 200s (as seen above), to Enviro 400 status. It is the second Ealing prefixed route that started with Renault minibuses to turn to double deckers, after the E8 gained partial double deckers around 2010 (and converted fully on the 28th May 2016 as well).


Abellio London 9459 on Route E9, Greenford Avenue (© Aubrey)

Overall, good improvement by TfL to double deck the E9. The service was obviously teethed with the usual first day delays and bunching, and the not-so-usual banditised Enviro 400 hybrid on the route.