End of an era, and the return to home

Trio: 9432 on left, E127 in middle, 9435 on right

It is the 30th April 2016 and we see routes 35 and 40 return to their truly home sweet home at Camberwell (Q), the former on paper allocated ADL E40H with the Enviro400 MMC bodywork, and the latter with the new MCV Evoseti, on the Volvo B5LH chassis. Whereas on the other hand, route 45A, or rather the 345, has had the last laugh with Go-Ahead London as it was operated out of what is now Go-Ahead's garages since 1985, when the route was born. And was operated mostly by either Stockwell (SW) or Camberwell (Q), of which it passes both virtually. Peckham (PM) and New Cross (NX) aided the route and in the 2000s, all four operated the route simultaneously! We can never see that again for the next 5 or 7 so years.

Acceleration restricted: Abellio London 9428 LJ09CAA
at Peckham Bus Station

Old: Go-Ahead London E127 LX09FCD on Peckham Road

Route 345 is allocated the former 35/40 batch of 2009 Euro4 Enviro400s, 9428-58. No change to timetable. Pretty much just a rebrand and a new garage, all there is to it to be honest. As of 29/04/16, Camberwell (Q) did not show any effort for route 345's last day, with turns to Brixton, Battersea Latchmere, Battersea Bridge, Clapham Junction and Camberwell Green. Usually, the 345 had not many curtailments at all but ever since tender award, the performance started to drop. Battersea Bridge being the most used turn, and even that turn isn't used that much. Whereas the 35 and 40 were operating a decent service all round.

Here's an interesting story upon tender. Abellio planned on sacrificing the 40, but gaining the 345. Whereas Go-Ahead wanted all three of them. Due to garage constraints, both 35 and 40 left Walworth (WL) and Abellio got to win the 345. Vice versa for Go-Ahead.

Old: Abellio London 9462 LJ09CEF
in East Dulwich

New: Go-Ahead London MHV9 BU16OYS
in East Dulwich

We see a wonderful upgrade to what was a very lifeless route, the first of the MCV Evoseti breed! Route 40 just parallels the 35 and 176/185 for most of it's journey, with 3/4 stops it serves on it's own after Monument on it's way to Aldgate. Yes, none other than the 40.

Old: Abellio London 9450 LJ09CZZ
in Clapham Common

New: Go-Ahead London EH57 YX16OCO
passing Walworth Road

Otherwise, we have a decent but overused new type, but to be honest, only Abellio have been ordering the MMC on the E40H chassis a lot. This is Go-Ahead's first MMC batch with the E40H chassis.

And now we see the rebrand, on route 345.

I'm going to text in the history of route 345, as it is my favourite route of the lot. I'll simply jump a bitesize. I'll start with the middle-age 345 (at 31 years old).

Route 345 started to exist on the 10th November 1990, replacing the 45 between South Kensington and Brixton and running on to Elephant & Castle with a PVR of 16 from both Camberwell (Q) and New Cross (NX). The former operating on weekdays, latter on Saturday, and both on Sunday, with Leyland Titans/Olympians. On the 12th March 1994, the route got sent to Peckham at Camberwell. Thus less paralleling with the father 45. A renumbering to 345 took place on 2nd September 1995 with full operation from Camberwell (Q) with running number #141+.

Then a horrible decision, the single decker low-floor conversion on 26th September 1997, with 13 LDPs from New Cross (NX) and 9 from Camberwell (Q). Of 10.2m length, and even worse, single door. Now we come to the good part, on the 30th September 2000 until 28th October, the route was operated with 1 Titan from Peckham (PM), 5 LDPs from Camberwell (Q #61+) including buses ex-N12 (#241+, 9 LDPs from New Cross (NX #311+) and 8 LDPs from Stockwell (SW #151+).

The fun slowly died out when on the 27th April 2002, the route was fully housed in Stockwell (SW) with low-floor Volvo B7TL 10m Plaxton Presidents. I believe the batch was PVL250-72, mixed PL51/PJ02-plates. Then on the 2nd May 2009, 345's contract with Go-Ahead retained with new E100-128, Euro4 2009 Trident Enviro400s. Oddly, they had ZF gearboxes for a garage like Stockwell (SW), but the ZF gearbox started rolling out since 486's batch of 56reg. Then comes 31st March 2012 when the route was regaraged to Camberwell (Q) to make space for route 19.

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