Fools of April

On the 1st of April, the day of April Fools, we've had service changes on lots of route, mainly relating to their contracts and routings, let's first start of numerically.

Route 2/N2:

HV306 (LK17AHD) in Marble Arch

To be former look
VLA44 (LJ53BCX) at the start of route

The daytime route had a contract renewal retaining the same PVR of 24 with frequency reduced to every 7-8 minutes in peak hours from every 6-7 towards Marylebone AM and 7 otherwise. The daytime and nighttime variants both were retained with brand new Volvo B5LH Wright Eclipse Gemini 3's, also joint bid with 249 meaning both routes got the same time, however 2/N2 being a central route had it's ones, HV295-323, with gold ad frames. Nighttime N2 was rerouted at Victoria via daytime N2 to Marylebone Station as part of the central London consultation schemes.


Route 13/82/N13:

Old look: VH20 (BT13YWS) at Fortune Green.

The former 13 (Aldwych-Golders Green) is no more, the new 13 (North Finchley-Victoria) is basically 82 renumbered into 13, N13 was also withdrawn, replaced by the introduction of a 24-hour 82 (renumbered into 13).

©LondonBuses72 of Flickr
MV38209 (LJ17WRN) in North Finchley

Tower Transit won the contract for route 82(13) off Metroline with brand new Volvo B5LH MCV Evosetis, similar to their existing Gemini 3's in terms of layout.
The new 13(previous 82) also issued a PVR increase to cater for the loss of the former 13, which means this new 13 will be busier.
TE925 was the last Metroline 82 in service.
VH15 was the last RATP 13 in service.
MV38206 was the first Tower Transit 13.
I've covered part of the Finchley Road changes which can be seen by clicking this link here.

Route 19/N19:

WHV17 (LJ61NVC) on the 19 in Finsbury Park, nearing the end of the route.

N19 being a night route meant that N19 started before the 19, I believe HV223 was the first bus out on the night variant. 19/N19 also received Volvo B5LH Wright Eclipse Gemini 3's in a large order with routes 2/N2/249 and 259, quite unique 2's are to have gold ad frames whilst 19's don't?
WHV23 was the last 19 in Go-Ahead service.

Metroline's TE920 (LK58KFW) on the 82
by Fortune Green/A41.

Route 82:
Well, whilst I did basically sum up the 82 in my 13 segment, I'll just repeat one last stint. The number 82 itself is discontinued from the public eye, but it's existence remains firm as the number 13. Simply a mind twist from TfL to make people think 13 will still exist but in fact the real 13 was withdrawn and replaced by renumbering of 82...

Route 139:
The first RATP 139 proved to be VH45158 and TEH1465 proved the last Metroline 139. In order to compensate for the withdrawal of 13 and RATP only having 13 as their major route from the London Sovereign subsidiary, TfL came to the conclusion of having 139 novated from Metroline to London Sovereign with both party's consent. The RATP 139 runs with a similar yet enhanced timetable for the different route 139 traverses compared to the 13.

Route 249:

©LondonBuses72 of Flickr
HV310 (LK17AHL) at Streatham Station/Tesco Extra

This route, like 19, was previously with Arriva but they lost the route on the 31st March 2012 with brand new Volvo B9TL Wright Eclipse Gemini 2's (19/N19 also having a partial allocation of Volvo B5LH Wright Eclipse Gemini 2's).

Old look: WVL480 (LJ61NWO) by Streatham Common North

Go-Ahead did a good job on operating the route despite it's slim frequency in rush hours but they coped well. Even when the bus type swapped with released PVLs off 155 in order to give the ELT it's frequency increase as the ELT can only have one solid allocation allocated to them.
PVL376 was the last Go-Ahead bus on the route, may Arriva have a good next 5/7 years on this route, good to have them back on this route again.

Route R1:
I'm not one to mention Orpington Roundabout routes as I never have been or want to go in the area due to it being far and pretty poorly linked with only 358 as the alternative to me, but I will go ahead and mention.
R1 was retained with it's existing single door Enviro200s with a frequency reduction to every 20 minutes plus a minor rerouting near Orpington Station to go via Tower Road instead of Sevenoaks Road and Station Road.

Route R2:
The R2 was also in the Orpington changes scheme, a change so the route is cut from Petts Wood to Orpington making it only going from Orpington to Biggin Hill. With a PVR of 3 of existing vehicles released by other Orpington routes, and seemingly not the supposed 100.

Route R3:
The R3 makes up for the withdrawal of R2 by being rerouted, however the R3 itself is withdrawn from somewhere, and that is it's Chelsfield Village part. That section is replaced by the sufficiently increased R7. R3 also sees a frequency increase to every 20 minutes weekdays, 30 minutes Sundays and evenings.

Route R4/R6/R8:
These three routes with no changes to routing only have changes to their contract, of which both routes must have their ageing Darts rid of, and that somehow was brought up to light by the loss of 462, which has allowed to swap these Streetlites with the Darts (Pointers/Esteems) allocated to R4/R6 routes to be displaced. R6 also gets a new timetable to improve reliability. The Optare Solo slimline R8 also is retained with existing, the route can take regular 8.9m size vehicles but it's not the best ideals but it's still possible.

Route R7:
The last Fool. The best Fool? I say this as the R7 as a single deck route has seen a big change in general. As a route that only went from Orpington to Bickley Aquila, it now goes from Chelsfield Village to Chislehurst Sainsbury's, an extension from Orpington to Chelsfield via the withdrawn R3 and a general extension via unused routes form Bickley to serve the nearby Chislehurst. This was in my opinion the best change in the Orpington scheme as much as I've not went near Orpington as this links the villages with alternative places as well as make a lengthy and useful link in general.
R7, formerly crosslinked to R5/R10 is now a route of it's own with a PVR of 4, half hourly weekday services and new hourly Sunday service.

Thanks for reading this short post covering the April Fools changes, hope you enjoyed, see you next time!

Sorry, I forgot R11.

*cough*

Route R11:
Gains dual door Enviro200s off W16 which was lost to CT Plus a while ago, with some double runs removed to save time in general which may not be helping especially the Foots Cray section.

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P.S. If you read until this point, I'll be going to Oslo (Norway) for the next two weeks so expect barely any posts! (I may even intend on dropping my News Flash series).

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