Despite the fact that this blog puts me in grave danger of being crowned Queen Geek of Geekdom (bus spotting category), the fact remains that today is a sad day indeed for London.After today, the legendary no.38 bus route will no longer be running the old favourite Routemaster buses. Sure, they're old and expensive to keep going, and having to employ conductors costs LT more than other buses would but these buses give London character.
These buses used to go right past my front door on Hackney's Graham Road, so close and so fast that you could feel the house shake when you were inside. Every morning they'd take me to work at Angel (pictured behind the bus... see, I really am a geek, I didn't take that photo!), even if I did have to walk a few stops back up the route in order to get on! Somehow there was always something much nicer about travelling on a Routemaster than there ever will be with a standard double decker bus, let alone one of those nasty bendy things. Bendy buses are for airports, not big cities!
Will the streets of London ever be the same again?
What?!
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think when you think London? A red routemaster bus. They stand for London-ish-ness!
and the bendy buses get in the way at traffic lights.. boo hiss
ReplyDeletea) Everytime I get on the bendy ones, I get a nasty feeling they are suddenly going to shut on me in guillotine fashion.
ReplyDeleteb) There was always the nice feeling with a route-master that if you didn't quite make it in time to get there in time before it left the stop, you could chase it down the street and leap on victoriously at a traffic light.
However, they aren't all going! My dear Mama is going to be a Bus Conductor on a special Heritage RM route