Most Advanced Decker?

This was surely the RM Routemaster. Or was it?

There’s no denying that the RM Routemaster holds a particular place in people’s hearts, be they drivers, enthusiasts, or the general public. And there’s no doubt that they are the world’s best known buses.

But, on the eve of their withdrawal from “proper” service in London, is there a decker that proved even better than the RM Routemaster?

Consider the Bristol F-series Lodekka, most popular in FLF configuration. Like the RM, it was of half-cab configuration, requiring conductors. The prototype came out in 1958, just one year after RM production proper started. F-series production run lasted till 1968, the same year as the last RM Routemaster. Bristol produced some 1,900 of the F-series and Dennis another 280 under licence, only some 700 short of the RM’s total. And Lodekka would’ve sold far more, had they been accessible to non-nationalised fleets from the start.

The more urgent need to modernise provincial fleets necessitated the withdrawal of Lodekkas well ahead of the Routemaster. Even so, there were parts of Britain prepared to swap early one-man operated deckers for crew-operated Lodekkas.

The most amazing fact about the F-series was its advanced technical design. It was light years ahead of any rival. The vehicles had a completely low floor on the lower (and upper) deck. This was unlike all other double decks of the time, all of which either had sunken gangways or, in the case of the RM, a substantial step from the entrance platform to the lower saloon. What made Lodekka the more remarkable was its low floor coupled with lowbridge design.

The F-series Lodekka was therefore Britain’s first ever low floor bus, some 25 years before the prototype SLF single decks arrived. Its technical foresight influenced other designs, none of which were as successful as the Lodekka.

Was it the Lodekka rather than the Routemaster that could be named as the world leader in double deck design?