Iconic Route?

Monday's post considered the Alexander Dennis Enviro400, the Guilford manufactured modified Trident chassis, with a brand new and rather sexy Falkirk manufactured body design.

It’s time to look at the route on which these buses will operate.

It’s the 24, from Hampstead Heath to Pimlico, one that has a special place in London’s transport history. In fact, linking the E400 and route 24 and you have something unusual. Possibly even iconic.

Tourists looking to see the London they miss while on the Underground will probably graduate towards an open top tour or one of the two last remaining Routemaster “heritage” services. In fact, the north-south 24 is an ideal way of seeing the “real” London, with “real” London passengers on board. Beginning at Hampstead Heath, it travels through Camden and Tottenham Court Road to Charing Cross Road, Leicester Square, and Trafalgar Square. From there, it continues through Whitehall, past Westminster Abbey, to Victoria Station and on to Pimlico.

The Enviro400’s curved front upper deck glass windows therefore provide a unique viewing point as the 24 passes Nelson, Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye.

The real beauty of the route is that it’s done the same thing for almost its entire life. In fact, it’s arguably the oldest London bus route of all. Minor variations to accommodate one-way systems there may have been (first at Parliament Square, as long ago as 1926!), but substantially, when all around it has changed, the 24 remains intact.

This survivor actually began life as the Vanguard Motor Omnibus Co’s 5, from Hampstead Heath to Victoria, in 1906 but this ceased in 1908 upon the merger of Vanguard and London General.

LGOC tried again in 1910, numbering the service whose southern-most terminus remained at Victoria, as 24. Its extension beyond Victoria to Pimlico was in August 1912. And, aside from traffic management requirements, the 24’s been as it is ever since, a remarkable testimony to a successful bus route, 94 years old this August.

Before the creation of London Transport in 1933, it saw both LGOC and British Automobile Traction workings. It’s also seen a variety of buses, from early Milnes Daimlers, LGOC B-types, British Daimlers, AEC NS-types, AEC STLs (and STLs rebuilt with RT bodies, known as SRTs) and, from 1951, Leyland RTLs. The 24 saw Routemaster RMs from 1963 to 1965.

It was at this point that LT used the 24 to evaluate the Leyland Atlantean before they switched to the 76, the 24 returning to RML operation. There was a DMS Fleetline interlude between 1975-1979 and from 1986, 24 went driver-only, with the Titan, having already seen the experimental forerunner, the Leyland B15, in 1976.

Another 24 “achievement” was as the first truly central LT route to pass to a non-London Buses Ltd operator – Grey-Green, later Arriva – in November 1988, using Volvo Citybuses. Metroline won the contract in late 2002, initially using Presidents. Currently, the 24 operates 24-hours-a-day, seven days a week at frequencies of up to every five minutes. The running time is between 34 and 56 minutes, depending upon time of day, day of week, and direction of travel. Metroline remains the current operator.

With grateful thanks to the London Bus Page for additional information