Tag Archives: United Kingdom

Bus Photo of the Month: June 2024

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Mercedes-Benz O530G Citaro

Location: Trafalgar Square, London
Operator of Vehicle: Transport for London
Date of Photo: May 21, 2008

Articulated buses (or “Bendy Buses in British English) are common in many large cities across the globe, but not so much in the United Kingdom.  London’s brief period of running such buses began on June 2, 2002 and did not even last a whole decade.  Articulated buses were not permitted to operate in the UK until 1980 due to their length, though an exception to this rule was granted for a few trials of articulated buses from MAN and Leyland in 1979.  South Yorkshire Transport ordered 13 articulated buses from Leyland in 1985 and Grampian Regional Transport received a single Mercedes-Benz O405G in 1992, but bus operators wouldn’t really order any articulated buses in large numbers until near the turn of the 21st century when accessible low floor models became available.  

London transport companies were interested in articulated buses since they could carry more people than a double decker bus (albeit with more standees and fewer seats) and unlike the iconic Routemasters, they were handicapped accessible.  However, it was not long after these buses entered service that criticisms began to mount.  Due to their length, they sometimes blocked intersections and motorcyclists and bicycle riders disliked the larger blind spots that the longer buses had.  Engine fires in 2003 and 2004 only turned the public against the bendy buses even more.  In 2008, Boris Johnson’s mayoral campaign included a pledge to phase out articulated buses from London’s fleet as soon as their operating contracts expired.  Following his election, this happened as proposed, and the “New Routemaster” entered service in 2012.  The last articulated bus trips in London occurred on December 9, 2011.  At its peak, the articulated bus fleet in London consisted of just under 400 vehicles.

Following their withdrawal from service, the articulated buses were transferred to other parts of the UK, including Leicester, Liverpool, Brighton, and Hove.  Some were even transferred to an Arriva subsidiary in Malta.  

For more photos of London’s articulated Mercedes-Benz O530G Citaro buses, please click here.  

Rail Photo of the Month: June 2024

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1992 Tube Stock 91155

Location: White City Station, London, England
Operator of Vehicle: Transport for London
Date of Photo: May 19, 2008

For reasons I’ll share in a separate post, my 4 year old has taken an interest in the London Underground lately.  As a result, the photo of the month is coming to us from London.  I find photography on the Tube to be a mixed experience.  The most positive aspect of it is that the staff are well trained on what the photography rules are and often come up to photographers to remind them that flash is not to be used instead of declaring (falsely in most circumstances) that photography on a subway system is illegal.  The more challenging part of photographing on the Tube is that many of the angles and perspectives I usually try capturing are “flipped” on account of the system’s left hand running.  You might now be thinking how big of a difference does this truly make in taking pictures, but for some reason, I’ve always felt something is a bit “off” when photographing in London or other locations with left hand running.  Have you experienced this?

Keen eyed readers might notice that the train in this photo isn’t running on the left side as one might expect.  The Central Line has a brief section of “right hand running” due to a long disused loop track that served the former Wood Lane station and White City Depot in this area.  This track arrangement allowed westbound trains to turn back for eastbound service without the train operator needing to change ends.

For more photos of London Underground 1992 Stock, please click here.  

Rail Photo of the Month: April 2024

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Metro-Cammell Glasgow Underground Stock 118

Location: Cowcaddens Station, Glasgow, Scotland
Operator of Vehicle: Strathclyde Partnership for Transport
Date of Photo: August 2, 2005

A recent video by railfan and videographer extraordinaire Geoff Marshall about the new Glasgow Subway rolling stock caught my attention.  The third generation of rolling stock for this unique subway system is in the process of being introduced, which means that the second generation stock that has been in service since 1980 will be retired soon.  This second generation stock is what I rode when I visited Glasgow for a day in the summer of 2005, so it seemed fitting to feature the outgoing rolling stock as a Photo of the Month.

The Glasgow Subway opened on December 14, 1896, making it the third oldest subway in Europe (only London and Budapest are older).  However, it does have the distinction of being the first mass transit system in the world to be known as a subway.  The trains have an uncommon gauge of 4 feet, making the trains narrower than those on the deep level tube lines of the London Underground.  The Glasgow Subway also has the distinction of having never been expanded since it opened, it serves the exact same 15 stations and 6.5 miles (10.5 kilometers) of track that it has been serving for over 127 since opening.

With the arrival of the third generation rolling stock, it is expected that the second generation stock will be phased out over the course of 2024.  The third generation of stock is designed to be converted to driverless operation and will have full front views for passengers, just like the Docklands Light Railway, once “ZPTO” begins.  There are also plans to install platform screen doors in conjunction with the transition to driverless operation.  Geoff Marshall covers these topics and more in his video, which can be seen here.  

Have you been on the Glasgow Subway?

For more photos of the Glasgow Subway, please click here.  

Rail Photo of the Month: July 2023

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1973 Stock 126

Arnos Grove Station, London, England
Operator of Vehicle: Transport for London
Date of Photo: May 21, 2008

This month, the London Transport Museum is celebrating the 90th anniversary of the Piccadilly Line extension to Cockfosters.  In 1932, the line was extended from Finsbury Park to Arnos Grove.  Then on March 13, 1933 the line was extended to Oakfields and again on July 31, 1933 to Cockfosters, which remains the terminal today.  To mark this occasion, the London Transport Museum is running a special fantrip using its 1938 rolling stock on Sunday, July 9.  I haven’t been in London when any of these special types of events put on my the museum have occurred, but from what I see on social media, they look to be great.  As it is, the museum itself is a must see attraction for any transit fan visiting London.  

The photo featured here is of the 1973 Stock that currently operates on the Piccadilly Line at the Arnos Grove station.  The 1973 Stock is among the oldest rolling stock in use on a transit system in Britain but TfL has plans for new deep tube stock that may begin operating as soon as 2025.

For more photos of the 1973 Stock, please click here.  

Bus Photo of the Month: May 2021

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RoutemasterRoutemaster

Location: Trafalgar Square, London, England
Operator of Vehicle: First London under contract to Transport for London
Date of Photo: May 21, 2008

When you think of London transport, the iconic image of a red, double-decker bus comes to mind.  For many years, these red double decker buses were a mainstay on the streets of London.  Over 2,900 Routemaster buses were constructed, and many are still in existence today.  However, most of them have not seen revenue service since 2005.  In that year, the last Routemasters were retired due to their lack of accessibility.  A “heritage service” was established on two routes to keep about 20 Routemasters in regular service.  These short turns of regular routes ran through Central London and were largely used by tourists.  One of these routes was discontinued in 2014, but the other continued to operate.  In 2019, the remaining heritage route was cut back to operate on weekends and bank holidays only between Easter and the end of September.  Service did not operate in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and last month, it was announced that the service will not resume as the tender has expired and it was not put up for renewal.  

I have been to London twice and consider myself fortunate to have had the opportunity to ride on the original Routemasters, both in regular service in 2003 and also on one of the heritage services in 2008.  I have yet to visit London since the “New Routemasters” entered service in 2012, but look forward to experiencing a low-floor, handicapped accessible Routemaster the next time I find myself there,

For more photos of London’s Routemaster buses, please click here.

Oren’s Reading List: Riding an entire system in a day

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Bombardier Mark II Car 204
The Vancouver Sun reports that today, a man named Stephen Quinlan intends to ride the entire Vancouver SkyTrain system in about 3 hours, in order to set the Guinness World Record for achieving the feat.  You can read about his preparations here.  I made no effort to set a record while doing so, but I did ride the entire Skytrain in a single day on August 7, 2007, back when it only had two lines and fewer stations.  It isn’t the first system I rode in an entire day, either.  The largest system I rode in a single day is the Washington, DC Metrorail (in 2002, when it only had 83 stations), but I have also explored the entire TTC Subway (2007), San Juan Tren Urbano (2016), Glasgow Underground (2005), Rome Metro (2008), Jerusalem Light Rail (on opening day in 2011) and Haifa Carmelit (2007) in a single day, and did the Tren Urbano, Jerusalem Light Rail, and Carmelit on a single fare.  Needless to say, it is a much easier feat to achieve on a smaller system such as Haifa’s (the smallest subway in the world) as opposed to a city such as London or New York, but that is to be expected.  

Have you ever tried to ride an entire system in one day?  Were you successful?  Were you trying to set any records?  Feel free to post your answers in the comments below!

Oren’s Reading List is an occasional feature on The Travelogue in which I share articles that I’ve read that might also be of interest to the readers of this website.

Oren’s Reading List: How the London Tube Lines Got Their Names

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If you’ve been to Washington or Chicago, you know that subway lines are named for colors.  If you’ve been to New York City or Paris, you know that trains are referred to by a number of letter.  Around the entire world, identifying subway lines by color, number, or letter is common.  But in London, all the Tube lines have names.  Did you ever wonder where those names come from?  This article from Londonist reveals all.  While some names are portmanteaus of the destinations they serve (i.e. Bakerloo), others have more complex histories.  

Oren’s Reading List is an occasional feature on The Travelogue in which I share articles that I’ve read that might also be of interest to the readers of this website.

London U-Bahn Map

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Did you ever expect to see the London Underground or “The Tube” referred to as the U-Bahn?  U-Bahn is the German term for subway and is used in just about each German city that has an underground rail network.  Yesterday, I shared a 1973 London Underground map with you.  Today, I’m sharing another London Underground map, except this one is from 1975 and printed in German for the benefit of German speaking tourists.  I don’t speak or read German aside from knowing a few select words, but my guess is that the texts on this map are just straight translations from the standard English language that would be used to German.  It is certainly an interesting addition to my collection as I don’t think I’ve ever seen a London Underground map in a language other than English.

Here are the scans of the map.  You can click on each image to make it larger and see it at full size.

london-underground-1973-german-page-1-t london-underground-1973-german-page-2-t london-underground-1973-german-page-3-t