Buses - London Transport (1970-2000): books - history

The London Bus in Colour : From the 1970s to the 1990s

The last four decades saw dramatic changes in the British bus industry with deregulation of national services in provincial areas in 1986. Visually, London appeared the same with buses operating in their iconic red liveries. However, "The London Bus in Colour: From the 1970s to the 1990s" shows how vehicles moved from the traditional layout of rear platform and open half-cab to one-man buses with their front entrances.

The effect of deregulation is examined with the setting-up of local identities such as dynamic colour schemes, especially that of Bexleybus and the blue and cream colour scheme.
Studied in detail are the capital's first replica horse bus operated by Shilliber in the early nineteenth century and the celebration surrounding the 150th anniversary of the London bus in 1979.
This is followed by the celebrations of the fiftieth anniversary of the formation of London Transport in 1983, single-deck buses and the 'forbidden territories' of Chiswick and Aldenham when doors were opened to the public.

The Colours of London Buses 1970s

This is a colour album of London Buses concentrating mainly on the 1970s which was the first decade since London Transport's inception in 1933 to feature a large number of buses on London streets which were not painted in the mainly all-red (or in a few cases, all-green) livery with which people are familiar.

Vehicles in the traditional London liveries have not been ignored but many of the pictures depict this remarkably colourful era and often against the backdrop of famous or historically interesting landmarks which the author has been able to describe.

As far as is known, none of the photographs has been published before, and the vast majority were taken by one photographer, sadly now deceased, who had the foresight to compose his picture well.

London Buses 1970-1980 - A Decade of London Transport and London Country Operations

The 1970s were among London Transport's most troubled years. Prohibited from designing its own buses for the gruelling conditions of the capital, LT was compelled to embark upon mass orders for the broadly standard products of national manufacturers, which for one reason or another proved to be disastrous failures in the capital and were disposed of prematurely at a great loss.
Despite a continuing spares shortage combined with industrial action, the old organisation kept going somehow, with the venerable RT and Routemaster families still at the forefront of operations.

At the same time, the green buses of the Country Area were taken over by the National Bus Company as London Country Bus Services. Little by little, and not without problems of their own, the mostly elderly but standard inherited buses gave way to a variety of diverted orders, some successful others far from so, until by the end of the decade we could see a mostly NBC-standard fleet of one-man-operated buses in corporate leaf green.

London Transport 1970-1984

The late R. C. (Dick) Riley was not only a known railway photographer, but he had also an interest in road transport. Although a small number of images were taken in colour of buses from the early 1950s, including one of the few known images of the original Routemaster when brand new, it was from the late 1960s onwards he was to be seen regularly recording the changing bus scene in and around Greater London.
Ironically, the last book that he compiled solely drawing upon his own collection was "London Transport Buses: A Colour Portfolio" that was published in 2001.

The original book merely scratched the surface of the numerous images that Dick Riley took of London buses during this 15-year period. In this volume Matt Wharmby has thoroughly researched the collection to put together a new all-colour album featuring London Transport buses at the close of its glory days, from 1970 to 1984, when the capital was changed forever by tendering.

London Transport 1970-84

In 1970, around 3,000 RTs were still in service in the UK's capital. However, by 1984, transport in London was changing beyond recognition and would continue to do so as a result of tendering and devolution.
"London Transport 1970-84" covers the gently declining years of London's bus operations, during which the venerable RT and Routemaster types were compelled to give way to ambitious modern buses like the Merlins, Swifts and DMSs. These enjoyed less success, however, and their time in London was short, affording the Routemasters a reprieve that would last for two and a half further decades.

In this book, 120 stunning colour images from the camera of noted bus and railway photographer R. C. Riley are accompanied by detailed and informative captions, giving the full picture of this time of huge change.

London Buses in the 1970s - 1970-1974: From Division to Crisis

Using photographs from Jim Blake's extensive archives, this book examines the turbulent period in the history of London's buses immediately after London Transport lost its Country Buses and Green Line Coaches to the recently-formed National Bus Company, under their new subsidiary company, London Country Bus Services Ltd.
The new entity inherited a largely elderly fleet of buses from London Transport, notably almost 500 RT-class AEC Regent double-deckers, of which replacement was already under way in the shape of new AEC MB and SM class Swift single-deckers. London Transport itself was in the throes of replacing a much larger fleet of these.

Such were the problems with the MB, SM and DMS types that LT not only had to resurrect elderly RTs to keep services going, but even repurchased some from London Country! In turn, the latter operator hired a number of MB-types from LT, now abandoned as useless, from 1974 onwards in an effort to cover their own vehicle shortages. Things looked bleak for both operators in the mid-1970s. This book contains a variety of interesting and often unusual photographs illustrating all of this, most of which have never been published before.

London Buses in the 1970s - 1975-1979: From Crisis to Recovery

Continuing with photographs from Jim Blake's extensive archives, this book examines the second half of the 1970s, when both London Transport and London Country were still struggling to keep services going. This resulted both from being plagued by a shortage of spare parts for their vehicles, and having a number of vehicle types which were unreliable the MB, SM and DMS classes.
In 1975, both operators had to hire buses from other companies, so desperate were they. Many came from the seaside towns of Southend, Bournemouth and Eastbourne. This continued until the spares shortage began to abate later in the decade, particularly with London Country.

As the decade progressed, the two fleets began to lose their 'ancestral' vehicle types. London Country rapidly became 'just another National Bus Company fleet', buying Leyland Atlanteans and Nationals common to most others throughout the country.
Having virtually abandoned the awful MB and SM-types, London Transport had to suffer buying the equally awful DMSs well into 1978, but had already ordered replacements for them by that point the M class Metrobuses and T class Titans both of which would finally prove successful. However, plans to convert trunk routes serving Central London to one-person operation were largely abandoned.

London's Buses 1979-1994

In 1979, fresh from its general election victory, the Conservative government began formulating plans to deregulate bus services and privatise the companies operating them in England, Scotland and Wales.
London was not to be excluded, so from the outset, London Buses was broken up into several areas and from 1985, a tendering system was introduced which permitted other operators to bid for the routes. Opposition from the Labour group at the Greater London Council had to be dealt with - eventually achieved by abolishing it in 1986.

However, as each subsequent year passed, promises that deregulation was coming were not met. In late 1992, the privatisation timetable was set, and was ultimately completed at the end of 1994. The issue of deregulation never resurfaced.

Copiously illustrated with over 230 photographs, virtually all of which are being published for the first time, this is the story of London Buses over those sixteen tumultuous years. To give greater context to the narrative, annual vehicle acquisition listings show how purchasing policy changed over the period; important route changes, tendering gains and losses and a fleet list for the entire period are also included.

London's Buses- The Colourful Era 1985-2005

Ask any tourists what colour London's buses are and they will say red - and so they are. However, that has not quite always been the case as from 1985 until around 2005 there were buses in all sorts of colours running around the Greater London area. They did not even necessarily say that they were London buses - some claimed to be Kentish buses, while others had intriguing fleet-names like Armchair, Blue Triangle or Grey-Green.

Even London Buses themselves started running vehicles in the Bexley area in a blue-and-cream livery. How did this situation come about, and why did it end?
This book looks at the period of route tendering and privatisation, the variety of operators who came to work London's bus routes and the range of vehicle types and liveries they brought to the capital.