Great Western E-routes

Conveniently enough, there wasn't much bus activity at the end of May apart from local changes. Living nearby makes snapping so much easier, plus being familiar with the route means sunshine locations easily come to mind, especially for one of the services which has had several first days over the past few years.

I remember struggling on a randomly hot day in April, but I still ended up spotting last week...

Being only seventeen years old, the E11 is one of Ealing's newest bus routes, replacing part of the E10 when it was re-routed via Scotch Common. It runs at a modest 20 minute frequency from Monday to Saturday, with a typical drop to half hourly on Sundays and during the evening. The termini are Ealing, Warwick Dene and Greenford Broadway, with intermediate destinations including West Ealing, Drayton Green, Castle Bar Park and Elthorne Heights. 5 buses are needed for the 5-mile route at peak times, whilst an end-to-end journey can usually be completed in around 35 minutes. Only mini single deckers can be used due to the ridiculously tight turns near Copley Close, although the smaller capacity usually isn't an issue. That said, the E11 is extremely popular around Castle Bar Park, being the only bus service remotely near the very dense housing, whilst the train now only takes people as far as West Ealing, which is no good for most. It's also pretty handy in the morning at the busy Broughton Road stop, as there's usually enough space to accommodate passengers waiting for any bus which takes them directly to Ealing Broadway - the 207 and 427 often just sail past. Even though it's predominantly residential, there are some quirky aspects, including the ridiculously steep and twisty Studland Road, delving right into the estate at Castle Bar Park, or the affluent run by Ealing Common.

The sun was shining here, but typically it decided to make itself scarce as soon as the bus arrived.

From 2007 to 2019, it seemed like three operators had attempted to run the E11, but its contract was not reassigned through the formal tendering process at any point. Transdev London United acquired the NCP Challenger operations in 2009, whilst RATP-group purchased Transdev LU in 2011. Seven 07-reg ADL Enviro 200s entered service under NCP, equipped with a very uninspiring interior, but they proved to be extremely reliable and pretty fast too. Two of them worked the E11 until the very last day, lasting for twelve years without a refurbishment, whilst one (SDE13, now known as SEN38) still survives in London, but at Go-Ahead's Northumberland Park (NP) garage. For some bizarre reason, in 2014 London United decided to replace the 07-reg examples with slightly newer 08-reg native buses, which had been at both Fulwell (FW) and Epsom (EB) garages before their move to Park Royal. The bubbles moquette found on these buses was very popular, but unlike the 07-reg they turned out to be really troublesome, so two of the older vehicles had to be reinstated. Since no other routes at Park Royal used short 8.9m vehicles, the E11 has a pretty bland history on the London Vehicle Finder, although its buses frequently made appearances on the 440, which was beyond inappropriate at school chuck-out time. Still, London United superintended the E11 very well and it was a shame to see them go, in the early hours of Saturday 25th May, after such a successful twelve years.

Sadly Abellio have ditched the 'Common' on the blinds, but it does mean the displayed destination matches the iBus message.

Abellio London have dominated the Ealing bus scene recently, picking up so many new services in such a short time frame. Given that space has always been an issue for their West London operations, the enthusiast community naturally questioned how Abellio would fit in another two services (see later). Eventually, it was revealed that a brand new depot would be opened on the Great Western Industrial Estate, with a much larger available capacity than both Hayes (WS) garage and the temporary outstation at Southall (AB). This base is strategically positioned, being just around the corner from Ealing Hospital. where several bus routes converge. Naturally, it was assumed that the E11 would operate out of the Great Western (GW) depot, but later it was revealed that this would not be ready until Saturday 13th July, a full seven weeks after they commenced operating the E11. Luckily, only six new ADL Enviro 200 MMC vehicles had to be squeezed into the Southall outstation, with some making appearances on the E5 and E7 before the E11's first day. Interestingly, they seem to have been fitted with tinted windows. Even though the garage was by no means complete, enthusiasts were greeted with a full turnout of new vehicles on day one and shortly afterwards some older 16-reg MMCs from the E5 began to sneak out onto the route. Now that the permanent depot is open, a more flexible common user policy with all the other 9.0m vehicles has been assimilated. To start with, operation was on the wobbly side, but a fairly chunky diversion which involved skipping all of Castle Bar Park and Bordars Road couldn't have helped matters. Admittedly, I was sceptical that Abellio would be able to handle this route well, especially after seeing an E11 training bus going down Bordars Road, which led to sewer works at the time, less than 24 hours before they took over. Having voith E200s with stop-start technology was also a cause for concern, since the Greenford hail and ride section is littered with speed humps and often involves a hill start, but surprisingly these vehicles seem to have coped well with the challenging road conditions. The service seems to run like clockwork and hopefully with their more appropriately sized new depot, Abellio can continue to strengthen their well-respected plethora of West London bus routes.

I would only recommend snapping along Ruislip Road East in sunny conditions, as otherwise the reflections are horrible.

Both the E10 and E11 share similar territory, so trekking to West London on two consecutive weekends must've been quite frustrating for non-local enthusiasts, especially as the routes have switched between the same operators. Usually, services are given to companies on a five year contract, with a potential two-year extension awarded for consistently good performance, so it's pretty disturbing that the E10 has been run by five, or arguably six distinct bus companies since 2013. With Metroline acquiring Greenford (G) garage after the sale of First London, an operator change here was inevitable, but upon tender the E10 was unusually awarded to Tellings Golden Miller (TGM), from Heathrow (HE) garage. They were a subsidiary of Arriva at the time. The situation regarding the E10 became much more complicated when TGM was returned to family ownership at the end of 2014, so it effectively became a fully Arriva service, with the now defunct Garston (GR) garage controlling the service, whilst Dartford (DT) were responsible for maintenance and providing spare buses. The practice of buses dead-running a distance of over 20 miles on a regular basis clearly wasn't viewed as sustainable, so eventually Arriva surrendered the service. London United, at Hounslow Heath (HH) garage, assumed operation in December 2017, but this base was still some distance away and it was evident that taking on such an unfamiliar route at the last minute was no easy job. Hopefully, this next period with Abellio can offer some stability for a theoretically peaceful back street route - no other service in London has had such a turbulent recent history.

From the outside, there really isn't much difference between the 14-reg and 12-reg E200s.

The current E10 runs between Northolt, Islip Manor and Ealing Broadway. It navigates the back streets of Smiths Farm before briefly meeting the Ruislip Road, but then takes another lengthy detour to serve the Ferrymead Estate, which is quite vast despite its low density. From my observations the E10 is well used here, especially as after Greenford Broadway it takes the quickest possible route to Ealing, via Scotch Common and Cleveland Road. Given its usefulness, the E10 is heavily oversubscribed, with buses often carrying standing loads even in the middle of the day. A much needed capacity upgrade was promised by TfL, with a proposal to increase the frequency to every 12 minutes and modify the Islip Manor terminus, so that longer vehicles could be used than at present. Infuriatingly, neither of these have been delivered. Even though the E10 is crying for help, TfL are seemingly obsessed with the notion of extending it beyond Ealing Broadway. The initial plan to send the route to Chiswick Business Park was rightfully cancelled, as creating a useful link using buses with limited capacity has disaster written all over it, yet recently a new consultation regarding the E10 was released. This time, it's proposed that the E10 will run as far as Osterley Tesco, via South Ealing Road and the Sky office complex, but with short vehicles being the indefinite allocation, this seems like another ridiculous idea. For now, 8 vehicles are required for the 4bph Monday to Saturday frequency, with typical reductions to 3bph on Sundays and 2bph during the evening. It takes around 45 minutes to complete the 6 mile journey.

London United continued to use the nine ADL Enviro 200s ordered by Tellings Golden Miller in 2014, being the first euro 6 examples to grace the streets of London, but the ridiculously long dead runs meant that these vehicles were knackered and two spare 12-reg E200s were purchased for the E10 - ironically, these came from Arriva. This meant that only the logos truly revealed that the E10 was run by London United - the interior definitely suggested otherwise to the regular passenger and ultimately they wouldn't have noticed any difference when they took over. One native 08-reg Enviro 200 from the E11 made an extremely rare appearance in January 2018, but otherwise the E10 solely used its allocated buses. Although Hounslow Heath (HH) garage clearly tried their hardest with the route, I'm sure they're grateful that it has found another new home.

Having flopped attempt#1, it was quite funny to see one driver almost turn down a dead end road on the first day...

Abellio London started their new contract on Saturday 1st June 2019, with all nine new 19-reg ADL Enviro 200 MMC vehicles being ready for day one. They are identical to the E11 buses, but the two batches could not intermingle at first, due to the aforementioned delayed opening of their new garage on the Great Western Industrial Estate. The E10 is slightly more substantial than the E11 and could not possibly fit inside Southall (AB) or Hayes (WS), so ended up starting out at Twickenham (TF) depot. Dead runs from here were probably more time-consuming than those undertaken by London United and Arriva, but it was a temporary arrangement after all and the E10, along with other outcasts like the 195, 350 and U5, have returned to their respective home garages. The first month wasn't smooth, with some pretty nasty gaps in rush hour, but each week I'm seeing an improvement and soon I don't doubt that the E10 will become more reliable than it has been in years. Now that all of Abellio's E-routes are under one roof, the similar 9.0m MMCs allocated to the E5 and E11 can frequently escape onto the E10. I should also hope that they won't be as foolish as Twickenhem depot, who decided to dump a 10.5m vehicle from the R70 onto the route on one Saturday morning, with no indication whatsoever that it was actually an E10. A paper sign wouldn't hurt. Needless to say, the bus was subbed quickly. That aside, Abellio have had a promising start on both E-routes and I wish them all the best in strengthening their West London operations even further.

This Optare Solo was incredibly rapid and sounded healthy, but was withdrawn just four days after this shot was taken.

With the E11 I couldn't really discuss any fall-out as all of its buses were simply withdrawn, but the E10's ex-Arriva E200s have quickly been redeployed. If you've read my other posts on RATP, you'll know that they've become obsessed with standardising their fleet as of late, so it's no surprise that the remaining Optare Solos became a target. They predominantly worked the K5 at Epsom (EB) garage, although the ex-E10 buses have settled in comfortably and work pretty much everything, from the busy outer-suburban S1 and 463 long-distance routes, to the more localised S3 and K5. For some reason, two of the Optare Solo vehicles are still in service, but they could disappear at any moment and I urge you catch one while you still can, especially on a route as fun as the K5.

Thanks for reading and take care!