Route 8 was the 8th route to convert to New Bus For London operation. The official conversion date was 28th June, but the route didn't achieve 100% LT operation until July, by which time the 38 still hadn't properly converted, which was meant to be wholly Routemaster in May. The old kit on route 8 was mostly Trident/ALX400 DD's, but Enviro 400 Hybrids from route 15 and route 205 have appeared before, as well as the Scania OmniCity buses now allocated to route 277.
 |
| Here is a broken down ALX400, which has probably been made redundant by now. |
The route starts at Tottenham Court Road, and terminates at Bow Church, going via places like Liverpool Street, Bethnal Green and Old Ford. This route also uses a section of the A12, and apparently some people have actually been on fast LTs on that section. The route gets fairly busy in peak periods, and relieves overcrowding on route 25 between Bank and Holborn. The Routemasters are allocated at Bow (BW) garage, which is coincidentally the eastern terminus of the route. This was Stagecoach's first ever batch of New Routemasters, and the buses seem to be quite reliable on both routes, the 8 and N8. So far, Enviro 400/E40H DD's have continued to appear, but quite infrequently.
The new Routemasters, like on route 38, have all three livery's applied to them; normal red, black, and silver. The majority of buses on the route are Red or Black, but the three silver buses look unique running alongside the regulars, so it's good that there are only a few. The first New Routemaster that appeared on the route was LT252, in the black livery promoting Adidas. Here is a gallery of the buses, and some more details on the livery's themselves:
THE RED ONES:
Nearly half of the buses on this route are Red, and the first in the batch, LT239, is in this colour. Personally, I think these buses look quite boring alongside the buses with the other livery's, but Wrightbus do have to at least try to obey TFL's all-red rule, which hasn't gone down too well.
 |
| Here is LT264, about to terminate in Tottenham Court Road. |
LT260 still hasn't hit the road yet, and I'm intrigued to know what's happened to it. I believe this is an all-red bus.
 |
| LT241 arrives at Bethnal Green Station. |
THE BLACK ONES:
This batch was interesting, not least because the LT's displaying Luis Suarez' face on it were cannibalised, and now have a different Adidas advert on them. Despite there only being a few, they seem as common as the red ones. The first bus to appear on the route was an Adidas bus, which was quite surprising. Even though the World Cup has finished, the buses are still carrying their adverts.
 |
| LT252 loads up at Bethnal Green. |
 |
| LT253 motors down Roman Road, on it's way to Bow Church. |
THE SILVER BUSES:
LT256, LT271 and LT272 are in the special YOTB livery also applied to LT150, LT172 and LT188. They look brilliant on the outside, but are just like a normal, rubbish NB4L inside.
 |
| LT256 in Bethnal Green. An HTP with no padding on route 388 is behind. |
 |
| LT271 is amongst traffic in Holborn. |
Thanks for reading!
