I apologise for the non-existent post last week, I spent my time upgrading the tenders page, which looked really messy before and was a nightmare to maintain, especially as imported the bullet list from Google Docs. Let's not go into detail...
Recently, the area of Hounslow was flooded with enthusiasts, who travelled from all over London to capture the first service change of the 2017, the contract change of route 235, one of the busiest single deck routes in the whole of London. Guess what, it stayed single deck, despite having no DD restrictions. Here I will document the change and the progress the route has made under Metroline, seeing as I use the route every week. Oh yeah, the H20 also got new buses, but that change was pretty much forgotten by all enthusiasts....
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| Abellio London 8141, an 8.9m E200 MMC, makes a rare appearance on route 235 at Brentford, Market Place. |
The service under Abellio was average for this type of single deck route. On the whole, the route was prone to bunching and very large gaps, however these are notorious for a route which deals with crowds all the time, as well as traffic in Hounslow/Feltham Town Centres. In terms of allocation, the route wasn't exactly treated as superior to anything else at Twickenham (TF), despite being the busiest of all of the routes based there, and the main allocation consisted of old Dart Pointers and Nimbuses, which were hanging on for dear life towards the end of the old contract. Despite their age, they were certainly nippy vehicles and I remember having extremely fast rides on Saturday mornings, with the driver absolutely flooring the vehicle up London Road. A less fond memory of these buses were the horrid urban 90 seats found on these vehicles, which had no padding and were absolutely freezing on a chilly weekend morning at 9am! Having said that, the Nimbus vehicles were rare types for London, with only a couple of other batches running around at the time (I think there are none left in London now) and I will miss riding them frequently.
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| An unallocated 08-reg Enviro 200 arrives at Brentford High Street. |
The 235 had quite a lot of standard E200's ploughing up and down the route every day, especially towards the end of the contract. There was a period of time where the route was 100% Enviro, because the residents of North Brentford Quarter complained about the Nimbuses leaking oil on the bus stand. Unfortunately, 8.9m buses became quite common towards the end of the contract, which was bad news for a route that struggles with 10.8m buses and has over 5m annual ridership. The route itself is fairly short, running from Sunbury Village-North Brentford, via urban Feltham and Hounslow. It is one of only two routes directly linking Feltham and Hounslow town centres, with the other running every 20 minutes (the frequency of the 117 needs to be increased, that route struggles too). Although the double decking of routes E8 and 116 has helped the route between Brentford and Hounslow Heath, the service is still struggling today, as this route provides many unique links, which TFL's "corridor scheme" overlooks. As a result, enthusiasts were fuming when the new contract was awarded to Metroline with new single deckers, with no frequency changes. It seems that TFL haven't monitored the route closely enough to figure out that the decking of two other routes isn't enough to sort out the 235's issues and for the next five years SW London residents will continue to cram themselves onto packed buses in the peaks and shopping hours.
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| A Metroline Enviro 200 MMC departs North Brentford, on the first day of operation. |
I wasn't exactly looking forward to the new contract, although any local service change interests me, so I actually bothered riding the route on the first day. The operation on the first day was terrible (as usual), with drivers getting lost and lots of bunching and gaps, partly due to delays in Hounslow. Lots of vehicles were having door faults and the number of buses curtailed to Sunbury Cross was higher than ever before, but I accept that this was the first day and these are never smooth! However, having three buses leaving Brentford within 8 minutes on a Saturday morning isn't exactly acceptable and the service hasn't improved much since then. The route is still the same as it was, albeit with a different operator and brand new buses.
As I arrived at North Brentford Quarter I was surprised to find two other enthusiasts already there, even though it was early in the morning. The North Brentford area consists of very dense housing, which should be an ideal place for a frequent bus service, but the 235 will move out of there very soon (more on that later). There were two buses on stand, but whilst I was admiring the ambience of the area, one of the Enviro 200 MMC's pulled away and left me behind. The other two enthusiasts were chatty with the driver of the remaining bus (another pulled in afterwards) and decided to muck about with the blinds, which proved to be quite useful later on.
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| Condensation meant that the blinds were a bit steamed up in the morning. Nevertheless, here is DEL2252 at North Brentford. |
If I hadn't hurriedly caught the vehicle behind, I would've been able to get a picture of one of these SDs blinded for my local, the E2, although I wasn't aware that the driver would scroll through more "exclusive routes". The buses themselves are a decent batch of MMCs, with comfortable seats and nice acceleration noises. The only downside is the stop-start technology, which startles everyone on the bus thinking that the vehicle has broken down! Other than that, it's nice to have new vehicles on a weekly commute full of the same, dreary Gemini 2's. The service change was surprisingly popular among enthusiasts for a far-west SD route, but it was the first contract change of 2017, so that could be the reason why (the date wouldn't make a difference for me!). I managed to spot 6 enthusiasts within 15 minutes at 9:30 in the morning, so I suspect the route was full of them in the "peak." For your information, if you want to avoid bumping into fellow enthusiasts on a first day service change, travel outside 1-4pm. However, I can't guarantee that this will work, I apologise in advance. On the other hand, if you like socialising with fellow "bus geeks", then feel free to cover the route in snappers rush hour.
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| DEL2252 displays the incorrect destination for North Brentford Quarter, although this will be accurate in a few months time... |
The residents of North Brentford aren't grateful for their frequent bus service, so a new stand is being fitted on Ealing Road, just outside the development, which makes the extension from County Court a bit pointless now. However, the barrier outside Great West Quarter keeps breaking so the bus service doesn't make it to the quarter on a regular basis anyway! The allocation of the 235 has been fairly strict so far, with a couple of standard E200s and an Evolution appearing over the last month. Overall, the service has been about the same as before and the route is still crowded, so not much has changed on the poor old 235.
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| Abellio London 8158 in Hounslow on route H20. |
The H20 also received a brand new batch of E200 MMC's, which actually strayed onto the 235 towards the end of its contract. The H20 was a forgotten service change, I was actually the first person to snap the change, even though I caught it over a week after the new buses entered service. The buses themselves look fine and I'm sure the residents of Whitton and Ivybridge are pleased with their new buses.
Thanks for reading, next I have a rather unique post planned...
