Hackney To Highbury: New Buses, Fewer Routes

This post covers a couple of events which occurred back in June, with these being the contract change of route 30 and the restructuring of route 277, including the introduction of an "N-prefix" for the extended night service.

A curtailment on the last day of Tower Transit operation.

The 30 runs from Marble Arch to Hackney Wick, via a slightly indirect routeing which involves traveling through Baker Street, Warren Street, Euston, King's Cross, Angel, Highbury & Islington, Dalston and Hackney Central. It's a fairly busy route, picking up lots of local custom for the handy round-the-corner links it provides around Dalston and Hackney, as well as tourists in Central London where this route gives valued assistance to the Marylebone Road corridor, whilst providing a service through to Marble Arch. There are also fairly strong commuter flows in rush hour from the residential parts of East London it serves to zone 1, with the end-to-end journey typically taking around 80 minutes, dependent on traffic. Usually, the 30 runs at a 10 minute frequency, although during rush hour this can increase to every 6 minutes, whilst during the evenings and on Sundays 5 buses per hour are provided. There is no night service on the 30, with the majority of the route being served by other 24-hour or N-prefix services. A peak vehicle requirement for 23 vehicles satisfy the 8 mile route, having a fairly average length for a London bus service.

It is quite unfortunate that the 30 is rather well-known for infamous reasons, with a bus carrying passengers working this route being a victim of the 7/7 bombings. These awful events occurred when the route was operated by Stagecoach London with ALX400s, although in 2011 it was lost to First London, who ordered a batch of ADL Enviro 400 vehicles to work the route. These were inherited by Tower Transit in 2013, although interestingly the initially strict allocation system became rather more relaxed under the new operator, with Wrightbus Gemini 2s from the 25 making more frequent appearances as well as the later E400s from the 425. Despite it serving the polluted area of Central London, appearances of hybrids on the 30 were very rare. However, a full allocation of this type of bus would be required for the next contract term, starting in June 2018, which involved the 30 going to yet another operator, with Metroline being the successful tenderer this time. This was an interesting move as Tower Transit had shown promising service levels over their five years operating the service, with the route generally being something you could rely on, apart from their last day running the route where traffic congestion meant the 30 descended into chaos, with almost every other bus curtailed to Portman Square, like the E400 illustrated above. Nevertheless, I really liked this batch of buses and I felt that they suited the 30 very well, whilst the (back then) tradition of Metroline ordering wall-to-wall Gemini 3s didn't seem like a suitable replacement. However, some exciting news regarding the new buses being ordered meant that as the contract date approached I was actually looking forward to the new operator and hoping that they would be able to prove themselves.

Metroline Travel VMH2460 is seen at Marble Arch.

The decision to order 66 of the Egyptian Volvo/MCV B5LH EvoSeti vehicles stemmed from the termination of the contract between Metroline and Wrightbus, with the former company being unsatisfied with the quality of their most recent Gemini 3 B5LH orders. This has partially contributed to the manufacturer struggling in recent times, with the reasons for redundancies being cited as a lack of orders from London, in addition to uncertainty in regards to the UK bus market. Perhaps we'll see a Gemini 4 emerge sooner or later.

A few weeks before the contract date of Saturday 23rd June 2018, the brand new MCV EvoSeti vehicles started to arrive at Willesden Junction (WJ) garage, where a number were stored for a few weeks before type training commenced for the 30. Under the new contract, this route runs from the previously single-deck only King's Cross (KC) garage, which is conveniently right in the middle of the route, with the 46 route moving out to Holloway (HT) in order to accommodate the double deckers. Eventually, the 30's VMH-class EvoSetis will be able to intermix with those allocated to the 274, although the latter route is still mostly using single deckers for the time being as local residents insist on protesting to the tree pruning programme which is essential for allowing the route to go DD full time. A few VMHs do come out on weekends though, offering a supplementary service between Marble Arch and London Zoo only.

Many enthusiasts were incredibly excited for the prospect of sampling a brand new Metroline bus type and luckily for them the vast majority of VMHs entered service punctually on the first day of the new contract. One week later I was given the opportunity to ride one myself, having high expectations given their external appearance, which suits the Metroline attire very well. The interior is also one of the best I've witnessed in a long time, with the bright and welcoming colour scheme being very appropriate for the large windows upstairs provided by the EvoSeti. My journey was very relaxing, with the air cooling system working effectively to make the long distance trip from Dalston to Marble Arch pleasant. These buses also feel very powerful - being an early Saturday evening, my trip was relatively traffic free which enabled some decent speed too, something which many enthusiasts haven't been fortunate enough to experience. All in all, I'm pretty satisfied with the 30's new allocation, with these VMHs easily being the best EvoSetis I've experienced to date.

A Gemini 3 is seen at Marble Arch, standing in for the VMHs.

Due to the collaboration of King's Cross (KC) and Holloway (HT) garages, there have been some spare double deckers which the 30 has been taking advantage of over the past few weeks, as teething problems with the VMHs are adjusted. These come in the form of smiley-face Wrightbus Gemini 3 B5LH vehicles, which do indeed have the same engine as the EvoSetis, just a different body. Typically, there are two to three found on the 30 daily. There has only been one example of a 30 bus going to Holloway (HT) garage, where on one evening an EvoSeti managed to sneak out on the W7 service between Muswell Hill and Finsbury Park.

Predictably, the first day turned out to be a bit of a disaster, with the efforts made to produce a relatively trouble-free morning being reversed due to some hideous traffic conditions, particularly around Hackney Central, due to the nuisance of roadworks bringing the area to a standstill. As a result, many buses were curtailed and some very large gaps were apparent in the afternoon, although thankfully these works have now ended and road conditions, for now, remain relatively stable. There has been an improvement in the service quality since day one, with Metroline picking up the route very quickly, which is quite impressive considering they previously didn't operate services East of Highbury Corner. I might even go as far as saying the route operates better now than under Tower Transit, so the 30 does seem to be in safe hands for the future, provided that Metroline maintain their excellent performance so far. I wish them good luck for the next few years and maybe the route can actually remain with the same operator upon tender this time!

The terminus of route 277 following the curtailment.

Metroline certainly didn't have an easy start to the 30 - in addition to the traffic in Hackney, one week later its relief route between there and Islington was lost. Due to whatever works are being undertaken at Highbury Corner, the 277 stand has disappeared, meaning TfL had to relocate the termination point of the service. The handy solution would be to extend the 277 a few stops up the road to Holloway Nags Head, which would provide a Holloway to Hackney bus link for the first time, but also open up some lovely journey opportunities for crossing East and North London. However, even this fairly straightforward extension was not considered to be economically viable, which has resulted in a curtailment to Dalston Junction Bus Station instead. This means that the 277 no longer serves Canonbury or Highbury & Islington, which effectively means it no longer reaches the boundary of North-West London or the Victoria Line, which is pretty annoying for cross-London bus travel. It also means that the 30 is now the only bus service between Highbury & Islington and Hackney - it takes a slightly longer route than the 277 too. Although some extra morning peak journeys have been added to the 30 timetable, there has been no other compensation for the 277 loss. The only advantages of this cut back, economics aside, are that this route might become slightly more reliable (Crossharbour to Highbury Corner was a bit of a trek) and the wasted stand space at Dalston Junction Bus Station does see more regular use now - having seven or eight bays for just the 488 was definitely not an efficient use of space. Although the loss of links was considered acceptable in the day time, during the night it is much less convenient to change buses due to the lower frequency of bus routes and as the 30 does not run 24/7, there was still a necessity to provide a bus service to Highbury on the night element of the 277, hence a new route was born.

Sorry for the blurry image - my phone struggles with night photography!

The N277 runs slightly further than Dalston Junction, continuing as far as Highbury Corner like the previous daytime route, but after this it turns left for a few minutes until arrival at Islington Angel, where stand space is available during the night on some back roads near White Lion Street. This ensures that same-stop interchange is possible for onward connections along Upper Street, particularly those to Central London and most of the 30's routeing, which is covered by the N205. The N277 commenced on Saturday 30th June 2018, although the first Southbound trip was so late it was actually curtailed to Canary Wharf! I should hope that reliability has improved since then, although I do not check the route on LVF regularly enough to give a suitable judgement. Secondly, on the first day of operation none of the E40H double deckers - classics or MMCs - had blinds for the N277, so instead they ran around displaying the normal "277" number. As the terminus is shared at Crossharbour Asda, the only true distinction from an external perspective is seen when buses are heading Northbound and the Islington Angel destination is presented, as seen above. Whilst the lack of a number blind was understandable at first, given the introduction of the N277 was a last minute affair, it's quite ridiculous that almost two months later buses are still running around displaying the daytime route - I took my picture on Tuesday 28th August. I know it's not the biggest inconvenience, but I expected better from Bow (BW) garage, who seem to have been pretty good with blinds. On a lighter note, I am grateful that there is still a through service to Highbury Corner at the most vulnerable hours, although I really will miss the link up to North-West London from Docklands in the future.

Thanks for reading and stay safe!