It appears that the weekend just passed was the 100th anniversary of London Bus Route 38 – an anniversary we’re embarrassed to admit we hadn’t spotted was imminent.
Luckily Diamond Geezer didn’t, and thus those interested in finding out a bit more about the celebrations on the route yesterday can do so on his site here.
If any spotters attended the day’s events and took pictures, please do get in touch and we’ll include a selection here.
Categories: buses
Does that mean we’ve already missed the centenaries of Routes 1 to 37?
How many of them survived the Basom Scheme renumberings?
I was wondering the same thing actually – what Route anniversaries are actually potentially on the cards?
Route 24 is 100 years old this August but only in terms of running between Hampstead Heath and Pimlico. It started in 1910 between Hampstead and Victoria. It will be interesting to see if there are any events to commemorate the 24′s 100 years of unchanged route. It is amazing to think that the “General” got a route basically right 100 years in terms of good levels of patronage and no one has seen fit to change it since.
This link also gives a small clue as to other long standing sections of London bus route.
http://www.thelondonmagazine.co.uk/Stories/Columnists/Londons-oldest-bus-routes.html
A lot of us on this side of the Lea want the 38 re-extended from Clapton Pond.
I well-remember the turnaround at Chingford ROyal Forest Hotel …. using RT’s of course!
I wondered what all the heritage buses in the Essex Road were for! Now I know.
Good to see an RT in revenue service – must have been a bit parky on top of the open-deck Routemaster, though!
@ Greg – I’m not aware there is any local campaign to restore the 38 beyond Clapton Pond. We already have the 48, 55 and 56 which are all frequent routes and offer links to the City, St Pauls and the West End as I know you will know. You might like to have the 38 as an option but that’s different from there being any local groundswell of opinion! Given how frequent the 38 now is it would be an extremely expensive option to run the 38 back to Leyton Green unless you’re going to sacrifice all the other routes’ frequencies to pay for it.
I think the “restore the 38″ campaign has died, but it did exist.
Of course there were TWO routes.
38 & 38A – which went to Chingford Hatch – now served by the 212, etc
And, as you say, frequency of the existing routes has improved, which has made a huge difference.
Wildly off-topic, but Diamond Geezer’s analysis of the latest Bow Roundabout ‘improvements’ is well worth a read (just a few days earlier than his No 38 piece).
Probably a bit late now, the 38 being 100 years and 2 weeks old – but here’s my photos of some 38s through the years.
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151025136695140.473429.588210139&type=3
I think that should work without having to log on to Facebook – let me know if it doesn’t!
Cheers,
tim
ding ding!
The N38 still runs up to the bakers arms and then onto Walthamstow.
The campaign to restore route 38 to Bakers Arms started when both the 38 and the 55 were cut back to Clapton Pond in February 1990, leaving Lea Bridge Road without a direct link to the West End. However when the 55 was reinstated to Leyton in February 1998 this was seen by most to be an acceptable alternative.