On 29 Jun 2006 05:27:59 -0700, wrote:

Hadn't considered the possibility of such a routeing at the Inner
London end. What did the buses show as their destination on the way to
the "loop"

WESTMINSTER and
Embankment

BLACKFRIARS and
Embankment

(i.e. "and Embankment was a qualifier)


and was there a recognised point on the loop for the blinds
to be changed and layover taken?

IIRC, Charing Cross (now Embankment) station

On this theme, for more than a few years Orpington local route 493
ran both ways round Ramsden Estate. It had other complexities.
Green Street Green journeys, as well as going round Ramsden Estate
one way or the other to, it appeared, no logical pattern, double ran
the section between Orpington War Memorial and orpington Station -
except, that is, the journey that didn't and turned left at
Orpington War Memorial and headed straight up Sevenoaks Road. School
journeys took a completely different route (via The Highway and
Court Road) between Chelsfield Station and Ramsden Estate.

One mammoth journey went Chelsfield Station - Sevenoaks Road -
Orpington War Memorial - Orpington Stn - Orpington War Memorial -
Avalon Road - Ramsden Estate - Tintagel Road - Orpington War
Memorial - Sevenoaks Road (direct) - Chelsfield Station - The
Highway - Court Road - Tintagel Road - Ramsden Estate - Avalon Road
- Orpington War Memorial - Orpington Station.

(As a DG driver at the time I can say "been there, done that, got
the T´shirt and needed a cuppa by the end)

Little wonder that not only did buses seldom show the correct blind,
but also sometimes went the wrong way round the estate (I plead
guilty m'lud). That's why common sense prevailed, and all journeys
were changed to run clockwise, and a common fare was charged to all
points on Ramsden, whereas previously, you were charged more if you
went the long way round.

And finally, lets' mention the (in)famous 471 and its Pratts Bottom
Circular (which ran the other way via Cudham as well, but that was
never so funny). The blind read

Pratts Bottom (Circular)
471 Knockholt Pound
Cudham
Orpington Stn

--
Bill Hayles

http://billnot.com

On Thu, 29 Jun 2006 15:35:58 +0100, Paul Terry
wrote:

In message .com,
writes

Hadn't considered the possibility of such a routeing at the Inner
London end.

The 109 was the bus replacement for the Purley-Embankment tram service,
and so followed the same loop as the tram tracks along the Embankment.

What did the buses show as their destination on the way to
the "loop"

Embankment Station (via Blackfriars) or Embankment Station (via
Westminster), according to which way round the loop they were going.

and was there a recognised point on the loop for the blinds
to be changed and layover taken?

Embankment Station - as in tram days.

But surely it was Charing Cross station then. My vague memory is that
trams showed 'Embankment'.
--
Peter Lawrence

"Bill Hayles" wrote in message
...
On 29 Jun 2006 05:27:59 -0700, wrote:

Hadn't considered the possibility of such a routeing at the Inner
London end. What did the buses show as their destination on the way to
the "loop"

WESTMINSTER and
Embankment

BLACKFRIARS and
Embankment

(i.e. "and Embankment was a qualifier)


and was there a recognised point on the loop for the blinds
to be changed and layover taken?

IIRC, Charing Cross (now Embankment) station

On this theme, for more than a few years Orpington local route 493
ran both ways round Ramsden Estate. It had other complexities.
Green Street Green journeys, as well as going round Ramsden Estate
one way or the other to, it appeared, no logical pattern, double ran
the section between Orpington War Memorial and orpington Station -
except, that is, the journey that didn't and turned left at
Orpington War Memorial and headed straight up Sevenoaks Road. School
journeys took a completely different route (via The Highway and
Court Road) between Chelsfield Station and Ramsden Estate.

One mammoth journey went Chelsfield Station - Sevenoaks Road -
Orpington War Memorial - Orpington Stn - Orpington War Memorial -
Avalon Road - Ramsden Estate - Tintagel Road - Orpington War
Memorial - Sevenoaks Road (direct) - Chelsfield Station - The
Highway - Court Road - Tintagel Road - Ramsden Estate - Avalon Road
- Orpington War Memorial - Orpington Station.

(As a DG driver at the time I can say "been there, done that, got
the T´shirt and needed a cuppa by the end)

Little wonder that not only did buses seldom show the correct blind,
but also sometimes went the wrong way round the estate (I plead
guilty m'lud). That's why common sense prevailed, and all journeys
were changed to run clockwise, and a common fare was charged to all
points on Ramsden, whereas previously, you were charged more if you
went the long way round.

And finally, lets' mention the (in)famous 471 and its Pratts Bottom
Circular (which ran the other way via Cudham as well, but that was
never so funny). The blind read

Pratts Bottom (Circular)
471 Knockholt Pound
Cudham
Orpington Stn

In my youth was the flat fare W21 which ran Walthamstow Central, Crooked
Billet, Chingford Mount, New Road, Highams Park, Fulbourne Road, Walthamstow
Central and vice versa, circular in both directions.
--
Cheers, Steve.
Change from jealous to sad to reply.

In article ,
(Steve Dulieu) wrote:

In my youth was the flat fare W21 which ran Walthamstow Central,
Crooked Billet, Chingford Mount, New Road, Highams Park, Fulbourne
Road, Walthamstow Central and vice versa, circular in both
directions.

There were a number of Trolleybus routes with end loops, especially in
central London and numbered pairs for buses going each way round (e.g.
521 and 621).

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In message , Peter Lawrence
writes

On Thu, 29 Jun 2006 15:35:58 +0100, Paul Terry
wrote:

In message .com,
writes

and was there a recognised point on the loop for the blinds
to be changed and layover taken?

Embankment Station - as in tram days.

But surely it was Charing Cross station then. My vague memory is that
trams showed 'Embankment'.

Yes, although Charing Cross Stn was never used on destination blinds in
those days - just Embankment, as you say. But after the station was
renamed Embankment in the 1970s, the 109 destination blind added the
word Station after Embankment.
--
Paul Terry

Paul Corfield wrote:

On 27 Jun 2006 10:55:19 -0700, wrote:

Has London ever had any bus routes whose outer terminal operates on the
basis of a "loop" say round a big housing scheme perhaps with some
journeys going clockwise and others anticlockwise round the loop? I
suspect not because such "frying-pan" shaped routes don't tend to lend
themselves to having sufficient layover time to recover from
London-type congestion delays. Maybe some of the services which don't
venture into Central London run on this basis?

There are not any I can think of that run from Central London. However
the 379 does a loop at Yardley Lane Estate from Chingford.

http://www.busmap.org/tt4/379.pdf

Both the H2 and H3 (Hampstead Garden Suburb routes) are "loopy" to coin
your phrase.

The 366 is loopy at the Redbridge end of the route with passengers being
able to get on and off the loop and stay on the bus at Redbridge Stn
while it takes layover time before heading off towards Ilford.

http://www.busmap.org/tt4/366.pdf

The 499 gets "loopy" near Becontree on its way back to Romford.

http://www.busmap.org/tt4/499.pdf

The other interesting loop routes are the B15 at Joydens Wood which goes
different ways round a loop in the morning and afternoon.

I thought that one had recently ceased being a loop.

http://www.busmap.org/tt4/B15.pdf

The other one that alternates round a loop is the R5 - once every 2
hours.

http://www.busmap.org/tt4/R05.pdf

There's also the 399 to Hadley Wood, and the 389 (once part of the same
route, but for some unknown reason they split it in two) which it still
seems to be linked with in Barnet.

Setting this thread slightly adrift, there are also some routes that
have one way loops in the middle. These do not give the efficiency
benefits of those on the end (or the whole) of routes because the buses
going both directions still have to go round it, but there are sometimes
reasons to do so anyway. A good example is on route B11, where the
northbound buses did a large anticlockwise loop on the section between
Bexleyheath and Abbey Wood (twice traversing a short section of Brampton
Road that the southbound buses missed). The map claimed it was temporary
until pavement work was complete, so UIVMM it's just a deviation now.

But the reasons for one way loops aren't always good ones. The one on
the B14 is worst. Because of slight difficulty turning right from
Longmead Drive to Bexley Lane, the Albany Park deviation has previously
been run as a two way loop, but in an alledged attempt to make the
service more reliable, TfL decided to make it a one way loop. That this
appalling decision was foisted upon local residents with no consultation
whatsoever was bad enough. The fact that they've failed to reverse the
decision since local residents pointed out how difficult that makes it
to get to the top of the hill (where they can access shops, doctors, and
Albany Park station) highlights an alarming amount of incompetence!
Meanwhile, bus route B14 is less reliable than ever...

--
Aidan Stanger
http://www.bettercrossrail.co.uk

John Rowland wrote:
Ian Jelf wrote:

I seem to recall that Stratford had two "S" prefix routes like this
which had the additional refinement of different destination blind
colours depending on the direction travelled!

I have a vague recollection of a similar route which did a two-way loop in
the Bexleyheath area, possibly starting and finishing at Eltham Well Hall
Station (as it was known then)

The 288 does a one-way loop in the Broadfields estate in North Edgware.
There are two very short routes in High Barnet which have one-way loops as
well.

In the late 1970s, nearly early every bus in the New Addington area
performed loops, with different route numbers for the different directions.

The 132 was the Bexleyheath and Eltham circular
(http://www.londonbuses.co.uk/Routes/132) in both the 1950s and again
in the 1970s.