LT staff buses
Page last updated 30 December
2015
Stuart Perry's recollections of driving RFs on the Muswell Hill
staff bus workings (see 210) have
prompted us to ask for other contributions on the subject, from
which we summarise a short account here. This is followed by
some detailed recollections. More contributions
very welcome.
The AW-based Plumstead to
Aldenham works bus RT1140 in late 1970, just before it was
withdrawn and scrapped. Note the windows taped up against the
draughts, and of course the lack of a conductor.
Photo © Paul
Redmond
Contents
Summary and short
contributions
Upton Park and Loughton by Rob
Sheen
Dalston 1979 - 1981, Tim
Drayton
Staff buses in north
London, Doug Ely (see also notes on the Underground staff buses)
Aldenham,Chiswick and
Charlton (see also Aldenham,
Chiswick and Charlton articles on separate pages)
Reigate to Chiswick staff
buses
Summary
From the second world war until about the 1980s, when the
previously sparse night services were expanded, London Transport
ran a network of night staff services, which have not been well
recorded in the literature. Thanks to contributions from
a number of correspondents, we have pieced together a few notes on
the subject. These are far from complete - we welcome any
extra details, stories and titbits - please e-mail us.
Abbey Wood also housed London's last RTL, RTL1232,
used as the Catford to Chiswick works bus up until
September 1970. It is seen here shortly before final
disposal.
Photo © John King
Separate night workings were used for platform staff (drivers
and conductors) and inside staff (garage staff), both using service
buses, and Underground staff (which used service buses until the
1960s, then hired coaches - see separate
article). Unlike the trolleybuses (which needed
conductors to pull frogs, so ran in service - see Charlie Wyatt's
'Beneath the Wires of London', p.173), staff buses did not run in
service and did not carry conductors.
In addition, there were special buses taking staff to the works
at Aldenham and Chiswick, which
lasted pretty much as long as those facilities were
operational. These services used dedicated buses, usually
time-expired, and were therefore easily photographed - we haven't
seen many pictures of night staff buses.
Buses for platform staff ran to take staff home after the last
bus at night and collect them before the first bus in the
morning. They operated to a specific timetable (the morning
timetable for the Norwood 'early staff bus' is here - but examples are hard
to come by), although evening services would often be flexible
depending who was travelling, subject to timetabled
connections. In some cases, a bus from one garage would serve
staff from several garages, and some would make timetabled
connections with other staff buses (for example, the MH and AR
staff buses connected at E). Some garages, such
as SW, ran more than one bus. Both
Stuart Perry and Tim Drayton (below) comment that the staff buses
were not advertised as such - staff weren't told about it
when they first arrived at the garage and discovered they
existed by word of mouth.
Stuart Perry comments further: 'I was involved for
about five years beginning in 1963. Throughout that time
the route never changed. It was bad luck if you lived
off route, you had to walk to the line of route in the
mornings and wait. The duty was in fact not scheduled into
the rotas and was worked entirely on overtime. There was
never a problem getting volunteers as many drivers lived quite
close to the garage and it was also well paid. In practise
one driver would normally do the late night turn and another the
early morning although it was the same bus, parked in between
in the rear yard. This system worked well because a driver on
a very early duty would do the morning run and then go out in
service and a driver coming off a late duty would do the late night
bus. In the early 1960s trolleybuses had not long been phased
out, and although we passed close to HT and WN there was no
requirement to pick up any of their staff. A throwback to the
time when the two services were quite separate. I had a good friend
who was a driver at WG and was transferred to WN on closure. He
told me that there was no love lost between the ex WG crews and the
ex trolleybus crews'.
Two of the later three RFs used on the Reigate
to Chiswick run - the new batch were not fitted with
extra fog-lamps. RFs 488 and 538 sit on the forecourt of
Reigate garage.
Photo © Mike Nash
A former driver recalls the mid-1970s: 'When I was at PR, I did two weeks on the staff
bus covering for the regular driver's holidays. It was all
scheduled; the first run was out to Becontree and back and then to
Rainham Clock Tower and to Barking for a break.
Two other staff drivers also had breaks there (I think one was
WH). Then off to Rainham Clock Tower again and
back to Barking, then Dagenham Dock and to PR to finish.
Sign on was about 2330 and finish was around 0630, leaving the
bus on the fuel island. The first job was to make the GI a
cuppa and then out with the bus, an RT (only me, no conductor, and
yes we were supposed to have a platform strap but I never bothered
with one for my 2 weeks). The job was to pick up staff and
drop off - so long as they were in uniform and waved they were
on. The Underground had a coach for
their staff bus, silver and a dark stripe around it, Mellows Hire
or Meadows some name like that [it was Mellows].
'Later the regular driver told me
that he never did the Rainham bit but went back to PR for the
middle bit and the break. I hardly picked anybody up, two or
three at most and never anyone for PR (they were for WH or U
and got off in the main road - I didn’t go into the
garages as other than PR there was nowhere to turn round when all
the buses were in), and some nights I picked nobody up. I
would imagine that there was a bus that would have done more or
less what I did between WH and Dagenham and then gone on to NS and
likewise one over to Forest Gate, Wanstead, AP.
When it became London Buses they decided
to turn all the garage staff buses into night buses and that was
the start of today’s night bus network.
'The inside staff at PR always ran their
own blokes home when they were ready. Once when I was at CT,
we broke down at Surrey Docks on the 47’s and had to get the inside
staff to come out and get us going - after we got back to CT we
were taken home on a bus by the CT inside staff because it was
about 2 in the morning when we finally finished and neither of us
had a car.'
Allocated to Loughton as a trainer
(a type-trainer, as the bus carries no L plates) in its final years
with LT, RF486 was actually used to
take staff to North Weald airfield for driver training on RTs
there. Does anyone else remember this?
Photo © Metropolitan
Photographic, Peter Osborn collection
Arrangements for inside staff differed, as these generally only
applied to homeward journeys. Some garages (SW was an
example) had an early-turn run-in that started at around 1800 or
1830 and finished 8 hours later after the service buses and tube
had finished; these needed staff buses. Norbiton ran a
staff bus at 0230 to take the cleaning staff home, driven by
one of the all-night mechanics. Garages with only a late
shift starting at around 2200 had no need of a staff bus, these
staff after doing screen and inside cleans would go home by service
bus. As far as is known, these buses only took home inside
staff and had no set routes as the mix of staff varied from night
to night with different staff on, due to the shift patterns.
There were a significant number of low bridge accidents
involving staff buses, with the very low bridge at Loughborough
Park off Coldharbour Lane in Brixton claiming quite a few from a
number of surrounding garages. It is perhaps because of this
risk that single-deckers seem to have been used when
available.
On a
separate page is some information on the
staff buses (and later coaches) provided by London Transport for
its Underground staff in the early morning.
Recollections of staff buses at Upton Park
and Loughton by Rob Sheen
I worked at Loughton garage 1969-70 and 1979-86, and at Upton
Park 1970-79. At Loughton, I didn't drive the RF in service,
because I was on the crew rota, I only had the 4 hours type
training on RFs at Chiswick in case I did a bit of overtime working
on the Loughton staff bus, which was always an RF in the early
days.
At Upton Park, driving the staff bus was an overtime job, you
had to go out twice at set times on two different routes (I cant
remember where, but fairly local). If you were the driver,
you just went into the paying-in area (the "output" as it was
known) and shouted out 'anyone want the staff bus?'. They
usually gave you an RM/RML for the job (no conductor) but
whenever I rode on it there were never more than half a dozen
blokes on it. I remember that overtime was called
"boots".
At Loughton it was also an overtime job, but if you wanted to
travel on it you had to put your name in the staff bus book for the
date. The driver would then check the book and decide if one trip
or two would do it. If no one put their name in the book to travel
on it, it didn't run. It seemed there was no set route, it
was just agreed that it would take you home locally on, only
on roads where buses ran. In 1969/70 it was an RF, but later
(1979-86) the staff bus was rarely used and the booked driver would
drop you off in his car on his way home, I never saw a bus
used on it then.
Re RF486 being used as a transport
to North Weald, I don't remember seeing or hearing of it, but
it could have happened of course. Part of the driver training
took place there because of the huge amount of tarmac available to
layout cones for driving practice, reversing, parking etc.
Recollections of staff buses at Dalston by Tim
Drayton
I worked as a conductor at Dalston from 1979-1981. I lived in
Stamford Hill at that time. To begin with, I had a lot of
difficulty returning home after very late finishes. One or two
times I walked through the very unsalubrious territory to get to
Kingsland Road which was served by an infrequent night bus (N83 I
think). I remember even walking the four or five miles home a few
times and once I was nearly mugged at Dalston Junction, having to
run for all I was worth along Kingsland High Street chased by a
group of knife-wielding young men!
The Dalston Garage run-in in 1981 - RMs
1138 from the 47 and 1831 from the 9 stand at the fuelling
bays.
Photo © Keith Foster
Staff buses were obviously not advertised to the public, but the
odd thing was that they were not even advertised to staff. After a
few months of working at Dalston I learned by hearsay that there
was a Hackney garage staff bus to Stamford Hill and that Dalston
staff were entitled to request it to come over to pick us up.
Henceforth I always informed the inspector on signing on for a late
turn that I wanted the Hackney staff bus, and it always came over
to pick me up. It didn't seem to have a regular time - it
presumably waited at Hackney until everybody who needed it there
had signed off, then came over to Dalston (which was not far way)
and waited there until everybody who had booked it had finished.
Generally the driver - who was a different person each time - came
into the paying in area and called out "Hackney staff bus" at which
those waiting for this bus would rush out to board it. Sometimes I
would be the only 'customer', on other nights there would be a
group of three or four staff members waiting for it.
I do not ever remember there being more than about five or six
people being on board, almost all of them staff returning from work
- although the occasional staff member would use it to get home
from a late do. I was once at a booze-up in Bromley, and came back
on the last 47, which was operated by Dalston and obviously ran
into the 'shed'. I asked one of the garage inspectors if the
Hackney staff bus was booked to come over, and the reply was in the
positive, so I used it to get home without even being in
uniform!
Night shift at Dalston
Garage, 1981 - RMs 421 from the 9 and 2001
from the 253 go through the wash.
Photo © Keith
Foster
The bus took the 253 route to Stamford Hill. I always got off at
Stamford Hill Broadway and have no idea where it went thereafter.
The vehicle was always a Routemaster although clearly there was no
conductor. The travelling time to Stamford Hill was, as you can
imagine, much shorter than on the regular service buses, with the
driver going at breakneck speed so that he could finish as quickly
as possible. As there was no conductor, the people on board gave
the bell signal to the driver to stop when they wanted to alight -
it had to be a bus stop - and those on board gave the two bell
signal to proceed as soon as this person had alighted - if this
person had not already given the two bell signal as they jumped off
Geronimo style without waiting for the bus to come to a complete
halt, the latter being more common. Ocassionally intending
passengers would still be at stops (they would have been waiting in
vain!) and those on board would have to stop them from
boarding.
As for a morning staff bus to take us to work, this remains a
mystery to me. There were no very early starts at Dalston, and
there were a small number of very early runs on the 149 and 243
that were scheduled to complement runs on the N83 and this made it
easier to get down to Kingsland Road early in the morning. I was
not particularly daunted by the 15-20 minute walk from Kingsland
Road to Dalston garage in the early hours of the morning. The kind
of dangers that were present late at night were no longer there
early in the morning!
Eventually, I got fed up with so much travelling and put in for
a transfer to Stamford Hill garage, which was granted.
Recollections of bus & rail staff transport
by Doug Ely
It is over 40 years since I first became aware
that London Transport provided dedicated staff transport for most
of its workers “out of hours” in the days when night bus routes and
the buses themselves were few and far between.
My first experiences were with those
facilities provided for Underground staff in the mid 1960’s, the
subject of a separate article.
On the bus side of LT, staff bus provision
mostly operated on an overtime basis either before an early shift
or after a late shift. Despite having open platforms on the
RT/RM buses only a driver was used and there were often two or more
buses on separate routes. Each journey had a timetable, just
as any other route would have but obviously time allowances were
drastically reduced. Most garages allocated staff bus
overtime in the same way as normal overtime, either on a lowest
points or longest since worked basis, a few and I think TH was one,
had the staff buses attached to specific duties as (in)voluntary
overtime which, if you did not want you had to opt out by telling
the staff allocation a couple of weeks before.
Staff buses often strayed well away from the
operating garages normal routes, simply because in those days LT
had a policy of placing new recruits where they had vacancies, not
necessarily where the recruit wanted to work. Some routes
were timetabled to connect, with “M” connections [a marking on the
time card to indicated a required 'maintained' connection], others
not.
At least one of the really large garages, HT,
had a permanent night driver who did only staff buses due to the
small gap between last bus running in and first duty signing on;
when I first encountered this, the evening journeys were on an “as
required to wherever” basis and the morning ones to a specific
route/timetable which tended to interwork with the Chalk Farm staff
bus.
The advent of vastly increased Night Bus
operation saw the need for staff buses reduce; some simply
disappeared, others carried on (usually where TGWU was strong).
My time at HT as an AOM (shift manager) in the
mid 1980s was when that garage became part of the operating unit
called London Northern, and saw me allocated responsibility for
overseeing our night routes, during that time it became obvious
that within the unit (HT, FY, and CF) many staff buses were
duplicating N public routes and costing a lot in overtime as
well. The upshot of this was that I devised one all night
staff bus for London Northern as a whole, serving all the bits of
the existing garage staff buses and running to a proper timetable
and route which was complemented by the public N services.
This was based at HT using a BL and the existing HT driver
allocated to this duty with one day a week being covered by a spare
shift on the main N driver rota. The TGWU agreed to the
proposal largely thanks to the “mafia” at HT and protecting one of
their own! Incidentally, in case you’re wondering why I did
not include PB, it was simply because PB operated as a separate
unit within London Northern with different pay/conditions etc. and
in any case was too far removed to include in our network.
All the above was for the benefit of
“operating” staff; “engineering” staff also had staff bus provision
only not on a regular route/timetable basis, as it was normally
only the cleaning staff who required this due to them finishing
much later than the normal 3 shift bus mechanics who tended to be
6-2, 2-10, 10-6 and thus did not need special transport. Worked by
a suitably qualified driver on overtime as required, and not
integrated garage to garage as essentially only a local
requirement.
Norbiton and Fulwell staff bus
Ian Hogben describes changes to the Norbiton staff bus in his
notes on route 216.
Aldenham, Chiswick and Charlton
Staff buses operated to Chiswick and Aldenham works from those
areas of London from which staff had been transferred in the
past. They worked fixed routes and schedules from many
garages, with each being served by a wide area of London,
although not the same areas. The Aldenham staff buses
are looked at in detail on the next page,
the background to Aldenham and the overhaul process is here.
Few who didn't originally work at either Charlton (trams and
trolleybuses) or Reigate were allowed to use the Chiswick staff
buses and there were fewer of them. See the Aldenham list for more detail. More
detail is given on the Chiswick
page about the special arrangements between Reigate and
Chiswick. See here for more about
Charlton.
Before Aldenham opened, a series of staff bus routes were
operated from Chiswick, which appear to have been the direct
precursors of the Aldenham buses. Alan Cross has kindly
provided some notes from the late John
Gillham, and would like to know more.
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