20 Jul 69 to 20 Jan 73

(total 3 years 6 months, all OMO).

An element of déjà-vu for the residents of Mitchley Avenue, this route. Originally, route 234 (which was interworked with the 234^A using LT Scooters) ran through Purley and up the hill to Selsdon. The 234 was converted to RT operation in 1950 and then RMs on Sundays in 1964. Weekend operation ceased on the last day of 1966, with the Sunday service over the Purley to Selsdon section by an extension of RT and RM-operated Sunday route 57^A southwards from South Croydon (on Saturday, the new 115^B covered this section).

As part of the OMO conversion programme of lesser-used routes, the section of the 57^A between South Croydon and Selsdon was itself replaced by the new Sundays-only 234^B on 20 Jul 69, using one of Croydon’s RFs spare from the 234^A. One imagines that the residents of Mitchley Avenue might have felt short-changed, losing their direct link to Croydon, but perhaps by 1969 few were using the bus on Sundays (neither of the photos shows a busy bus).

Seen at the same spot, but on Christmas Eve 1972, four weeks before the route's conversion to DMS, RF529 also runs TC1 - as all RFs did on this one-bus route.  The Selsdon terminus 'Farley Road' continues south of that cross-roads to Farleigh, long a 'middle-of-nowhere' terminus for some journeys on the 408.

Photo © JGS Smith, Peter Gomm collection

The weekday service on the 234 was next for conversion, but this time the route went straight from RT to one-man double-deck XA operation, using (along with the Addington C routes) the XAs after the trial against Routemasters on the 67. The only crew buses along Mitchley Avenue were then the RTs on Saturday route 115^B, which lasted until December that year before replacement, again by XAs but this time on the 234^B.

So for over two years, the 234^B was (the only route?) operated by both OMO double- and single-deckers. This ended abruptly in January 1973, when the route was taken over on both Saturday and Sunday by DMSs. The XAs were sold to Hong Kong, but Croydon kept its RFs for another 4 years on the 234^A.  The Sunday service ended in September 1980; the route itself lasted until August 1982, when it was reabsorbed into the 234, on Saturdays running only between Purley and Selsdon.