3 Oct 65 to 13 Jun 69

(total 3 years 8 months, all OMO)

 

LOUGHTON STATION and EPPING TOWN (Mon-Fri, Sun, also Sats from 31 Dec 66 - RT operated)

LOUGHTON STATION and EPPING St Margaret’s Hospital (Mon-Fri afternoons and evenings, Sun afternoons)

BUCKHURST HILL STATION and EPPING TOWN (Mon-Fri peaks)

 

RF Garages

Route history

The Epping to Loughton route has a long history.  According to the Essex Countryside magazine (January 1967) 'three famous old Epping horses with just one eye between them proudly drew the coach driven by Joe Wilks of Tidy's Lane from the Cock Hotel to meet the trains at Loughton station when the railway first reached there in 1867'.  The General covered the road with the 10^A, renumbered 100^A in 1924 and back to 10^A in 1934, a variation of the famous 10 to Abridge.  By the 40s, the 10^A had become route 20, operated in the 50s and early 60s by Loughton garage with RTs between Leytonstone and Epping. 

 

When one-man operation was finally introduced in the Central Area in 1964, following the Phelps Brown report, it was permitted only on single-deck buses.  Whereas ten years before, it had been London Transport policy to double-deck all Central Area routes where physically possible, it became inevitable that the reverse would happen on lightly-used routes.  The 20 was the first.

 

 

The busy Saturday service was left untouched initially, but other days of the week were converted in October 1965 to new OMO route 20^B, simultaneously with the OMO-conversion of Loughton's existing RF route, the 254, and the creation of the 291 out of part of Barking's 129.  The route covered only the Loughton to Epping section of the 20, with the southern part covered by the RT-operated 20^A (Leytonstone to Debden).  The creation of the 20^B broke the rule of over 40 years that all single-deck routes were numbered in the 200-series.

 

The remaining Saturday operation on the 20 ended on 24 Dec 66, being shortened and renumbered 20^B on the following Saturday, still with RTs.  This led to the situation where the 20^A and 20^B were variants of a route that no longer existed, and the OMO 20^B was crew operated on Saturdays. 

 

A new RT route 20 from Loughton was introduced on 7 Sep 68 as part of the huge revisions resulting from the opening of the first stage of the Victoria Line and the Bus Reshaping Plan.  It  took a different routing south of Woodford to Leyton and Walthamstow from the old 20, and replaced much of the 38^A.  Six months later this was converted to OMO MB operation and extended to Epping to absorb the 20^B.  Meanwhile the 20^A continued with RTs until 1976, when it swapped the Loughton to Epping section with the 20 and became DMS operated over the original 20 route, lasting until 1982.  Falling entirely outside Greater London, the 20^B roads are no longer served by TfL.

 

RF route in detail, with timing points

PVR 1965: Mon-Fri 4, Sat -, Sun 3

PVR 1966: Mon-Fri 4, Sat [4 RT], Sun 3