Route 218

The last route to operate RFs in London. By a nice coincidence, the 218 started life as the 62, the route number* that was to host the last RTs a week after the last RFs. The 218 was a relative latecomer to the RF class, having to wait until Muswell Hill could double-deck the 212 in 1960.

RF512, which five weeks later would be taking part in the famous tour, seen leaving Staines West Station for Kingston on 24 February 1979. Behind is one of the early LS-class Leyland Nationals working the 117 from Hounslow, the garage which had received the entire first batch two and a half years earlier. Later deliveries would oust the last RFs. Photo © John Parkin

Dates of RF operation

6 Jan 60 to 30 Mar 79

Converted to OMO 7 Sep 68

(total 19 years 4 months, of which 8 years 8 months crew-operated)

Destinations

KINGSTON Bus Station and STAINES via Walton-on-Thames

RF Garages

K Kingston

Reason for single-deck operation

As with many of Kingston's south-western routes, the 218 passed under the low bridge on the Portsmouth Road at Ditton Marsh.

RF495, also now preserved but then bearing a mixed livery of grey relief, gold underlined fleet name and an idiosyncratic front bullseye, departs from Staines along Clarence Street on 7 Mar 78. In the background an RP arrives over the bridge bearing the Green Line livery now carried by RP21, whilst an Alder Valley National clatters off in the other direction.

Photo © John Parkin

Route history

On 4 Jan 22, the General started operating route 62 between Kingston and Shepperton Station, using two 26-seat B type single-deckers from Kingston garage (K), which opened that day. The Bs were replaced by new and larger Ss later in the year. The following year, on 16 May, the route was extended, over what must have been less promising territory, via Laleham to Staines. In May 1923, Weybridge garage (WB) opened and joined Kingston in working the route. In 1924, the 62 ran hourly.

In the renumbering of October 1934, the 62 became the 218. Three months later, route number 62 was reallocation to Barking garage for a new route to Little Heath, and the rest, as they say, is history.

The 218 was jointly worked, with Ts by K and WB, with route 217 (formerly the 61) which ran from Kingston to Staines along the 218 to Walton, then via Weybridge and Addlestone. This arrangement continued until October 1937, when the 217 was replaced by an extension to Country Area route 461. But a pattern of joint operation of Kingston's routes had been established. A few months later, the first LT Scooters were allocated by Kingston on Saturdays, until about the outbreak of war. At about the same time, WB closed and K took sole operation with Ts.

1T1 T9 is seen at Staines West. Photographer unknown

The peak allocation Monday to Friday increased from 5 before the war to 20 in 1950 as the route increased in importance. Until the opening of the new bridge at Walton (which we are informed by Pablo Haworth is a Callender-Hamilton bridge, not a Bailey bridge as sometimes reported) and the consequent lifting of the weight limit, through journeys had been restricted to operation by the lighter 1T1s, which by then had been refurbished for this route and the 264. These lasted on the route until January 1953, by then alongside Qs and more modern Ts.

From April 1942, the route was jointly worked with the 219 for 18 months, with this arrangement reappearing on weekdays from April 1946 until October 1949, when the 219's joint allocation moved to the 215. The 218 also periodically received buses from the 215; until 27 Jun 51, the whole Monday to Friday allocation became inter-worked between the 215, 218 and 219 on the lifting of the Walton weight limit. In addition, the Sunday Kingston to Walton shorts were worked from the 215 allocation.

In practice during the early 50s, when Kingston had allocations of LTLs, Qs, pre- and post-war Ts and TDs, there was much interchange in the actual buses used on the routes - and the removal of the weight limit at Walton provided complete freedom. However, in early 1953, the daily official allocation on the 215/218/219 became TD. From June 1954, on the introduction of weekday route 215^A, the weekday allocations for the 218/219 were separated from the 215/215^A, but on Sunday, the 215/218/219 were still inter-worked.

It was thus that the conversion from TD to RF took place on the same date on the 218, 219 and Sunday workings on the 215. On 5 Jan 60, RFs finished operation of the 212 when the route was finally double-decked. About 16 RFs were moved overnight from Muswell Hill to Kingston, together with a few more scraped together, and the joint allocation on the 218 and 219 converted the next morning. Kingston already had RFs for the 216 (and the Sunday 206), but this was the largest phase of Kingston's conversion to RF operation.

RF505 arrived at Kingston in 1961 already fitted with doors as one of the first batch converted in 1959. It was to be another few years before OMO conversion when their use was officially permitted, but the crew here are obviously happy to make unofficial use of them., The bus is turning in from Clarence Street (on the inbound working used up to mid-1963) towards the back entrance of Kingston Bus Station, the driver already having wound the blind for the next journey. The destination 'Staines via Laleham' is to draw a distinction from another Kingston route, the 216 'Staines via Sunbury'.

Photo Peter Gomm collection

Actually, it wasn't quite the end of the TDs on the 218, as the schedule required one TD from the 215 allocation to work on the 218 Mondays to Fridays for one more year. But then, as so often was the case, RF operation brought a period of stability, disturbed only by restricted Sunday morning working from January 1971, to Esher only to 0930 and Shepperton only until 1200.

Apart from weekday timetable reductions and rerouting to serve Walton-on-Thames Station in April 1976, the 218 continued working whilst RFs were withdrawn around it. The 201, 215 and 216 at Kingston, the 206 at Esher, the 264 at Walton and the 224 at Laleham and Staines all lost their RFs in 1976. At Shepperton they lasted on the 237 until April 1977, whereupon the 218 and 219 were the lone RF routes remaining in London. The reason they continued was that there were not enough BLs for their replacement, and larger buses would not fit over the pits at Kingston garage. So 25 buses were spruced up and mostly given new 3-year Certificates of Fitness.

Roger Towers, the driver of RF507, receives a handshake before being allowed to pay in from the last RF service journey operated by LT on 30 March 1979 (well, early in the morning of 31 March, actually).

Eventually even they had to go, and the garage problem was solved by reallocating the 218 and 219 to Norbiton, from where the routes could be operated with Leyland Nationals. 17 RFs ran on the last day of operation, 30 March 1979, including the specially selected last bus RF507 (photo © Paul Morris) which had been repainted into original livery. In the event, the last journey had to be duplicated by several RFs, but when RF507 arrived at Kingston early on Saturday morning of 31 March, the end of London Transport operation of LT-designed single-deckers had arrived.

The progressive dismantling of the Kingston route network during the Thatcher era affected the 218 with adjustments in the route to serve Ham (Monday to Friday peaks in 1983/4) and the area behind Sandown Park at Esher (Saturdays from 1985, by loop working of Esher shorts). The route was extended to Thorpe Park for the summers of 1985 and 1986. In 1986, operation was transferred to LCBS with SNBs, the route number being retained (with the unsocial hours tendered service passing through several changes of operator) until withdrawal in July 1997.

* Footnote on route number 62. Not only was this applied to the routes that became the last RT and RF routes, but it was also one of the first in the country area, effectively a precursor of the Country Buses and the Green Line. When General starting operations outside the London urban area with three Sunday routes in July 1912, one was the 62, from Hounslow to Windsor. A month later it became daily and was renumbered 81. Which still operates today as far as Slough.

Red RF routes

Route 218