LT staff buses

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.

Abbey Wood staff bus RT1140 in late 1970, just before it was withdrawn and scrapped.  Note the windows taped up against the draughts.

Photo © Paul Redmond

Contents

Summary and short contributions

Dalston 1979 - 1981, Tim Drayton

Bus and rail staff transport, Doug Ely

Reigate to Chiswick staff buses

Summary

Up 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.  Special buses also took staff to the works at Aldenham and Chiswick.  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.

Separate night workings were used for platform staff (drivers and conductors), inside staff (garage staff) and Underground staff, using service buses.  In addition, there were the well known services taking staff to Chiswick and Aldenham, which lasted pretty much as long as those facilities were operational.  These services used dedicated buses, usually time-expired!

Abbey Wood also housed London's last RTL, RTL1232, used as the Catford Chiswick staff bus up until September 1970 (when it was replaced by RT1140, above).  It is seen here shortly before final disposal.

Photo © John King

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 (has anyone a copy of such a timetable?), 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'.

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. 

'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.'

Nominally allocated to Loughton as a trainer in its final years with LT, it is said that RF486 was actually used to take staff to North Weald airfield for driver training on RTs there.  Can anyone confirm this?  Clearly the bus carries no L plates.

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.

The staff buses provided by London Transport for its Underground staff in the early morning picked up and dropped off the staff who opened up the stations, and generally ran along the various underground lines.  RFs and TDs were often used on these services - there is a picture in the 1962 John Hambley book of a TD from Edgware at Piccadilly on such a duty.  The "Northern line bus" running back south from Stockwell through Clapham, Balham and Tooting along the line of the tube towards Morden came out of Merton Garage.  These buses were replaced by staff taxis some time ago; these also run to timetables and set routes.  More details of Underground staff arrangements are covered by Doug Ely, below.

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.

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.

An Aldenham staff bus, RTL353, at Hounslow.  Note the draught-excluders fitted to the upper deck front windows, and the destination slipboard.

Photo © Brian Watkinson via London Bus Scene

My first experiences were with those facilities provided for Underground staff in the mid 1960’s, which consisted of a mix of staff trains and staff coaches; the actual method varying by line and time of night/morning.

To take two examples; firstly the Metropolitan & Circle group which had crews on night duties from both Neasden and Baker Street and possibly Hammersmith depots. They worked the last passenger trains on each line or branch into the centre and then back to a depot (not necessarily their home depot) often as a staff train calling at selected stations which remained open only for the purpose of staff coming off that train leaving the station.  Having had their meal relief these crews would then take out a train and do the same in reverse to get staff to the stations and depots in time to start the early shifts.  One such duty used to take a Circle line set of CO/CP stock down from Neasden to Uxbridge in the early morning, returning as a passenger all stations to Baker Street before entering Circle line service.  What was unusual was that the main Metropolitan services were normally operated by A60 stock, which was faster, more comfortable and in the winter, much warmer.

The second example, the Northern Line had a mix of both staff trains and coaches, with night crews at Morden, Euston and Golders Green, all of whom worked trains in much the same way as those on the Metropolitan.  The Northern also had at least one staff coach which ran from Edgware to Morden via the Charing Cross line stations after passenger services had finished with a return journey in the early morning.  This was contracted to a coach company whose name escapes me.  My only experience of using it came from on late shift having a train very nearly catch fire due to faulty electricals, and after limping off the running lines into the double length siding at Kennington and being inspected for damage after the last passenger service had gone north, we (the crew) had to limp the train up to Golders Green for repairs, thus stranding a Morden crew there!  We had to take the staff coach back and arrived at Morden at around 2.30am about 4 hours late and unable to get any further as I lived in Croydon at the time!  I seem to remember that we connected with another staff coach in Central London, presumably from the High Barnet branch.  I would think the coach services were let on contract, some could have  been run by LT buses, but it is more likely that some bus garages very close to Underground depots ran staff buses used by both sets of staff.  Edgware being a good example.

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.

Just for a change, here is RT90 seen circling the brand-new Gunnersbury Roundabout at the end of the 1950s.  The absence of a garage code and the apparently fixed Private blinds suggest perhaps a Chiswick staff bus?

Photo Chris Stanley collection

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 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.

Finally, my experience with British Rail although short gave me an insight into their staff transport system.  Basically for Station staff it did not exist!  As most stations are open and accessible even when the offices are closed, staff simply get the first or last train to/from work if they do not live locally.  Train Crew are expected to travel to and from their depots themselves, either using personal transport or public where available.  There are however such things as staff taxis for train crew, and they come into play when staff either start or finish away from their home depot, which actually happens quite a lot.  These taxis however are only provided for that purpose and do not as a rule carry other staff to or from work.  Certainly in BRB days even travelling from home to work was not necessarily free for staff, it being necessary to purchase a season ticket at priv rates (25%) on which you were allowed the first so many miles of the journey free.

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

Reigate to Chiswick staff buses

Two of the three 1973-76 Reigate to Chiswick staff buses (RFs 471 and 314) sit at Chiswick alongside an RT trainer.

Photo Peter Osborn collection

As a legacy (I believe, does anyone know the full history?) of a transfer of engineering staff from Reigate - the headquarters of LGCS, later the LT Country Area - to Chiswick Works, there were regular staff buses to take staff from the Reigate area to work at Chiswick.  In 1938-9, three 'Godstone' STLs were used.  In the late 60s and early 1970s, the service was operated by GSs - it appears that there was also at that time a GS-operated staff bus from Reigate to Aldenham (again, more please).

The operation was taken over by RFs in 15 Nov 73 (although the bus histories appear to show that the GSs were withdrawn earlier in the year ... ?) when RFs 314, 471 and 486 went to Reigate.  Judging by the photo of 314 and 471, two buses worked at that time leaving one spare.  Uniquely among the RF fleet, they were fitted with second fog-lamps, although the reason for this has never been established.  After 2½ years, there was a little-known change.  On 9 May 76, the day after the RFs finished on the 290 and at the time when a batch of buses were to be re-certified for use at Kingston, rather than reconditioning the Riverside buses, three RFs (462, 488 and 538) went from there to replace 314, 471 and 486, which departed to be re-certified. 

It is frequently opined that the best buses were selected for the Chiswick runs - certainly 538 has the reputation of being a good bus - as it did in the mid-60s when it was RF500 at MH, as described by Stuart Perry.

The route used, as described by Rod Lucas in his book Shades of Green and Red, was via Woodhatch, then Reigate Hill and A217 to Sutton By-pass, Cheam, Worcester Park, A3 to Roehampton, Barnes Common, Hammersmith Bridge, then A4 and back roads to reach Chiswick High Road and the works.  The bus left Reigate at around 0600 to reach Chiswick at 0710 in time for breakfast.  The return departed at 1610.  At the time Rod describes, 1973, the staff bus was RMA36, later replaced by another RMA until the closure of Chiswick. 

A rare picture of the Reigate to Chiswick staff run, returning home in the afternoon.  Clive Fairchild mentions that these 1978 shots were taken at about 5 pm when on his way home from work.  This is RF462 on the Sutton By-pass; the other shot, showing RF538 in Cheam still bearing the R garage code, is here.

Photo © Clive Fairchild