Monday, 29 September 2014

New Routemaster conversion for Route 453 is delayed again!

"London General bus MAL117 (BP57 UJY) 2008 Mercedes-Benz Citaro, route 453, 10 June 2011" by Darren Hall Uploaded by Ultra7. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.


LOTS (London Omnibus Traction Society) have reported that route 453 has missed two target dates, so the route conversion to New Routemasters will now commence on the 18th  of October 2014.
This is not the first time the route has experienced delays converting to a specific bus type. 

The first delay occurred on the 15th of February back in 2003
when the route first started with conventional deckers, then a month later on the 15th of March the route finally got their Mercedes-Benz Citaro O530G Artics. It seems that history is repeating itself for route 453, in terms of route conversion delays. 

What TFL should've done is to do a phase conversion so there would be minimal disruption to the route if the New Routemasters stop working due to teething problems. Routes that got phased conversion to New Routemasters is route 11 and 38.

This is a follow up to my previous article which can be found here

References:

Quote:Since up to LT272 were delivered in June, no more NBfLs have arrived in London. The next type conversion is London General route 453 (to be all opo) and, after two target dates have been missed, is now likely to begin from 18th October. After that, it is Arriva 137 (to be with C/As) with conversion likely to be under way in mid-to-late November. Around 50 to 60 new Euro-VI LTs have been built (numbers as high as the 32*, 33* and 34* range have been noted) and these have been stored up to now in Northern Ireland. We understand that some of the London General buses are now imminent for delivery.’

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