please empty your brain below

You've just reminded me of the existence of IoD1 and IoD2 - will they be getting an honourable mention, even though you can't ride them?
For all of my travel across London, be it for work, leisure or the hell of it, I have never used the G1 and I never intend to. Thank you for reminding me why.
@Nico,
I think the G1 might be quite a pleasant ride - or at least less stressful - at 6am on a summer morning. That's when I intend to ride it.

Of course, in the same 85 minutes that DG spent, I could get from London to Berlin, or to Dover in my car. You could also walk between the termini of the G1 in less time than it takes the bus on a weekday afternoon.

A funny story about slow buses - 266 to Brent Cross often takes in excess of 2-3 hours on weekday evenings. Once, an RPI gave a penalty fare to someone (with poor English - so it works the other way too cf dg's attempted free-rider) he suspected of taking the bus twice, not believing that he could still be on the bus at 1930 having touched in at 1700.
Oddly, the TfL site has the full route southbound - http://tfl.gov.uk/bus/route/g1?direction=inbound - but describes the same route northbound as terminating at Clapham South - http://tfl.gov.uk/bus/route/g1?direction=outbound

Perhaps that's how they compensate for slow running - a quick dash from Clapham South to Battersea should only take about ten minutes on a sensible route.
The oldest bus to date - an 05 reg, the longest in duration (85 minutes). and the slowest (7mph), bringing the averages for the six routes to less than 12mph.

I also noticed the odd anomaly on the TfL website that it seems to run between Clapham Junction and Clapham South but not back again.
There are three possible explanations:
a. There is a big bus factory near Clapham Junction and a scrap yard at Clapham South
b. There are a lot of empty buses running through Clapham
c. the TfL website is rubbish

My money is on "c"

You could probably walk from one end to the other and back again in the time the bus takes to make the one-way trip.
Not many people are happy to escape into Norbury, I can assure you.
Ah yes, G1, the bus everyone tries once. The sheer convolutedness of the route meant it used to be pretty hard to work out where on earth you were, pre-stop announcements & smartphones. The route did a further significant residential detour up Wakehurst Road to the Wandsworth Common for quite some time after the old Bolingbroke Hospital was ultimately closed, before the route was finally straightened out.
@JQ

6am on a Summer day is probably the best time to use many a London bus route. Next best time is the handfull of last buses that run just after midnight on 25th December...just so one can say they used a London bus on Christmas Day.
The river Graveney is usually considered the boundary between Streatham and Norbury, so the bus terminates in Streatham (just). Perhaps not important now, but this was the boundary between the County of London and Surrey once upon a time.
Worth noting that the crowded conditions DG experienced have been recognised by TfL. The route is getting a frequency increase and new hybrid single deckers next May. Of course a higher frequency is likely to encourage even more people to use the route.
"Human cargo" - a term I haven't heard since my PCV driving instructor used it as an 'affectionate' term to describe passengers! I did this route once from Streatham Ice Rink right through to the last stop...never again!

Having worked at Beddington Cross Garage, I've heard driver's tales of patients, still clad in hospital gowns with the back open, boarding buses at Springfield Hospital. Not sure if there was a specific procedure for dealing with this situation however.










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