please empty your brain below

been waiting for this all day! much more nail biting than the oscars
Lovely. It would be nice if relationships between bus driver and passengers could always be like this.

I notice that it's another Sullivan service, and they have gone for the personalised registration number.
A positive end to this series.
If I was a bus driver in London then this is the kind of route I would prefer.
Oh what a lovely read. A heartwarming and well deserved winner.
Lovely! glad it was a nice human tale to finish.

Bus nerds: is it really worthwhile having two doors on such a tiny bus?
Two doors are required for the wheelchair ramp system.
Even when the door is behind the front axle?
There are plenty of single doored wheelchair friendly buses. Yesterday's 379 being one of them.
Sprout Eater: Perhaps not, if it was. But the side picture makes it clear that the front door is in front of the front axle on this bus, which is probably highly desirable to avoid driver neck-ache.
Why does the bus flip back and forth between the two numbers? Wouldn't it be easier just to run through as one route? (It seems from DG's account that there are even some people who ride through anyway, as if it were one route)
The majority of these short routes are in the east (or at least north), while the 209 in Hammersmith is very probably the westernmost one. Does this imply something?
I was thinking exactly what 'timbo' has asked above. I have since had a word with myself..
I'd imagine the necessity to have two doors is to do with the fact that this bus comes from the 299 in rush hour, which is pretty busy and I don't doubt having a single door vehicle would be to the detriment of running on time.
This must be the most blogged about bus route on DG's blog

dg writes: It is not.
I believe the thinking behind keeping the 389 and 399 route numbers separate (they used to be combined as one route) is that this makes it easier for people boarding at the stops on the shared one-way section (The Spires and Salisbury Road stops), because they just have to look at the number rather than the destination of the bus.

Also, bus drivers do sometimes forget to change their destination blinds, so having also to change the number makes it more likely that they will remember and people won't be wondering whether the bus they are catching is going to Western Way or Hadley Wood first (although I believe the 399 has been on a rather long diversion owing to a seemingly never-ending closure of the main road in Monken Hadley).

I think the destination blinds are changed from 'Hadley Wood station' and 'Western Way' respectively back to 'Barnet, The Spires' when the bus hesitates at Hadley Wood station and Western Way, but because the bus also travels in a one-way loop near those places, people can still get on before the hesitation point and travel all the way to The Spires without touching in again.

I've always thought that these routes deserved a more frequent service, especially the 399 - this would probably lead to an increase in patronage at Hadley Wood station for people travelling between High Barnet and stations north to Welwyn Garden City, as it is one stop further along than New Barnet (which involves going back on oneself from High Barnet).

In other Barnet-related bus news concerning a previous blog entry by DG, no news yet on the consultation that proposed removing the 384 from a number of roads there - an update from TfL is anticipated imminently.










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