please empty your brain below |
Ah, does the 55 run down Hoe Street then?
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I appreciate both the fact that a) this is posted at 00:20 and b) the callbacks and foreshadowing to posts past (Twentyman Close) and future (Hoe Street).
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It is indeed odd that such a low numbered was allocated to a route so remote from central London. There is some logic in that it started as the 10A, split from the original incarnation of the 10 which ran from Victoria to deepest Essex, but the number was only spare because the previous (pre-war) No 20 was even more remote, running from Kingston to Guildford. Why that wasn't a green (4xx) route is another mystery.
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Winston Churchill also prevented the extension of Trolleybuses beyond Woodford, Napier Arms (the building still stands, and is now a bar/grill/restaurant called Lokkum), the space where the stand/turning circle used by the Trolleybuses is diagonally opposite and still exists, it is currently used as additional display parking by a car showroom.
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I agree it does seem surprising that such a route would take such an "important sounding" number. A definite route to catch, perfect to combine with a walk through Epping Forest (or the Roding Valley)
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The 20 is just one of several buses I can hop on to get up to Walthamstow - I'd never really considered quite how far out it goes.
Sarah - it does, as of late last year. Its previous terminus was at the bottom of my old street (at a rather pleasant pub) |
The Kingston - Guildford 20 was a double deck route run by Central Buses - so was numbered into the 1-199 block reserved for these routes that was introduced in the renumbering of October 1934, before that it was numbered 620, on Mon-Fri Kingston and Guildford were linked by the single deck 215 (this was numbered 115 before Oct '34), but back then there was much more leisure traffic at weekends, so double deckers were used but had to follow a different route due to low bridges on Portsmouth Road.
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I was hoping for an E20 post(code) today, seeing as you've just done SW20 and SE20. But blogging a route in my firm territory of Walthamstow is pretty cool.
Really looking forward to when you turn 55, where I'm guessing you'll be observing the aftermath of 48 withdrawal from riding the 55. |
Debden only got its title because the denizens of Loughton didn’t want to give their town’s name to a council estate.
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It was the 38A bus which ran until around 1970 from Victoria to Loughton, sharing the road into Loughton with the 20 which was then running from Leytonstone to Epping. When the 38A was withdrawn, the 20 was diverted from Leytonstone to Walthamstow, and some time later also diverted at Loughton away from Epping to Debden via what was previously the 20A route. (I suspect this was all connected with the opening of the Victoria Line.)
The 10A (formerly 100) ran from Epping to Elephant until 1939, when it was curtailed at Leytonstone, then renumbered to 20 in 1948. |
I expect residents of Loughton appreciate their TfL bus services. But there are a good number of places outside London where bus services are pretty good. There are also some where they are awful. The real USP of TfL bus services, in my view, is the consistency. The worst-served areas of London are streets ahead of some places in Britain, with maybe one bus a week.
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Well if its losing money perhaps our Mayor can read the riot act to Essex County Council, cough up some money to hep run the service or TfL will cut the service off to save money.
dg writes: All sorted four years ago. |
I grew up in one of those houses in Woodford ..... and as ever you don't appreciate how nice an outlook it was until you go back!
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