Route 490: A needed Refresh

Route 490 operates between Heathrow, Terminal 5 and Richmond - Pools in the Park via Feltham. The route is operated by Abellio London's from Fullwell Garage situated in the West of London.

The route has a PVR of 14 Buses for it's 12 mile routing.

On the 25th of August, Abellio London retained the route 490 which is currently operated by a batch of 10.2m Dart SLFs inherited from when Tellings Golden Miller purchased them in 2002. Now its time for an upgrade, from now on the route will be using  a mix of new 10.8m Alexander Dennis E20Ds and existing 10.2m Enviro 200s, which have been refurbished after being relased off route 350 after its conversion to double deck using the Tridents that the 3 previously used after it's conversion to a fully Hybrid operation back in February.

History of Route 490:

The route 490 was first introduced on the 23rd of August 1997 running between Hatton Cross and Richmond - Dee Road, using Marshall Darts under the operation of London Busways which was later swallowed up by First Centrewest.

On the 28th of April 2001, the operation was transferred to Tellings Golden Miller using Optare Excels and later the then re-routed to Richmond Manor Circus on the 30th of June 2001.

On the 24th of August 2002, the route was converted to SLF Darts which have been used as its allocation until today.

On the 3rd of September, 2005 Tellings Golden Miller (TGM) was swallowed up by National Express' Travel London group and three years later on the 22nd of March 2008 it was extended to Heathrow Terminal 5. However, it was curtailed to the Cargo Centre until the Terminal was officially opened on Thursday the 27th.
Three years later on the  the 27th of June 2009 the decision was made to  re-route the route to serve Richmond - Pools On The Park, instead of Richmond - Manor Circus.

Prior to service on route 490 8507-8515 were sent out on other routes at Fulwell (TF), E.g 
Routes H25 & 235. Here are some photos of these workings.

(C) Lee Thatcher

Due to a shortage of MPDs at Hayes (WS) 8512
was sent for temporary use on the H28
(C) Lee Thatcher

Some of the things that have been changed during refurbishment to these 4 year old buses include;

• New Flooring Lino
• New LED interior lights
• New Powerblinds (ousting out the previous manual ones)
• New seat moquettes (replacing the previous Travel London one)
• New BMAC stop buttons

Here is 8508 Demonstrating the previous manual blind system whilst working on route 112

The new and refurbished buses for the route really suit the route and I think it's about time they got some new buses! and if you would like to know where the some of Darts will be going?, well some of them will move to Abellio Surrey's Byfleet Depot for work on their routes.

Without further ado, enjoy the rest of the pictures!

Produced by: George Reed & Lawrence Abel 

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