All Over London Bus Blog: Route 24 - Almost Time to Switch; again!

Route 24 has always been run between: Hampstead Heath & Pimlico Grosvenour Road Via Camden Town, Warren Street, Tottenham Court Road, Charing Cross Road, Trafalgar Square & Victoria.

In the April of this year It was announced that Metroline had re-gained the contract of Route 24 off of the current owner, Go Ahead London General.

History

The Route 24 was introduced on the 3rd of May 1950 operating from Chalk Farm (CF) garage using 29 AEC SRT's. Two years later on the 14th of May 1952, a Sunday allocation was introduced at Victoria Garage (GM), with an extra 3 SRT's making the PVR 32.

Two years later on the 6th of October 1954, the allocaqtion was changed to RTL's but the PVR stayed the same.

Four years later on the 1st of October 1958, the Sunday Victoria (GM) allocation was withdrawn and the RTL's were replaced with RTW's.

On the 1st of December 1963 the RTW's were replaced by AEC Routemasters (RM's) but this was not for long as two years later on the 7th of October 1965 the RM allocation was changed to AEC Renowns (XA's) and the PVR was changed to 30.

On the 12th of June 1966 Chalk Farm introduced AEC Long Routemasters on the route (RML's) and then later on the 4th of January 1970 & Victoria garage also introduced RML's for it's newly gained Saturday allocation, but on the 17th of June 1972 this was withdrawn due to route 2 needing the buses at Victoria. In 1975 the allocation was changed to DM's but four years later the route returned back to RML operation.

On the 25th of October 1986 the route was converted to one person operation using 26 MCW Metrobuses from Chalk Farm, but two years later in 1988 the route was given to Grey Green from their Stamford Hill garage (SH) using Alexander R type bodied Volvo B10M's.

On the 28th of March 1998 the route was moved to a new premises in Stamford Hill (SF) under management of the new Arriva Group. Two years later the route was moved to Tottenham garage (AR) where buses had been painted into the Arriva livery and DLA's were now part of the allocation.

On the 9th of November 2002, Metroline gained the route off of Arriva and operated it form their Holloway garage (HT) using a batch of 27 Low Floor Volvo B7TL's on the Plaxton President bodywork (VP's)

On the 24th of April 2004 the Night service was renumbered therefore making the 24 a 24 hour route!

In 2005 Metroline announced that they would introduce a new type of bus on Route 4, however this was changed as Metroline decided to transfer some Volvo Olympicans with Alexander R bodywork (AV's) displaced from Route 266 and then concluded that what was then their flagship route would gain this 'new' type of bus, and on the 3rd of January 2006 Metroline introduced the first ever batch of Euro 3 Tridents with Alexander Dennis E400 bodywork (TE's) on the route 24! Thus meaning the VP's were able to transferred to Harrow Weald garage.

In the April of 2007 it was announced that route 24 would be lost to Go Ahead and on the 10th of November 2007 Go Ahead London won the route off of Metroline from their Stockwell garage in Lambeth (SW) using 32 (PVR of 29 buses) brand new Euro 4 Alexander Dennis Enviro 400's. These were in the fleet range of E62-E93. Stockwell Garage immediately updated blinds on older examples of Enviro 400's (Route 196's batch) so that their will be a wide range of intermixing to occur. At first, when GAL gained the route, the route had its driver changeovers at Pimlico, St Georges Sq. This had subject to change a few months after due to many drivers finding it hard to get to and from there and the garage. The driver changeover was altered to take place at Warren Street, which has proved to have more devastation, due to the area being in the heart of London and congested with traffic.

An example of an Enviro400 off the 196's batch

An example of an Enviro400 off the 196's batch

An example of the 24's batch on the 196.

All Rights Reserved by Rhys Daniel

Anyway, in August 2008, it was announced that Routes 16, 24 and 482 will all trial out some new state of the class Enviro 400H Hybrids. Route's 16 and 24 both gained 5 each and route 482 gained 2. However, TfL wanted to make a comparison with fuel consumptions against the E400H and the Wright Pulsar/DB300H. This made the 24's hybrid bus rate go up to 6 buses, due to the route gaining another hybrid bus but of a different type (DB300 Hybrid).

Go Ahead have had a bit of an erratic time with the 24, but seeing the areas where the route serves. You have to give them props for trying their best. Would be interesting to see how the company presents themselves on the last day and hopefully we will have an intermixing which we have not had before. A B7TL/Gemini on the route, albeit, We have had WHVs and B9/Gemini's.

Below we have listed some of our photos
of the last year of route 24

Well Tomorrow will conclude the last day of service with Go Ahead and what a eventful service it has been. Hopefully now with a PVR and timetable change the route will become more reliable. But I guess only time will tell

So get your cameras and get snapping for the final day of Route 24's Go Ahead Operation!

Written by: George Reed & Rhys Daniel

3 comments:

Tom8:57 am, November 09, 2012
It was TFL's fault for awarding it to them in the first place, because SW is too far from Hampstead Heath. Nice George and Rhys :)
Anonymous1:21 pm, November 09, 2012
When the 24's were converted to OPO at Chalk Farm in 1986. The conversion consisted of a mixed type of Metrobuses and Titans which were eventually singled to Titans. Regulars included T567, T386, T661, T552, T419, T525, T600 amongst others.
Anonymous1:21 am, February 19, 2013
roll on new bus 4 london with rear platform like the old routeamsters

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Route 24 - Almost Time to Switch; again!

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