Singing out for the Unsung Heroes
Running Our Running Days
5 December 2021
ABOVE: TD 95 (JXC 288) at Ruislip Lido, in the company of RF 486 (MXX 463) and a Routemaster, at the Uxbridge Buses Running Day
on Sunday 1st June 2008
on Sunday 1st June 2008
I have been attending Vintage Bus Running Days since I discovered the first Uxbridge Running Day back in 2008. I was on the last trip of the day back to Uxbridge, congratulating myself on planning things carefully enough to end up back where I started. It’s then that I saw a GS parked at Harefield Hospital, which explains why I ended up in Rickmansworth…
ABOVE: GS 13 (MXX 313) during the Uxbridge Vintage Running Day on 1st June 2008
It was a funny day, as the buses seemed to get older as the day went on. We started our day on a DMS (1868 according to my records). Then we progressed to Routemasters, RTs and RFs.
But it was then the sight of TD 95, a 1949 Leyland Tiger Mann Egerton that really turned my head. The chance to ride on a vehicle type that I had never ridden on before was too good an opportunity to miss, even if it was a very short trip – about eight minutes – from Ruislip High Street to Ruislip Lido.
My notes also show that we did a round trip on RTL 139 – another first for me, as RTLs had ceased running in service in London when I was only one year old.
In Covid times, we have seen the creation of the ‘fly-past’ event. I attended the Route 65 fly-past in April 2021, where I basically walked the route from Brentford to Petersham, photographing whatever came through.
I always wonder what those not ‘in the know’ think when they see these buses go by. The look on many people’s faces can be a sight to behold!
Anyone waiting for a genuine 65 on the day of the flypast might have been impressed. Well, at least if they could tell the difference – I saw one man trying to wave down a Metrobus outside the Sports Ground on the Kew Road!
These events must surely be great fun for the vehicle owners, who bring these wonderful preserved vehicles out and let all and sundry traipse all over them. But the real unsung heroes of these events for me are those who sit behind the scenes and plan all of the arrangements.
They have to work out which routes to cover, and draw up timetables that see departures every few minutes from the ‘focal point’ in all different directions. They build in timings that allow people to switch between vehicles at remote points, as well as at the focal point, often enabling round trips A to B to C and back to A.
And of course, they have to roster each vehicle, and produce a schedule that reflects the normal driving rules. They have to ensure that drivers get their legal breaks during the day, and have somewhere to park the vehicles whilst doing so. They ensure a useful selection of ‘feeder’ services to get people to and from the focal point. The list goes on.
What we, the punters, get, is a great day out, where we can jump off one bus and almost immediately get onto another one to go somewhere else. I will generally be able to do four or five round trips in a day and often don’t know where I am going to land at the end of the day (as long as it has a station). There will invariably be more places to go than one can fit into the day.
Most of the Running Days I have attended so far have been managed by the good folk of the Amersham & District Motorbus Society, so a special shout-out and thank you from me to them.
I’d also like to thank the organiser of the Muswell Hill Running Day last month – but I can’t because I don’t know who the organiser was! To be honest, I nearly didn’t go to that one because it was difficult to find any information about it in advance. That changed a couple of weeks before the event when I found an online timetable and decided to give it a punt.
I’m certainly glad did – it was a really good day out. I joined what I expected to be a quiet feeder journey from Victoria, which turned out to be almost a capacity crowd for RT 4779. I took a couple of rides on the old 212 route from Muswell Hill to Finsbury Park, and this made me appreciate what a short, but important, feeder route the modern equivalent (W7) is.
For me, the best ride of the day was on RT 1658 from Arnos Grove to Muswell Hill, recreating the old route 251A. The traffic became really difficult and we lost about 15 minutes between Friern Barnet and Muswell Hill, which I thought was at risk of impacting the whole day. But traffic, and timetables, soon recovered.
ABOVE: RT 1658 at Muswell Hill, having just completed a run from Arnos Grove, on Sunday 7th November 2021
Thank you to everyone who is involved in these events. I look forward to many more in the future.