Route 128:
Hillingdon's Special Local Service
5 July 2025
ABOVE: Transport UK 8164 (SN66 WNR), an ADL Enviro200 MMC, is working Transport for London (TfL) route U9 as it passes preserved London Transport BL 88 (OJD 88R) at the New Park Road stop in Harefield, on Sunday 30 March 2025. The BL is recreating former Hillingdon Local Service route 128 as part of the Amersham & District Motorbus Society Running Day based on Rickmansworth.
Back "in the day", as they say (or used to say, back in the day), one of the bus services that you could have caught from Ruislip, in north-west London, was the 128 "Hillingdon Local Service". This was a special service run on behalf of Hillingdon Council, which first saw the light of day in September 1977.
The service is frequently recreated for local Running Days, so I thought I would have a look at the modern services that cover the ground of the old 128, and compare what runs now to the offering of the 1983 route 128 timetable (see below), which I stumbled across the other day when looking at one of London Transport's old "Getting About by bus" booklets.
I have always had a soft spot for Ruislip. My first job after leaving school was here (1984-85), and I think it's quite a nice area. The High Street is a lot busier nowadays than it was when I was working here - there were no pedestrian crossings in those days - they weren't needed. Now it's very different.
And the Station Approach to the Underground station is certainly a lot busier than it used to be. Six bus routes terminate here and two more pass through, generating chaos as there isn't room for all those buses to park up. Some have to park in the official departure stops, and the presence of one badly-parked vehicle as I visit means that others are having to block the exit in order to pick up passengers.
There's such a shortage of parking space that one service (278 to Heathrow) drops off here, then goes to the nearby High Street to park up (you have to follow it if that's the route you want to catch)!
ABOVE: A crowded scene finds five buses on stand in Ruislip Station Approach on Saturday 28 June 2025. Immediately in view is Metroline West VWH 2361 (LX67 CXU), a Volvo B5LH Wright Eclipse Gemini 3, soon to depart for Mill Hill on route 114. To the right is fellow Metroline West DE 1155 (LK11 CWL) awaiting its next trip on route U1 to West Drayton. A Wright GB Kite Electroliner, for route E7 to Ealing Broadway, can just be picked out in front of the Wright Eclipse. In addition to the five parked buses, an ADL Enviro400 on route 278 can just be seen pulling onto Pembroke Road, heading for its own stand.
It used to be a lot quieter when I was a child in the 1970s - two routes passed through and three more terminated. And in those days, there probably wouldn't have been two buses on the same route present at the same time (especially with wider frequencies than today), so there was plenty of room for all of the buses.
One of those terminating services would have been the 128. The route was run from Uxbridge Garage with the last three London Transport Bristol LH BL class single-deckers, BLs 93, 94 & 95, in a special livery of red with yellow window surrounds (this was the period when new London Transport buses were generally receiving white window surrounds). They were adorned with special Hillingdon Local Service branding.
ABOVE: I don't seem to have any photos of route 128 from its time of operation. This picture of preserved BL 95 (OJD 95R) is the nearest. As one of the three buses officially allocated to the route, it is in the original livery and is representative of what ran at the time. This was the occasion of the first Uxbridge Running Day, from the Amersham & District Motorbus Society, on Sunday 1 June 2008.
This is not intended to be a detailed history of the 128; it's just a snapshot of an unusual service. One that was perhaps a little bit special.
ABOVE: On Sunday 30 March 2025, preserved London Transport BS 5 (GHV 505N, a Bristol LH that was shorter than the BL) recreates a route 128 journey in Ruislip High Street.
And the route was considered special. The service was run on behalf of Hillingdon Council, rather than as part of the overall London Transport network. Special fares applied (rising higher than normal London Transport services), and many Bus Passes and Travelcards couldn't be used. The blinds used yellow lettering on a green background.
The timetable was a bit of a mish-mash; there was a core section, but lots of random journeys went different ways, at seemingly random times. I'm sure it all made sense at the time...
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Let's have a look at what it looked like, and what is on offer over the same roads today.
Core Section: Ruislip to Harefield
From Ruislip Station, buses headed into Ruislip High Street, then through Ladygate Lane and into Breakspear Road (passing Ruislip Crematorium).
This parallels the current route 331 (Ruislip to Uxbridge, via a convoluted route). After the Crematorium comes Reservoir Road; alight here and you can walk up to Ruislip Lido, a natural lake / reservoir with an artificial beach that offers sunbathing & boating. There's even a miniature railway to carry you around the lake.
The route becomes distinctly countrified after this, as the bus cuts through the middle of Ruislip Woods. Such houses as there are down here are unlikely to be within my price bracket.
ABOVE: Ducks Hill Road, near Northwood, on Saturday 28 June 2025. The 331 turns off here to the right, whilst the 128 would have continued straight on, to Mount Vernon Hospital.
The 331 takes a detour into Northwood, for a double-run via the station. This was never part of the 128, though, which used to press straight on to Mount Vernon Hospital, running through some private roads on the hospital site to get there.
ABOVE: Metroline West DEL 2155 (LK16 DDJ), turns into Station Approach in Northwood, whilst working route 331 from Ruislip to Uxbridge, on Saturday 28 June 2025.
The detour reflects that the 331, from Northwood on to Uxbridge, replaced a section of what was once the trunk London Transport / London Country route 347, which ran all the way from Uxbridge to Hemel Hempstead. (Various historical records do suggest that the 347 took a detour away from Mount Vernon Hospital, though.)
The vast Mount Vernon Hospital sits right on the edge of Greater London, with its northern extremity being only about 300 yards from the Hertfordshire border. It has a decent and spacious Bus Station, though - the kind that Ruislip can only dream of...
ABOVE: Not my best photograph, but this is the Bus Station outside Mount Vernon Hospital, on Saturday 28 June 2025. Bus parking stands can be seen on the left, where an ADL Enviro400H stands between journeys on route 282 to Ealing Hospital, whilst two flags for stops on the right help to convey how spacious it is.
Depending what map you look at, we now either cross the border into Hertfordshire for a short distance, or we don't! Ye Olde Greene Manne is definitely over the border (the address is Hertfordshire), but we turn off just before it...
ABOVE: Over the border... Ye Olde Greene Manne
We continue along White Hill. There are no houses along this stretch so it probably doesn't matter whether we're in London or Hertfordshire. All very countrified with trees rising up on both sides of the road, and sometimes meeting in the middle.
We cross back into Greater London (if we ever left) near Bishop's Wood Country Park. This is about as far, both metaphorically and physically, as it's possible to be from the likes of Oxford Street or Trafalgar Square whilst still being in London. The illusion is maintained as we pass the "Littlebourne Farm" stop.
We reach Harefield, with its traditional village feel.
Here, we leave the 331... Its route from here veers well away from the 128 of old.
ABOVE: DEL 2155 again, on Saturday 28 June 2025. The bus will now turn left and head for Uxbridge
This is the King's Arms stop, opposite the village green - the heart of the village.
ABOVE: On Saturday 28 June 2025, Transport UK 8154 (YX16 OFB), an ADL Enviro200 MMC, turns from Park Lane into Rickmansworth Road, in Harefield, on the last lap of its journey to the Hospital. NONE of the U9s that were operating on this day carried a destination display.
Traditionally in the county of Middlesex, Harefield is 17 miles north-west of the 'centre' of London, Charing Cross. Before the Norman conquest of England, the Manor of Harefield belonged to Countess Goda, the sister of Edward the Confessor. Following the Norman conquest, ownership passed to Richard FitzGilbert, the son of Count Gilbert of Brionne, an influential nobleman in the Duchy of Normandy in Northern France.
The Green looks lovely on a summer's day:
There's even a pond at one end:
Woodland areas in Middlesex were registered according to the number of pigs which could be supported there; Harefield had 1,200, the second highest, and only lost to Ruislip, with 1,500. No pigs are in evidence on the day of my visit, though. If they've got any sense they're sheltering from the blistering sun somewhere.
Harefield is also associated with three recipients of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious decoration of the British decorations system. And its hospital has a claim to fame as well, which we'll come to in a moment.
The main junction outside the King's Arms is curious because, of the four possible ways out, the 128 at various times of the day used all of them...
Let's turn right first and head up to the Hospital.
Harefield Hospital
Only a few hundred yards from the village green, Harefield Hospital is a world-famous heart and lung hospital. Sir Magdi Yacoub (b. 1935), consultant cardiothoracic surgeon at the hospital from 1969 until 2002, carried out the first live lobe lung transplant, and went on to perform more transplants than any other surgeon in the world. By the end of the 1980s Harefield Hospital was the leading transplant centre. Sir Magdi was involved in the development of heart and heart-lung transplants.
Talking of transplants, we have now transplanted from the 331 to the final section of the U9, which runs from Uxbridge to Harefield Hospital.
Talking of transplants, we have now transplanted from the 331 to the final section of the U9, which runs from Uxbridge to Harefield Hospital.
ABOVE: Transport UK 8164 (SN66 WNR), an ADL Enviro200 MMC, enters the grounds of Harefield Hospital on the scorching hot afternoon of Saturday 28 June 2025.
Harefield West
A handful of journeys on route 128 ran out to Harefield West - some terminating; others just making a double-run. This led to the advice for anyone using the Harefield West stop to "see timetable for reverse direction" for additional buses between Harefield Village and Harefield West.
This is a residential area so the journeys do make sense, and there only seems to be one way in or out, unless you want to push a long way into Hertfordshire, so the double-run also seems logical.
Buses on route U9 still undertake this double-run, but only on journeys towards Harefield Hospital. Some route 347 journeys used to do this as well, as is often recreated on Running Days:
ABOVE: Preserved RT 604 (HLX 421) stands at Harefield West on Sunday 27 June 2010, on an Uxbridge Running Day
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ABOVE: Twelve months after the previous picture, another Uxbridge Running Day finds preserved RML 2323 (CUV 323C) at the same location, albeit parked in a slightly different spot, on Sunday 26 June 2011
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Journeys to Rickmansworth
In the 1983 timetable, five weekday journeys and three Saturday ones are extended from Harefield to Rickmansworth. It's less than three miles as the crow flies and the section is timed at 11-14 minutes. Timings are curious, though, as demonstrated by the departure schedule from Rickmansworth Station:
0829 (not Sats) 0959 1159 1559 (not Sats) 1759
The 0829 and 1559 journeys could be for schools, but imagine missing the 1159 service on a Saturday!
ABOVE: Preserved RF 600 (NLE 600) overtakes preserved BL 88 (OJD 88R) at Rickmansworth Station on Sunday 30 March 2025.
ABOVE: Rickmansworth Station, on Saturday 28 June 2025. On the right is Arriva Herts & Essex 3772 (FL63 DXC), a VDL SB200 Wright Pulsar 2, between trips on route 725 (Rickmansworth to Stevenage).
Rickmansworth is the administrative seat of the Three Rivers District Council; the confluence of the River Chess and the River Gade with the River Colne in Rickmansworth inspired the name. The Colne flows south to form a major tributary of the Thames.
ABOVE: High Street, Rickmansworth
Nowadays, there are just two or three direct bus journeys per day between Harefield and Rickmansworth, using the Monday to Friday R2 (Mount Vernon Hospital to Chorleywood), or the R1 (Mount Vernon Hospital to Maple Cross), which runs one return journey on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays only. At other times the recommended bus-only route is via Denham, or you can go to Northwood and take the tube (as I did)!
Garage Journeys to / from Uxbridge
The 128 used two different routes to Uxbridge, for driver-relief purposes. This had the effect of putting Uxbridge at both ends of the timetable panels for both directions, although without the "see timetable for reverse direction" advice this time.
The direct route from Harefield is the one covered today by the U9. It's a very quick run through Harefield South and Harvil Road, Ickenham, although the U9 follows a slightly different route on the final approach into Uxbridge.
Something that passengers would not have seen from the 128 is the construction work for the HS2 railway line. We're right at the start of the Colne Valley Viaduct, which, at 2.1 miles in length, became the UK’s longest railway bridge when its deck was completed in September 2024. The viaduct scooped the engineering category of the Fine Art Commission Trust’s Building Beauty award.
The direct route from Harefield is the one covered today by the U9. It's a very quick run through Harefield South and Harvil Road, Ickenham, although the U9 follows a slightly different route on the final approach into Uxbridge.
Something that passengers would not have seen from the 128 is the construction work for the HS2 railway line. We're right at the start of the Colne Valley Viaduct, which, at 2.1 miles in length, became the UK’s longest railway bridge when its deck was completed in September 2024. The viaduct scooped the engineering category of the Fine Art Commission Trust’s Building Beauty award.
ABOVE: A view of the HS2 Colne Valley Viaduct, from Harvil Road, between Harefield and Ickenham
I might have expected buses running from the Ruislip end back to Uxbridge to follow the route of what was then the 223 (Ruislip to Heathrow Airport) but is now the U1 (Ruislip to West Drayton) back to Uxbridge, as it's quick and direct. But buses first broadly followed the route of what is now the 278 (Ruislip to Heathrow Airport), running through West Ruislip and Ickenham to Hillingdon Station.
It's worth pausing in Ickenham. The village was originally split into four manors, but later there were two: Ickenham and Swakeleys. Swakeleys House, a Grade I-listed 17th century Jacobean mansion, is the old manorial home of Swakeleys, and sits between Ickenham and Hillingdon, so well hidden that you might never realise it's there.
The Coach & Horses public house is of 16th Century origin, although first licensed for the sale of alcohol in 1759. In front of it, the 19th-Century Ickenham Pump stands close to the junction of Long Lane and Swakeleys Road, a T-junction where the U1 and 278 take diverging routes out of Ruislip.
ABOVE: Transport UK 2415 (SN61 DGY), an ADL Enviro400H, passes the Ickenham Pump, working route 278 (Ruislip to Heathrow) on Saturday 28 June 2025
Also to be found on this junction is St Giles' Church, which dates back to 1335. Almost hidden by the trees, you could easily miss it.
A right turn here into Swakeleys Road, as undertaken by the U1, puts us onto the direct road to Uxbridge, so it's surprising that the 128 didn't come this way. Less than a mile on and we would reach Harvil Road, where the 'other' routing of the 128 into Uxbridge (from Harefield) most certainly did run, following the 223 / U1 the rest of the way.
But our 128 follows the modern-day 278 down to Hillingdon station. It would have been the old Hillingdon Station that the 128 served, of course. The current station dates only from 1992, having been rebuilt to the south of the original, to get out of the way of an expansion of the A40 Western Avenue into the six-lane highway that it is at this point.
ABOVE: A view of the London Underground railway line (here distinctly not underground!), looking towards Rayners Lane, with the A40 trunk road in evidence underneath. Taken from the platform of Hillingdon Station on Saturday 23 November 2024.
Between the mid-1930s and the mid-1950s, the station was known as "Hillingdon (Swakeleys)" and, although it no longer carries that name officially, the station roundels on the platforms do still show it as such.
The 128 seems to have used the (then-unimproved) A40 Western Avenue for the half-mile stretch from Hillingdon Station to the next junction, Swakeleys Roundabout, where it did, finally, join what is now the U1 for the run into Uxbridge.
The 128 had its quirks but it was quite a survivor. It lasted 14 years in total, until August 1991. In those 14 years the original BLs were replaced by Leyland Nationals (LS class), and, later, two Leyland Lynxes (LX class) were added to the mix.
There were route variations over the years, bringing in some journeys from Rickmansworth to Uxbridge via Maple Cross and Denham - another completely different variation that is most closely resembled now by the Arriva 724 service (Harlow to Heathrow). This runs virtually wholly outside London, apart from the Uxbridge to Heathrow section, so is not a TfL service. I don't think it was ever a major part of the 128 and I only mention it for completeness.
ABOVE: Preserved BL 49 (ULO 524R - not its original registration) stands in Ruislip High Street, on another Uxbridge Running Day, on Sunday 14 July 2013. Note the reference to Maple Cross on the destination blind.
The Sunday service on the 128 became the 128A in 1989; this was a simpler, A to B (Uxbridge to Harefield Hospital via Ruislip) operation. It did get a little more complicated when diverted to serve Hillingdon Hospital as well - a little way off the previously-established route!
In the end, the 128/128A were replaced by new or revised all-day services. Nowadays, most of the stretches of what was the 128 see at least a 20-minute interval service on weekdays - better than could ever have been dreamed of, I suspect, back in 1977.
BELOW: An approximation of the routes of the 128 / 128A, with modern-day routes also marked
POSTSCRIPT: Timetable Secrets
You might have noticed that the timetable includes "Bus Running Numbers". This was part of a scheme (never implemented in practice) to keep intending passengers informed of late running buses. A destination display on the offside was intended to carry information for passengers waiting on the opposite side of the road to say, for example, that "Bus 2 is running late".
But the inclusion of running numbers, from an era before 'dead' running was a practice in London, means that you can follow through the entire individual vehicle or drivers' schedules, if you wish to so do (and I've always been fascinated by such things so please indulge me)...
The 1983 timetable shows that the third bus allocated on Mondays to Fridays was only needed between 0801 and 1004, with two buses being sufficient for the rest of the day. Four drivers would have been needed to cover the service, including the evening driver, who took his/her break at Harefield Hospital. Three drivers would have been needed on Saturdays. They would all have taken their breaks at Harefield, as would the one driver needed for the Sunday service.
I believe that they had a dedicated group of drivers at Uxbridge Garage for the 128 - they probably needed them to get to grips with all the complexities of the route! (Or should that be routes?)
Acknowledgements
I don't seem to have any pictures of genuine 128s in service, but you can find some at Ian Armstrong's London Bus Routes website, where I have also gleaned some of the historical information that I had forgotten or never knew! Go to the route 128 page here and the 128A page here.
ABOVE: Two of the modern day successors to route 128 load up together at Uxbridge Bus Station on Saturday 28 June 2025. Metroline West DEL 2152 (LK65 EAO) on route 331, and fellow DE 1153 (LK11 CWG) on route U1 are both ADL Enviro 200s. Both buses are heading for Ruislip, but, such are the variations in the journey times and routings between the direct U1 and the more convoluted 331 that the U1 vehicle will have been to Ruislip and got back here before the 331 even reaches Ruislip!
ABOVE: And finally, another view of preserved BL 88 in Ruislip High Street, during the Rickmansworth Running Day of Sunday 30 March 2025. The bus is heading for Rickmansworth, and you might be able to discern from the picture where I have decided to eat on this particular day!