A General Balance

Go-Ahead London: London General introduce their second batch of 'New Routemasters' to Stockwell (SW) for route 88.

Route 88 runs from Camden Town's Camden Gardens to Clapham Common's Old Town. The route serves many stations on its way to its terminus and many tourist hotspots, including both parliamentary and shopping districts. From Camden, the route usually collects its first group of passengers at Camden Town Station before picking up more from Mornington Crescent Station en route towards collecting the next big group of passengers at Warren Street Station. Taking a right from the Hampstead Road onto Euston Road, the route soon dives left onto Great Portland Street, navigating its way to Oxford Circus, along Regent Street and down to Piccadilly Circus.

Haymarket is next on approach to Trafalgar Square. The second exit takes the route onto Whitehall towards Westminster Station. A unique routeing soon follows as the route briefly parallels other Victoria Street bus routes before abruptly ducking onto Great Smith Street, where the route transports passengers past the Home Office and Tate Britain as it progresses towards Vauxhall Bus Station. Clapham is not far from here as the route ventures towards Stockwell; the route enters Clapham shortly after, stopping outside Clapham North & High Street Stations before arriving at Clapham Common Station. The 88 then goes to Old Town in Clapham Common to terminate after a timetabled 1 hour and 15 minute journey.

When route 87 was retained by London General on 1 June 2013, route 88 was allocated new buses EH21-38 whilst the 87 was left with existing buses. Now that LT457-459, 478-487 and 501-512 have been delivered to Stockwell (SW) for route 88, the EHs have rightfully moved to route 87.

Stockwell (SW) now operate two 'New Routemaster' routes, having introduced the second batch of London's LTs to route 11 two years ago. Buses have been intermixed between the two routes and their batches since route 88 had its 'New Routemasters' enter service from 22 August 2015.

LT509 (LTZ 1509) was my first experience on route 88: one of the loudest LTs I have been on, almost more powerful than previous LTs introduced. The engine revs were more noticeable, normally a high-pitched crescendo during the one-gear acceleration but a fully operational engine with no distinct reliance on the electric motors.

Sitting downstairs for this journey displayed just how ridiculous the interior design is, something I have not really acknowledged when reviewing recent 'New Routemaster' conversions. A popular disapproval of the buses since the type's inauguration is the legroom between seats facing each other on the lower deck. However, an incommodious seating experience is not the most discomforting factor with these buses - the lack of windows is.

While I have got used to the fact the buses are supposed to have air-conditioning efficient enough to not need opening windows for ventilation, I have been quite oblivious to the other issues of not fitting something as simple as windows that can open throughout the whole Borismaster Watch series. I might have mentioned it a few times, but after two years I want to make clear just how much thought did not go into the disadvantages of the design process for the 'New Routemaster'.

I had a man sitting opposite me on the lower deck. The legroom was not particularly comfortable as I had to share space with him and another person sitting next to me. This man sitting opposite me was coughing whilst nodding off, so his semi-conscious self did not cover his mouth. And there were no windows that could be opened to allow fresh air to eradicate the dirty air, just to enhance an uncomfortable journey and my anger. I kept the journey brief and I still didn't like it. Good thing all 'New Routemasters' are to be retrofitted with windows that can open, with new batches to come with them by next summer.

Onto the actual bus performance, the acceleration was pretty good but the dependency on the engine to reach 20mph is high and therefore very poor. The engine kind of breathed a sigh of relief whenever the driver was required to lift off the accelerator when there was no more road to strain the bus to accomplishing 30mph, a speed we did not accomplish with the drag the bus seemed to maintain very well long after it started accelerating.

LT485 (LTZ 1485) was a better experience, though. The service was not impressive with buses bunching on the 88, yet the driver was not driving as slow as you would expect when trying to keep a decent headway. Impressively, and it should not be now that many buses do the same more efficiently and reliably, the bus did go into electric. But the bus randomly shuddered back into diesel after a short while in electric rather than switching back to diesel at the usual preset of around 10mph or after a long standing time. Nevertheless, this was a less noisy and more comfortable journey than last time - possibly because I decided to stay on the upper deck, where seating is much better.

Where does route 88 slot into our Borismaster Performance Hierarchy, then? Nowhere near the top with the likes of Arriva London routes 38 and 73, but nowhere near the bottom with the likes of Metroline routes 24 and 390. Interestingly, I'm slotting route 88 in tenth, behind route 12 but ahead of route 11. Go-Ahead London seem to have a decent balance of 'New Routemaster' hybrid buses, three out of four LT routes sitting consecutively at the bottom end of the middle of the hierarchy.

So the Borismaster Performance Hierarchy currently looks like this, in order from best to worst route: 38, 73, 148, 9, 8, 453, 137, 15, 55, 12, 88, 11, 10, 390 and 24. I have a lot to say about the next one.

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