When Two Become One

It's no secret that TfL have been looking to reduce bus passenger flow in Central London for a long time now. This has slowly been happening over the past year or two, initially in the form of frequency reductions on many routes, as well as the famous fiasco involving the withdrawal of route 82. The latest change in this service reduction exercise in Central London is a merger of routes 10 and 23 to create a route which operates via Hammersmith and Westbourne Park via Marble Arch, Kensington and Paddington. 

The 23 at Westbourne Park showing off its new destination
© EastLondoner

This change was initially proposed as part of a package of changes in order to remove buses completely from Oxford Street between Oxford Circus and Selfridges in preparation for pedestrianisation. Although since then (thankfully!) Westminster City Council have stepped in and deemed the plans unacceptable and have put a stop to pedestrianisation, as ultimately it is their road and not TfL's. However that still hasn't stopped TfL proceeding with schemes from that exercise which in their terms "have merit".

LT83 seen outside Selfridges
© EastLondoner

One of these changes which "had merit" was the 10/23 merger. Personally how that change had "merit" I cannot see as a passenger but pondering that isn't going to get us anywhere. It was soon made public on LondonBusRoutes.net that the merger of routes 10 and 23 would take place on the 24th of November 2018. The merged route would carry the 23 number and would run on the 23 contract, effectively resulting in the withdrawal of route 10. The 10 contract would then be amended to cover route 9 instead, while the 9 contract which had run out in September would be terminated. The combined route would run using the 23s existing allocation, which meant the 10s allocation of New Routemasters had to find a new home. Luckily for RATP route 27 was seen to be a good home for the vehicles, and in turn the existing buses on the 27 were moved to the E3 which provided a good opportunity for an existing vehicle bid on the E3s upcoming tender - which subsequently was retained.

LT94 seen at Bond Street Station
© EastLondoner

Despite what one may think, the 10 in its current form only started operation in 1988 running between Kings Cross and Shepherd's Bush via Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street like its current route today. In 1998 the route was extended to Archway, although certain journeys since 1989 had already run beyond Kings Cross to Archway. In 2003 the 10 was withdrawn once again between Archway and Kings Cross, with new route 390 taking over the section between Central London and Archway. A conversion from conventional bus types to New Routemasters took place in 2014. The 10 since remained in this form until withdrawal.

LT165 seen opposite John Lewis
© EastLondoner

DNH39126 is seen outside House of Fraser
© EastLondoner

Like route 10, the 23 also has a relatively short history for what many would consider an established and well known Central London route. It started service in 1992 running between Liverpool Street (Mon-Fri)/Aldwych (Sat-Sun) and Westbourne Park Station. It ran via Bank, St Paul's Cathedral, Charing Cross, Piccadilly Circus, Oxford Circus, Marble Arch, Paddington and Westbourne Grove. In 1993 a few journeys in the early morning and late evening were extended to Ealing Broadway although these were soon renumbered as route N23. The 23 remained in its Westbourne Park - Liverpool Street format ever since, although minor alterations have since taken place with the biggest change in 2003 where the weekend service was also extended to Liverpool Street. In September 2017 the whole route was withdrawn between Aldwych and Liverpool Street.

DN33783 stands at Oxford Circus after a short turn
© EastLondoner

So let's dive into some of the details about this new route, as I mentioned earlier the route is a botched merge of the two effectively non-central parts of the 10 and 23 with the merge taking place at Marble Arch, which is where the 23 and 10 would first meet from the West. This most importantly for TfL removes not one but two routes from Oxford Street. The resulting route is a very indirect Hammersmith to Westbourne Park route running via Kensington, Hyde Park Corner, Marble Arch, Paddington and Ladbroke Grove.

Route 10s last day of operation was the 23rd of November 2018, rather inconveniently that happened to be Black Friday and Oxford Street was swarmed with shoppers. This was not helped by the closure of Regent Street for emergency roadworks. Protestors also took to Oxford Circus blocking traffic for a short time during midday. All this led to abysmal service on both the 10 and 23 on the 23rd of November, this completely put me off attempting to get any ride at all on the 10 during its last day. I went to King's Cross to just get a photograph of the 10 one last time and that alone resulted in around a 15-20 minute wait for a bus to turn up. Later that evening RATP ended off their phase on the route with LT166 forming the last route 10 into Hammersmith. 

LT79 seen at Kings Cross on the last day of operation on the 10
© EastLondoner

MV38232 seen along Edgware Road towards Hammersmith
© EastLondoner

The 23 started running to Hammersmith in the early hours of the 24th of November. On the first day of the change there were many noticeably confused faces no doubt caused by the lack of publicity about this change. The old stop tiles for the 10, and along the unserved part of the 23 were still unchanged and new 23 tiles hadn't been placed along the section to Hammersmith. The section of the 10 which was now left unserved had the stops closed but many passengers had no prior knowledge and with no alternative route serving those stops were left bewildered as to what to do next. Buses on the 390 were noticeably more crowded as that was left as the only route left on Oxford street west which took a left at Tottenham Court Road toward's King's Cross when previously you had the 10 and 73 also supporting it along that section. Meanwhile the 23 was carrying relatively light loads - although that is usually to be expected from the first day of a service change. 

DNH39111 seen at Ladbroke Grove
© EastLondoner

As I was busy through most of the weekend the change, only having time to make a few observations of the change I went out on the Tuesday after the change to see how everything was doing. I'll be honest, I didn't have the time nor patience to do a completely end to end ride on this roundabout route which was going to butchered with traffic throughout. I initially just went to the Westbourne Park end to check the route and something that immediately jumped out at me was the disastrous service on the route. As I arrived a bus left and then there was a 20 minute gap in the service...Not a great start. I hopped aboard DNH39116 towards Ladbroke Grove where I took the tube down to Hammersmith. The route was lightly used on this section, although it's never been bursting to the rafters along the bit to Ladbroke Grove so there's no huge change there. Many people boarded at Ladbroke Grove Sainsbury's. 

At Ladbroke Grove Station the 7s were noticeably busier than I had previously noticed, whether this was just a fluke or as a result of the 23 reroute I cannot say for definite but it was reassuring to see, especially seeing as the 7 arguably lost quite a bit of worth when it was withdrawn between Russell Square and Oxford Circus and was replaced by the 98 and funnily enough the 10. When I arrived at Hammersmith I was greeted with no 23s on stand at all, although two rocked up a minute later in a pair. One of the buses left straight away while another took a couple of minutes stand time, following this there was a 25 minute gap in the service. Certainly not re-assuring for the future operation of this route. At Hammersmith Bus Station there was a notice put up about the changes to the 10 and 23, however the tiles for the 10 were still up and none were to be seen for the 23. This could certainly prove confusing for individuals looking for the 23 stop among all the others and not being able to find it.

Overall I am probably in the majority here when I say this change was one I'd rather have not seen take place, although we can't do much about that as long as TfL are in "rationalisation" mode with the buses. Although the sheer incompetency of a company who is running the transport infrastructure of world class city is something which shocks me, it's been known for months that this change was going to take place, so why was there barely any publicity in place before this change? Why are stop tiles for a withdrawn route still up? It's pathetic. If anyone from TfL is reading this please ensure that upcoming route changes aren't left to take place in such a disastrous way. The service of the route, put plainly is awful although we can't expect much more, the route is hit with traffic through the middle and X haven't operated along the stretch from Hyde Park Corner to Hammersmith since they lost the 10 in 2010. I usually say that I hope operation will improve when it comes to other routes, but I'm sceptical on this one although I really do hope that I get proved wrong.

DNH39113 seen on stand at Hammersmith Upper Bus Station
© EastLondoner

As I mentioned near the start of the post the 27 was the route which was chosen to be given the 10s previous allocation of New Routemaster buses. This prevented the hassle for them to move garage or even operator and potentially resulting in a group of drivers needing to be type trained on the buses. I'm not going to divulge too much into the details of the 27, if you are interested in that then there's already a plethora of articles on the blog for you to dive into. For now enjoy a picture of the new face of route 27 for the next couple of years.

LT170 is seen at Chiswick Business Park - a section soon to be withdrawn from the 27 route
© EastLondoner

This change has been controversial to say the least, although I can assure you we will probably look back on this and not think much of it as much worse is to come. This is just the relatively small start of some big changes to come.