The 30th of March saw many events in the bus industry. Running days and many contract changes took place, one of these changes was route 396 which made the switch from Stagecoach East London at Barking (BK) to Blue Triangle on the other side of Barking at River Road (RR) in what seems a never ending catfight between Stagecoach and Go Ahead in East London.
The route is a small one, and arguably not very unique as it parallels route 296 for almost its entire length except for the final two stops where it splits off from the route to terminate in the grounds of King George Hospital in Goodmayes. Unsurprisingly this route also doesn't have a particularly long history, starting operation in 1996 running exactly the same route that it is running today between Ilford Broadway and King George Hospital. Initially being operated by Capital Citybus out of their Dagenham Depot for the first contract it then moved onto Stagecoach London out of Barking (BK) for the second contract from 2002, where it remained since until the transfer to Go Ahead.
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25314 in Ilford, having blind issues
© EastLondoner |
During its stint at Barking (BK) there were 4 years where the garage was controlled by the East London Bus Group, during this time the contract for the route was retained with brand new buses and these buses were surprisingly Optare Versa buses. These became unique in the fleet after only two batches were ordered for the company, with the other part of the batch being found down south on route 469 (25301-25309). The Optare Versa buses proved to be troublesome, and the decision was taken in 2011 to bring the whole batch to Barking (BK), although the batch for the 469 were withdrawn upon the contract renewal for route 62 in 2016 which saw that route converted to double decker operation. The move of the 396 to Go Ahead London will lead to withdrawal of the rest of the Versos at Barking (BK) (25310-25314), apart from 25312 which was withdrawn after a fire in 2017.
The troublesome nature of the Optare Versas led to the 396 having a large variety of vehicles on the route at a time in order to cover for the Versas which were regularly VOR. These vehicles came in the form of both single decker Enviro200s and Enviro200 MMCs as well as double decker ALX400s, Enviro400s and Enviro400 MMCs. This often led to the unique sight where every single bus on the route would be a different bus type. Below I have included every type that appeared on the 396 in the months before it made the move to Blue Triangle (alongside the Versa pictured above).
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36669 shows an example of an Enviro200 MMC
© EastLondoner |
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36290 shows the example of an Enviro200
© EastLondoner |
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| 10330 shows the example of an Enviro400 MMC |
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| 19759 shows the Enviro400 variant, alongside a Trident on route 296 |
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Despite now a withdrawn type, 17947 showcases the once common working of a Trident
© EastLondoner |
The day the 396 changed hands to Go Ahead was the 30th of March. This was also the day of the RTs and RFs return to Barking event, as well as the contract change dates for the 262, 317 and 473. So there was some doubt whether this little route changing hands would grab the attention of many other enthusiasts. However when the 30th of March did roll over this route surprisingly gained quite a bit of attention, and I'd probably go as far as to say it probably got the most attention out of all the routes changing operators.
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E207 seen on stand at King George Hospital
© EastLondoner |
This could probably be put down to the fact that the RT event was taking place in Barking, which was just a couple of minutes down the road from Ilford Broadway and not that far from King George Hospital, and many of the vintage buses were already running via Ilford on their heritage runs. This made it a very appealing change to photograph, seeing as many people were already in the area. As displayed above Stagecoach had a very fluid allocation on the 396, and people were doubtful if this would remain when Go Ahead took over, but nonetheless on the first day of operation an Enviro400 was sent out, in the form of E207, this also gave the impression that Go Ahead would continue to use Double Deckers on the route when they deemed necessary.
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SE118 seen at Ilford Broadway
© EastLondoner |
The rest of the allocation was made up out of Enviro200s, which had previously operated on the D6 until that was taken over by CT Plus. The buses are SE114-SE119, however SE119 is yet to make it over to River Road garage and continues to be temporarily used at Silvertown. The Enviro200s which the route uses are nothing special, they are very similar to the Stagecoach ones which often used to pop up on the 396 although they have an Allison gearbox as opposed to the Voith ones that the Stagecoach examples have. Service on the first day was far from good, with three of the buses bunched in Goodmayes in the evening and only SE118 on the other end of the route with 40 minutes gaps either side of it. Although I'm sure Go Ahead will get used to the operation of this route as time progresses. This gap was also unlikely to inconvenience many passengers due to the 296 paralleling 90% of the 396s route.
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36265 stands alongside SE118 at Ilford Broadway
© EastLondoner |
Overall not the most interesting change, but it's another route for Go Ahead to add to their seemingly never ending portfolio of routes that they operate throughout London.
I would like to apologise for the sporadic and unpredictable release of posts recently. Unfortunately the team have been very busy, however we hope that this will be made up over the next couple of weeks as we have quite a few interesting posts lined up!
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