The By-Pass of Metroline

When tenders in West London these days seem to pop up everyone thinks of Metroline, after all they are the dominant operator in the area....or are they? Lately both Abellio and the RATP Group have been giving Metroline a run for their money. The latest route to be scooped up by Abellio is route 207.

The route runs between White City and the Hayes By-Pass. Prior to the loss route 207 was Metroline's busiest route, although route 140 was catching up quickly. Prior to the 207 the 18 held the title but funnily enough that passed to RATP in 2017. Abellio are however no strangers to the 207, also in 2017 they scooped up the route's sister the 427 which runs parallel for most of the 207s route between Acton and Hayes By-Pass. 

EA11051 seen in the last year of bendy bus operation
© London Bus Breh

The route started off in 1960 replacing trolleybus 607, although the 607 can still be found today operating between Uxbridge and White City as one of only three express routes in London. The 207 started operating between Uxbridge and Shepherd's Bush Green traversing Uxbridge Road from Uxbridge to Shepherd's Bush, much like it does today. The route remained in the same form for the next 40 years. Privatisation of the London Bus network saw the route eventually end up with First Centrewest operating out of Uxbridge (UX). Change arose in a very special way when in 2001 the route was selected for a trial of Bendy-Buses, although these were very short lived only lasting for around 6 months. Although in 2005 the route was chosen to fully convert to bendy-bus operation, this required the route to be cut to the Hayes By-Pass as Uxbridge Town Centre was found to be unsuitable for the extra long vehicles. Therefore the section between Hayes and Uxbridge was taken over by route 427 which would continue to use standard Double-Deckers. The 207s allocation was transferred to a new base in Hayes (HZ).

SN36051 seen on the 207
© LondonBuses72

The election of Mayor Boris Johnson in 2008 saw a pledge to remove all bendy buses from London service. Route 207 was the last bendy bus route to operate in London, which could be seen as significant since it was the first route to trial the type back in 2001. The bendy buses were to be removed from routes while they reached their contract renewal, however due to the end of the 207s contract being far ahead in 2012 an agreement was reached between First Centrewest and TfL to tender the route early. This didn't prove a problem to First seeing as they managed to retain the route. The 207 then became First's first Scania Omnicity allocated route, and would also become the only Scania Omnicity allocated route within the company. Hayes (HZ) was sold to Metroline in 2013, and the 207 also become Metroline's first and only Scania Omnicity allocated route. 

VW1830 seen at White City Bus Station
© EastLondoner

However tender of route 427, which also operated out of Hayes (HZ) in 2017 saw that pass to Abellio and the allocation of route 427 which was Gemini 2 B9TL was switched to the 207, alongside some native Metroline examples from elsewhere in the company. This saw the Omnicities withdrawn. At this point Hayes (HZ) was also closed and the 207 was moved to Greenford (G) to fill in the void by other route losses there. Although that didn't stop Greenford continuing to lose every route that was thrown at them and the 207 was announced to be moving to Abellio in the summer of 2018. Although Abellio were opening a new base in Southall, so certainly a suited operator to the route. 

VW1283, a native Metroline example at Shepherd's Bush
© EastLondoner

Abellio's bid was no doubt helped by the withdrawal of route C2 and the conversion of the 415 to part LT operation which gave them a pool of existing buses to bid with. Which is exactly what happened, although these two batches of buses were to be joined by five new Smart Hybrid Enviro400 MMC buses coded 2001-2005. 

©LBOTG

Abellio took on the 207 alongside its night counterpart on the 7th on the 6th of April, although the first N207 does actually start operating just before midnight so it could be argued that Abellio actually started the contract on the 5th of April. Suitable the first bus out onto the N207 was 2001 which was shortly followed by 2002. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of Abellio on the N207 to hand however London Buses On the Go has kindly let me use a picture of the N207 he had in this post. The first day of the 207 at Abellio saw a varied allocation alongside the new buses. The C2s old buses had shown up newly refurbished on the route, looking almost brand new as well as buses which were previously allocated to route 415. These were also joined by identical albeit two years newer buses from the 427. In practice it's probably safe to say the 427s buses and the Ex 415 buses will be treated as a common pool of buses to make allocations on the routes easy considering they're near enough identical. 

New 2004 seen at Shepherd's Bush Station
© EastLondoner

Service on the 207 since Abellio has taken over has been slightly rocky, although we do need to appreciate the fact that this has become the biggest route Abellio has ever taken on since they took on the 109 back in 2015. When I went along the route a few days after the takeover gaps in the service were evident, although were not anything awful which was probably helped by the 207s high frequency, I did see a few turns on the route most notably a few Shepherd's Bush Market ones although these seemed to be displayed as Shepherd's Bush turns on the bus blinds.

The route may not go to White City for much longer
© EastLondoner

That nicely brings us onto what the future holds for route 207. I'm sure many of you know Westfield London recently underwent an expansion to cater for John Lewis as well as many smaller shops and this resulted in a road redesign of the area which resulted in the bus stand being relocated under the shopping centre itself as opposed to being at White City Bus Station. This now results in buses needing to loop at the bus station to drop people off, to head back to the stand only for them to perform another loop on their way back again. Therefore it's proposed to remove the 207 from White City completely in order to stop wasting this time and to shave a bus off the PVR, route 607 would also undergo this same treatment. It was believed that this change would initially happen upon the tender renewal although TfL still haven't consulted on it! 

As I mentioned earlier, the 207 is also planned to eventually move into a newly expanded bus garage in Southall situated in the Great Western Industrial Estate and shall be coded GW, that move is expected to take place later this year. This has also no doubt helped Abellio with upcoming tenders, with the E10 and E11 moving over to them from the RATP group in May and June. 

9528 seen at Shepherd's Bush
© EastLondoner

A massive thank you to London Buses On the Go for allowing his picture of the N207 to be used in this post, make sure you pay a visit to his Flickr photostream as well as his blog which also covers content from across London.