Know Your Routes: Route E8

DE1007 starts its journey back to Brentford, Bus Garage.

The E8, a rather short route between Brentford, Bus Garage and Ealing Broadway has a long story behind it. Short route, long story.

The route is operated by Metroline from their Brentford (AH) depot.

The route starts at Ealing Broadway, leaves Haven Green going past West Ealing and Hanwell Broadway along Uxbridge Road then turns into Boston Manor Road going through the residental estate of Northfields/ Boston Manor before reaching Brentford, County Court and turning into Commerce Road for Brentford Depot in well under 25 minutes.

The E8 was formed when the southern branch of E1 was cut off between Ealing Broadway and Brentford.The route was operated by former company, Armchair before being bought out by larger company, Metroline. 

In 2008, Boris Johnson, current mayor announced that the E8 will be on a trial with several other routes like the 16, 482, 328 and so on, using Hybrid Buses. Not commonly would you see a Optare Tempo Hybrid, let alone a single deck hybrid bus. Metroline ordered for 5 of these Optare Tempo Hybrids and classed them as OTH. They are the only OTH's in Metroline's fleet as of February 2013, numbered OTH971-975.

OTH973 with it's Hybrid livery applied to it.

The route gained a few Enviro 200's as well, sharing it from 209/609's allocation.

Nowadays, the E8 seems to use all of the buses at Brentford, with the OTH's, DE's, TP's, VW's, DM's and the sole DP, W137 WGT.

Here is the fleetlist:

LK58 CTY - OTH971

LK58 CTZ - OTH972

LK58 CUA - OTH973

LK09 EKG - OTH974

LK09 EKH - OTH975

LK09 ENC - DE993

LK09 ENE - DE994

LK09 ENF - DE995

LK09 ENH - DE996

LK09 ENJ - DE997

LK09 ENL - DE998

LK09 EOB - DE1000

LK09 EOC - DE1001

LK09 EOD - DE1002

LK09 EOE - DE1003

LK09 ENT - DE1004

LK09 ENU - DE1005

LK09 ENV - DE1006

LK09 ENW - DE1007

LK09 ENX - DE1008

LK09 ENY - DE1009

LK09 ENM - DE1010

LK09 ENN - DE1011

LK09 ENO - DE1012

LK09 ENP - DE1013

LK09 ENR - DE1014

I hope you've enjoyed reading this post and remember to stay safe!