In West London, there lies some ultramodern scenery. An ultramodern route uses state-of-the-art vehicles through some of these scenes.
Here's the more detailed post about Abellio route 350, a brief post can be seen here, who becomes the 3rd route in London to be allocated the brand new Enviro 400 MMC model, after Abellio London routes 109 (first) and 415 (second).
Route 350 runs between Hayes & Harlington Station and Heathrow Terminal 5. From Hayes & Harlington, the route makes a unique right turn at Fairey Corner onto North Hyde Road, before making another right turn not too far up ahead, now creating a U-shape as buses proceed onto Dawley Road. After semi-circling two roundabouts, route 350 takes a back road into the ever modern Stockley Business Park. Towards Heathrow, buses run via The Square, Furzeground Way and Longwalk Road, back to Hayes, buses run via Bennetsfield Avenue, Roundwood Avenue and Furzeground Way.
350, being one of only 3 routes to serve Stockley Park (the other two being U5 and A10) leaves via Horton Road. Whilst A10 continues direct to Heathrow, and U5 to Stockley Estate, 350 leaves to enter Stockley Park West. 4 bus stops are found in this area on the same road, before the route takes a left turn to re-join the main road again, this time Yiewsley High Street before immediately turning into the station forecourt at West Drayton Station. Having circled the forecourt, buses now re-join the main road again, same road although now called Church Road having left Yiewsley, to pass Porters Way. Here buses diverge to Harmondsworth on a fast section of road, crossing the M4 before entering the aforementioned town. Harmondsworth being one of those little towns you cross when you leave/ enter Heathrow, it doesn't take longer than 5 minutes for the 350 to leave the area before approaching Colnbrook By-Pass and weaving in and out of the entrance roads to Terminal 5, to terminate. The whole route only takes about 20-30 minutes end to end on average, so it's not that long of a route.
The image above illustrates that the route is currently allocated Alexander Dennis ALX400 bodied Dennis Tridents, bonnet numbers 9763-9772 from Abellio London's Hayes (WS) garage. The route has a PVR of 8 Monday-Fridays running at a 12 minute frequency, and all weekend has a PVR of 4, running at a 20 minute frequency. Running numbers are to be WS #301-304 on the weekends, and WS #251-258 on the weekdays. 9767 (YN51 KWB) who's having a bit of a mishap with the blinds is running WS #253 as displayed in the windscreen.
About a fortnight ago, route 350 turned either 7 or 15 years old, depending on how you see it. The number 350 only came about 7 years ago, however the routeing is a mere 15 years old. Let's travel back to 2001 which was when the route came about.
Hillingdon Council had just opened Stockley Business Park in the late 1990s, an ultramodern and isolated workspace near Stockley Estate and West Drayton in the new postcode UB11. Transport plays an important part in society, and so Hillingdon Council decided to invest in the local transport to introduce 3 routes to the park. U1 (which then was split and the southern half became U5) and new routes A10 and H50 were introduced. Although U1 ran between West Drayton and Hayes & Harlington Stations, it wasn't the express route and was relatively infrequent. The U1 ran around in a clockwise sort of circle, circling the whole of West Drayton and Stockley thus not making the most direct route.
The new H50 route ran as the current 350 routing from Hayes, but only as far as West Drayton, and was introduced in 2000 was designed to create a more direct link between Hayes & Harlington Station and West Drayton Station whilst running through Stockley Park reducing journey times between the two stations. Wings ran the route from Springfield Road base in Hayes, before moving the route to a new garage in North Hyde Gardens, now known as Hayes (WS). The route ran with a PVR of 3, only Monday-Saturday. 4 East Lancs Sprytes were purchased for the route with a dedicated green 'TrainLink' livery.
In 2001, the Saturday service on the H50 was dropped and buses only ran until about 2000. Tellings-Golden Miller took the route in 2004, although they still operated the route from WS with the same vehicles. Travel London bought out Tellings Golden Miller in 2005, and had retained the contract for H50 who went up for tender. Travel London decided to double deck route H50 with 4 Wright Gemini Eclipse bodied Volvo B7TLs. One notable bus from this allocation is V66, or now 9066. The East Lancs Sprytes from the H50 were repainted to normal London red, and were allocated to route U7 until 2012, where they were withdrawn and replaced with ex-Ealing Community Transport Caetano Nimbuses.
2008 led to a review of buses around the Heathrow area as a result of Terminal 5 opening. A link was needed between Heathrow Terminal 5 and West Drayton and Hayes & Harlington Station. Transport for London (TfL) decided to re-number route H50 to 350, and extend the route from West Drayton Station to Heathrow Terminal 5. The H50 was single decked when it became the new 350 service, and 9 new Enviro 200s were ordered with LJ08 CZx registration plates, numbers 8507-8515 and the route had a PVR of 8.
The 350 ran daily as well and did have a frequency increase to be every 12 minutes from the previous 15 Monday-Saturday however the route suffered from overcrowding as a result of single-decking the route. It wasn't until 2012 that TfL had taken notice of the capacity issues on route 350. Abellio had managed to retain their flagship route 3 with brand new hybrids to replace the 2001 ALX400 bodied Tridents. Abellio made a smart move by taking 10 of these vehicles to double deck the 350 in March 2012.
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| Abellio London 9771 (YN51 KWF) leaves Hayes, Clarendon Road and is ready to do another rounder to Heathrow, |
The Enviro 200s on the 350 transferred to Fulwell (TF) to replace older Darts that had their time.
In 2013, Abellio managed to get a 2-year extension on their contract for running the 350 well. It was announced when the route came up for tender in 2014 that Abellio managed to retain the 350 with 9 brand new Enviro 400 hybrid MMCs to replace the 14 year old Tridents that need to wave goodbye to London. So that brings us to now, and I was lucky enough to take photos of 2514 doing driver training. Here is the interior shots for the new MMCs:
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| Lower saloon of 2514 (YY64 TZO). |
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| Upper saloon facing the rear on 2514 (YY64 TZO). |
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| Upper saloon facing the front on 2514 (YY64 TZO). |
I went behind the scenes and spoke with one of the main people behind introducing these new MMCs to route 350. As we know, Abellio managed to gain route E1 from Hayes (WS) garage with the now older-version Enviro 400 Hybrid making Hayes (WS) the second garage in London to have both old and new Enviro 400 Hybrids. He compared and contrasted the design and the ride of both versions of the model.
There were some flaws in the design. If you look closely in the interior pictures, you'll notice that there is an absence of emergency hammers to break open windows in case of a fire on the bus. Now instead, (it can be seen on the closest window on the left of the above picture) there is a knob that you twist which easily lets the window fall off for a quicker escape. He mentioned that what if someone misuses it, this could become a time-wasting and common habit, which you have to say he's got a point. But then I reassured him that luckily 350 has low patronage which is where these new vehicles should be seeing most of their time on the road, so hopefully the chances of that happening is low.
I'm to provide a fleetlist of routes H50 and 350 throughout the years:
Route H50
From inception, this was the fleetlist for H50
W435 CRN - Wings Buses WB4 - TGM 454 - Abellio 8417
W436 CRN - Wings Buses WB5 - TGM 455 - Abellio 8418
W437 CRN - Wings Buses WB6 - TGM 456 - Abellio 8419
W438 CRN - Wings Buses WB7 - TGM 457 - Abellio 8420
Then from 2005, this was the fleetlist for H50
BX55 XNV - Travel London V66, then became Abellio 9066
BX55 XNW - Travel London V67, then became Abellio 9067
BX55 XNY - Travel London V68, then became Abellio 9068
BX55 XNZ - Travel London V69, then became Abellio 9069
Route 350
From 2008, this was the fleetlist for 350
LJ08 CZP - 8507
LJ08 CZR - 8508
LJ08 CZS - 8509
LJ08 CZT - 8510
LJ08 CZU - 8511
LJ08 CZV - 8512
LJ08 CZX - 8513
LJ08 CZY - 8514
LJ08 CZZ - 8515
Then the route was double decked in 2012
YN51 KVW - 9763
YN51 KVX - 9764
YN51 KVZ - 9765
YN51 KWA - 9766
YN51 KWB - 9767
YN51 KWC - 9768
YN51 KWD - 9769
YN51 KWE - 9770
YN51 KWF - 9771
YN51 KWG - 9772
And the brand new fleetlist for route 350
YX15 OWO - 2523
YX15 OWP - 2524
YX15 OWR - 2525
YX15 OWU - 2526
YX15 OWV - 2527
YX15 OWW - 2528
YX15 OWY - 2529
YX15 OWZ - 2530
YX15 OXA - 2531
And finally, how does a few good photos sound?
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| 2524 having just left Porters Way, ready to enter Harmondsworth. |
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| New and Old on route 350. |
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2528 YY15OWW on stand at Hayes, Clarendon Road
CC KLConnected |
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The rear of YX15OWW on stand at Hayes, Clarendon Road
CC KLConnected |
Thank you for reading this post! Stay safe!
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