Know Your Routes: Route W5

A small single decker route in the heights of North London, the short route W5 runs between Archway Station and Harringay, Superstores.

OS13 is seen on a sunny day at Weston Park, Crouch End.

Formed in 1992, route W5 has actually remained unchanged since inception about 25 years ago. The route runs between Archway and Harringay, both relatively upmarket towns for part of it via the affluent depths of North London such as Crouch End and Hornsey. 

Although other routes, such as the 41 provide a [more frequent] link between Archway and Crouch End, the W5 provides a more back street approach to supporting this link. The well used route ascends Highgate Hill up to Lauderdale House, where it makes a right onto Hornsey Lane. The roads become very tight here and this marks the start of W5 being the only route to serve majority of the roads for the remainder of the route.

A well known point on the route is when it crosses Archway Bridge, the only route to do so. It is one of the tallest bridges (if not the tallest) in London. The bridge holds grim stories, but we will save that for another day! It is just after here that the route begins a Hail & Ride section as it descends downhill on Stanhope Road before ascending up once again. 

OS15 is seen on Hornsey Lane nearing journeys end.

It then wriggles its way round into Wolesey Road creeping around the back of Crouch End, and takes an unconventional appearance from a back street onto the Crouch End Broadway, bypassing the clock tower. This marks the midpoint of the route at the YMCA centre, before it begins another trail through back streets again, starting with running non-stop on Ferme Park Road until it meets Weston Park (to which it turns in). Typically of this route's nature, stops after here (all the way until Harringay, Superstores) are operated on a Hail & Ride basis. The route makes a circle around the west of Crouch End and Hornsey, before making a few more turns to reach Great Northern's Harringay station. 

A few more turns whilst passing the back of Finsbury Park sees the route down Endymion Road (where it is quite often subject to traffic) and finally intercepts the Harringay Green Lanes. It is here where the route takes a left and a quick right into the retail park adject to the Green Lane train station and terminates outside the Sainsbury's.

DLD207 is seen blinded for the W5.

The route was originally operated by London Northern from Holloway (HT) garage with 5 Optare midibuses. This arrangement remained in place for the rest of the 1990s, although changed operators a few times in the process! MTL London took over Holloway (HT) in 1994 before Metroline purchased out MTL in 1998.



In 2001, the route received brand new Plaxton Pointer bodied Darts (DLM class) with a boost in service frequency. This caused the PVR to up to 7. Route W5 had a short run at the old King's Cross (KX) garage which closed in 2010, back in 2003 for over a year and a half.

Although this transfer was short lasting and subsequently, the W5 moved back home to Holloway in 2005.

In 2011, route W5 eventually left home properly for the first time, with Metroline losing the route to CT Plus who operate out of their Ash Grove (HK) garage in Hackney. The route was awarded using 7 new Optare Solos (an 8th one was added to the fleet, formerly a commercial vehicle back around 2015). These were 8.9m in length and carried 60-plates.

CT Plus 1220 turns into Weston Park.

The route was retained in 2016 at the end of a 5 year contract, and CT Plus took the option to order one new single decker in the form of 1220 (SN16 OGO). This bus was delivered to the latest Euro 6 spec on an Allison gearbox, and kitted out in CT Plus's livery (the last bus at the time of writing to have done so, as all new buses after that were delivered in default TfL livery).

The service frequency currently is every 12 minutes Monday to Saturday day times, and every 20 minutes Sundays and public holidays. Route W5 operates between 0600 and 0000.

An interesting observation is that driver changes can take place on both ends of the routes, so can meal relief breaks. This was most likely done to reduce the cost of having too many drivers on the route whilst still operating efficiently.

Slightly awkward blind display....Ferme Park Road,
Crouch End.

7 Quick facts:
1) Runs up to every 12 minutes
2) This route is operated by CT Plus
3) Previously operated by Metroline and was operated from Holloway for nearly 20 years.
4) It is one of the few routes in North London to be operated by Optare Solos.
5) It carried 1,106,702 passengers last year (2016/2017).
6) It is the only route to cross the Archway Bridge.
7) Nearly every stop on the route is on a Hail & Ride basis - very few are fixed stops.


Here is the fleetlist for the vehicles allocated to route W5:
YJ60 PFA - OS9
YJ60 PFD - OS10
YJ60 PFE - OS11
YJ60 PFF - OS12
YJ60 PFG - OS13
YJ60 PFK - OS14
YJ60 PFN - OS15
YJ60 PFO - OS16
YJ60 LRY - OS18
SN16 OGO - 1220

Here are some photos:

CT Plus OS12 crosses the Archway Bridge.

OS13 is seen with a weird blind display on Weston Park.

New addition OS18 is seen crossing Ferme Park Road.

We hope you enjoyed reading the post, and are glad to relaunch the series after a short break. Stay safe!