The Electric Stage

The current situation we are in has led to many delays. However, one substantial delay occurred to a change that was meant to take place all the way in January and has only just been completed. Route 323, which runs between Canning Town Bus Station and Mile End Station in East London, has just finished its conversion to electric buses. 

29201 seen alongside a 147 at Canning Town
© EastLondoner

36364 seen at Canning Town
© EastLondoner

Before we go into some detail about the buses, let me go through some history of the route.  This very short route has a fittingly short history. It was introduced in January 2003, running between Canning Town and Mile End via Manor Road, Stephenson Street, Prologis Park, Twelvetrees Crescent and Bow Common Lane. This is still the same route followed today. The contract, however, was initially held by First London, operating out of their Hackney garage. The route was transferred to Lea Interchange (LI) when Hackney garage was forced to close, but was then lost to the East London Bus Group out of West Ham (WH) in 2010 which had conveniently opened up on the line of route a few years prior where the route has remained since. The East London Bus Group was purchased by the Stagecoach group in 2010 and the 323 is now a Stagecoach London operation.

29201 seen at Mile End
© EastLondoner

The renewal in January 2020 called for brand new electric buses (29201-29205) to be introduced on the route. There was no sign of them in January. January became February, and February became March, before they finally got delivered towards the end of March. However, by this point, the Coronavirus pandemic had started to cause havoc through the country and entering these buses into service was not the biggest priority at hand. Time passed and it was only on the 20th of June that these buses finally turned a wheel in service due to the various delays that the pandemic had caused. However I can certainly tell you that the wait was worth it!

High back seats
© EastLondoner

Unexpectedly, the buses were delivered with a few unique features that nobody thought we'd see anytime soon. The most obvious one being the inclusion of high back seats throughout the bus. These could be found on some seats on Stagecoach ALX400s and Abellio Enviro400s, but it was not normal to see them span the whole bus. However, that was not the only additional feature that the buses had, as they also came with phone holders on the back of seats along with the now expected USB port. Certain seats also had a more accessible stop bell on their rear, although from my experience they weren't the smoothest to push. 

An example of how the rear of the seats look, including a USB port, stop bell and USB charger
© EastLondoner

29201's rear
© EastLondoner

Due to the increased size of the seats, the rear row only consists of 4 seats. I couldn't get a picture of them as someone was already sitting there and I wanted to adhere to social distancing guidelines so you'll have to take my word on it! The exterior design of the buses is to the new updated design of the Enviro200 EV that was introduced initially with the brand new batch of buses for the 444, including a battery pod that spans the whole length of the roof of the bus as opposed to just a small portion. Although this does also mean that the rear number display is also slightly off centre for some reason - although I'm sure there's a logistical reason behind it! 

29201 seen at Canning Town
© EastLondoner

Overall these buses are a great addition to the London bus network, bringing brand new features to their passengers - albeit buses out of London have had these features for a long time. It's unclear whether these features will become standard on future deliveries, we'll have to wait and see for that. But for now it's great to see TfL take baby steps on improving on board facilities for passengers - hopefully they get to the service aspect next!