The RTs went to both Country and Central areas, right from the beginning.
Both had a desperate need still to replace old buses.
In the Central Area, the utility buses
bought during and after the war, plus the post-war STDs,
had enabled some of the oldest pre-war stock to be replaced,
but the exigencies of war-time were catching up fast,
and the vehicle inspectorate were clamping down hard on unroadworthy vehicles.
The older utilities themselves were showing the signs of bodywork strain too,
and the STLs
were increasingly held together with external strapping and joint plates.
1950 saw London's double-decker fleet consisting of RTs, RTLs, RTWs, STLs,
STDs, Guys, Daimlers and Bristols - the last five types in mixed condition
and the utility Guys and STDs rather unpopular with staff.
There was a temporary lull in fleet renewal
while a start was made on that other main reason for the RT type:
tram replacement.
Meanwhile, the utilities too were being replaced.
The utility STDs
were despatched from Victoria in February 1951.
Hornchurch, Upton Park and Barking started the Guy replacement programme in July 1951,
using STLs that had been previously serviced and held back for Festival of Britain duties,
or that had been displaced elsewhere by new RTs.
RTLs displaced Guys directly at Hornchurch in November 1951.
Guys at Enfield were replaced by rather better prewar STDs
(displaced from Hendon by RTLs) in February 1952.
RTLs also moved into Barking, pushing out more Guys.
The last Guys from Hornchurch went in June 1952, at the same time as the last few in west London, from Alperton.
By the end of the year the last Guys had gone, from Enfield and Upton Park.
The small class of utility Bristols gradually diminished at Hanwell, finally ceasing in April 1953. The Daimlers, at Merton and Sutton, were the last of the utility classes to fall before the RT family onslaught, with a steady progression of replacements through the second half of 1952 and much of 1953, but they too were gone by September 1953.
The STLs were also being fast replaced. Many had been retained for the Coronation in June 1953, but once the extra traffic associated with that was over there was a purge. By the end of 1953 there were just the STDs (pre-war and post-war) and a handful of STLs remaining. All the rest had been replaced by the RT family vehicles.
Suddenly, in the early fifties, London Transport found that its predictions
for traffic growth after the war were going sadly wrong.
The growth in car ownership hit leisure use
of buses badly: the new cars came out at weekends for trips into the country,
and the long established practice of extending Central routes out into the
country at weekends ground to a stop.
No longer was Sunday the busiest day for buses in the Country fleet,
with every Country bus in use and many borrowed every Sunday from the Central Area.
Evening traffic suffered too, as cinemas withered before the onslaught of television.
Having contracted to give two year's notice of termination of body-building with Park Royal and Weymann, LT suddenly found itself with a surfeit of RTs. Even with all the other double-decker types sold off, (the remaining STDs were sold in 1955) and the "pre-war" RTs relegated to training and staff bus duties, there were too many. Sixty three RTLs and 81 green RTs were placed in store.
The next main replacement programme faced by London Transport was the wind-down
of the trolleybus system, and eventually its entire replacement.
The bus designed for this job was the new Routemaster,
but with a surplus of RTs and a very long gestation period for the RMs
it was decided to press ahead using RTs for the first three phases of the trolley replacement programme.
So in 1958 the stored buses came into service, and Carshalton and Bexleyheath trolleybus depots
found themselves with RTs.
The service reductions in 1958, to try to match the new traffic conditions,
and the further cuts following the strike, brought another flood of surplus RTs.
These were used for the second phase of the trolley-replacement programme,
at Clapton and Lea Bridge depots, and even for the third phase, at Bow and Ilford in March 1959.
Now at last the number of RTs available matched the number required, and the further phases of the trolleybus programme proceeded as planned using Routemasters. It had taken ten years to get the RTs fully into service - and they were already being sold before the last arrived!
They did not change much, either.
The semaphore trafficator arms had seldom been used - or even fitted.
They would have decapitated pedestrians if they had!
They were replaced in 1959 by flashing light trafficators attached to the mirror fittings at the front corners of the buses.
At the rear the confusing double-arrow indicator lost an arrow-head,
whilst a second flashing arrow was fitted to the nearside rear.
In the mid 60s other mild changes swept over the RT fleet.
They began to lose their rear wheel discs, along with other London types,
and the rear display lost the via points in favour of a single large route number
(a trend only now being reversed in central London).
The offside route number plates had long been disused,
and were mainly replaced by a plain panel.
Liveries did not change much either: the Central Area buses lost the cream band in favour of a white one, and suffered a change of pattern to the fleet-name, but that is all. No RTs suffered the indignity of overall advertising, and none lost the fleet-name in favour of a white bullseye.
Throughout the sixties and into the seventies the RTs remained the sold bastion of the Central Area. As bus passengers dwindled and economics turned against subsidy, the fleet dwindled, and inevitably the older RTs gave way before the newer Routemasters made surplus elsewhere.
The London Bus Re-shaping Plan had envisaged the replacement of the RTs by high capacity single-deckers
- the Merlins.
But the new buses proved so unreliable that the RTs kept soldiering on.
The Swifts too were tried in a RT replacement role,
but again proved unsatisfactory at the task.
So too did the new generation of double-deckers, the DMS Fleetlines.
Unreliability among the new generation of buses, plus the paucity of spares for the Routemasters,
meant that the RTs, the solid, reliable old RTs, just kept going.
In 1972 London Transport even bought 34 RTs!
These came from London Country,
and helped to keep London moving through its worst rolling-stock crisis.
Through the seventies the number dwindled,
but there were still occasions when routes were converted FROM Fleetlines or RMs TO RTs!
The 5 year Certificates last earned by RTs in 1970 had to be renewed in 1975,
with three-year certificates going to the fortunate recipients, along with fresh paint!
The start of 1978 saw many of the survivors swept aside, leaving just a few pockets of RT operation at Harrow Weald, Bromley and Barking, using the dwindling number of RTs with valid certificates. Oddly, the 140 route into Heathrow was one of the remaining routes, but this went on the 15th July 1978, yielding a few more RTs to Bromley for route 94 (with forays on 119 and 47 too). Thus Bromley was one of the last garages to operate RTs, just as it had been one of the first. But the 94 succumbed too on 27th August 1978, leaving only the 62 and 87 at Barking, due to a narrow bridge on route 62 that would not accommodate 8 feet wide buses.
But in 1979 the end came. The last day of passenger operation for LT was 7th April 1979, when a celebration parade was held to mark forty years of RT service. Much to everyone's surprise, including the organisers, newly restored "RT1" turned up to head the parade.
Even after that there were some RTs in non-passenger service for LT. RT2189 was still active on the Chiswick Skid Pan on the 1983 Open Day.
Independent operators in the London area have kept RTs in public service from time to time.
Ensignbus tendered in the mid 1980's for some stage carriage services in the eastern London area, including route 62. Amongst other buses it used RT3062 in yellow and silver livery, up to January 1992.
Blue Triangle has also used a small band of RTs. In the 1980s it operated Essex route 622 from Harlow to Great Yeldham using RT2799 in red and cream livery, and during the late 1990s has operated the 204 from Loughton to Debden with several RTs in postwar red and cream livery. It also makes operating members of its RT fleet available for special occasions, so they have been seen operating for other London companies on last days (and sometimes on rail replacement services!).
Ian's Bus Stop
RT contents
Part1
Part2
Part3