Sixty Years of RFs: 200, 213Sunday 2nd December 2012Prepared by Ian Smith, 7th December 2012.200: Kingston to Wimbledon Station: RF368I emerged from Kingston Station just in time to see RF368 coming round the corner from the direction of the old Kingston garage. It was blinded for route 200, so apparently was to be the first of two buses on the route, in a half hours time. RF368 rolled down to the stop, and began to load up. With ten minutes to go before the published departure, and a full bus, time the bus station supervisor came over to ask us to vacate the stop. He offered a space in the bus station for us to wait the ten minutes, and so, fully loaded, there we went, to tuck into a corner.
At departure time we pulled forward through the bus station passing the line of buses loading up. First was Epsom Buses Optare Versa OV06 on the 465.
We continued past the other bays, holding Dart SLF DPS686 on the 216, Scania OmniCity SP172 on 111 and EnviroDart DE12 on 285.
We exited the bus station. Waiting at the lights was another RF, set up for the 213 to Sutton Garage. We headed off eastwards, and soon met RF518 hurrying down London Road into Kingston to take up 213 working.
We passed a hybrid drive EnviroDart (HDE4) on the 371, and climbed Kingston Hill, then turned south along Galsworthy Road past Kingston Hospital to reach Coombe Lane West, where we turned along the 57 route towards Raynes Park. We soon met a London United Trident, TLA5, working west. (Seems that I haven't quite estimated the shutter delay correctly to take account of the window pole! - and my camera has decided to focus on the RF window instead of outside - the joys of digital compacts!)
Beyond Trapps Lane we were onto the old 200 route proper. Our driver was, quite properly, treating all white bus stops as compulsory stops, even though most of the red Request stops in the area seem to have been replaced with non-mandatory white stops. Coming up to the New Victoria Hospital stop, which has a small lay-by, I requested a photo stop. I hadn't anticipated that half the bus would join in - and then it was like herding cats to get them back on the bus. We passed more TAs coming the other way on the 57, then went past one at the Durham Road stop on the approach to Raynes Park.
We circulated round the block at Raynes Park Station, and headed back to Durham Road, meeting TA247 on the way. We turned right to climb up the hill onto the Ridgeway, now on the current 200 route. We started to meet the current rolling stock, the first being London General's EnviroDart SE4. Even these smallish Darts are larger than an RF, being 10.2m long and 2.5m wide, compared to the RF's 9.0m and 2.25m.
Up on the Ridgeway we passed SE8, and then met a traffic jam, caused by traffic-light-controlled road works. It cost us ten minutes. Leaving the jam we passed SE11, stuck on the east side. We turned down Wimbledon Hill, near the bottom passing TA 241 on the 57. London General's Dart SLF LDP191 was near the station on the terminating 219.
We rolled round the block past the little bus station, and headed back past the station on the return run to West Wimbledon... Photos by Ian Smith. Click on any of them for a larger picture.
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Ian's Bus-stop
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