Anyway, RT3871 pulled up, with Paul Brophy driving. The blinds were reset, and we were off.
For a change - and because with the weather we were not going to be making photo stops - I went upstairs, and found a seat at the front. The front windows were rain-spattered, but that didn't matter too much. We passed through the remains of Oxted (West), and pulled out onto the main road as RF366 came down the hill on the next 494, closely followed by GS15.
Further up the hill we passed RT604 heading for Oxted. It looked like that connection was going to work. We roared on to Godstone, where we passed the site of the old garage and turned down the hill to make a loop of the Green. RF4 was waiting there on a 708 to East Grinstead, behind XF3 waiting to leave on a southbound 409. Passengers were exchanged, but I stayed on the RT.
Although I have been along the A25 several times in recent years on RF679, this was my first trip along it on an RT since the sixties, when we used the 410 to get to Reigate on Country Rovers. I enjoyed the ride westwards, the road toying with the Greensand Ridge through Bletchingley and Nutfield. Eventually we dropped down to Redhill Station and under the railway. Today we did not call at the bus station, but wound round through the town and west through suburbia towards Reigate. We passed one of Metrobus' Caetano- bodied Darts heading for Redhill on the 420.
In Reigate we wiggled past the old Market Hall, where the STLs, RLHs and RMLs used to stand ready to leave for Bromley. It is one-way now, so we could not return to wait there. Instead we turned at a roundabout and pulled up at a stop to change the blinds.
We came into East Grinstead, and followed GS34 up through the town, and round the corner to the stop opposite the War Memorail. GS15 went the other way.
On the journey south I had scoured the programme looking for something to do once I reached East Grinstead, for the time was just coming up to four o'clock. It didn't look promising, and then....
All photos by Ian Smith. Click on most of them for a larger picture.
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