Prepared on Notepad by Ian Smith,

This page created 27th May 2006.

Blue Triangle

The Millenium Dome, home to the show that epitomised Britain at the turn of the Millenium, full(ish) of sound and fury, signifying nothing. One of its principles, which probably led to poor attendance as much as the panning that it received from our patriotic Press, was that it was not accessible by private car, only by public transport. New posh buses were provided, supposed to use a electronically-guided roadway for part of the route. More significantly, there was a new Tube Line - the Jubilee Line - opened just in time, with new signalling systems. With lots of new technology on hand for its essential mass transit provision, there was understandable anxiety about whether it would work. A breakdown of the new Jubilee Line would leave thousands of people stranded at the Dome. The half-hearted "solution" was to have on call two fleets of old, cheap and reliable buses to step in if required to carry folk away in dribs and drabs to north-of-the-river railway stations over a period of several hours. Thorpes provided Darts and Nationals to link to Canning Town, while Blue Triangle won the contract for the Stratford Station emergency link. This, of course, involved the Blackwall Tunnel, so single deckers were needed. The contract called for seven to be be available, so Blue Triangle bought eight Lynxes.

Blue Triangle Lynx DB101 - DB108 were bought at the end of 1999. The first three came from Travel West Midlands, where they had been for nine years, while the other five came from Arriva Cymru. These latter were a mixed bunch, one originating with Colchester, two with Pan Atlas and two with Moor-Dale in Gateshead. They were given an overall coat of Blue Triangle's dark red, with a cream band along the cant rail and a pair of thin cream lines below the windows and above the skirt/wheel arches. They bore Dome logos on the front dome and rear sides.

For ten months they sat around doing nothing. The emergency evacuation procedure was thankfully never put to the test. Eventually their idleness was brought to the attention of the Press, who have never grasped the necessity of system redundancy, who raised their usual hullabaloo over waste of tax-payers' money, and the system was wound down (I think).

Blue Triangle did not dispose of the buses straight away. They were still useful for rail replacement work: their being single-deckers avoiding one of the all-too-frequent hazards associated with such work. They found their way on to ordinary bus work too, standing in for the Darts hired from Arriva for the 367 (Bromley North - back-roads - Croydon) while the Darts were on maintenance. Some went on loan to other operators. But DB108 was sold off to the Bath Bus Company by September 2001, and a year later the rest went to Mike Nash at Weybridge, replaced by London Greenways. Two went to Carousel Buses at High Wycombe, and four to City Solutions in Walsall.


Ian's Bus Stop LX Contents. bus histories. LX photo refs. Other Lynxes.