Trifter

The Routemaster bus – revered, a classic, admired, an icon – the plaudits are endless for what is undoubtedly one of the World’s most endearing and best known modes of transportation. There are a few marques which fall into the category of being so instantly recognised or well known and most such icons are usually associated with speed, classic design or with possessing of a certain quality – Ferrari, Jaguar, Harley-Davidson, the Mini etc. Such vehicles are of course modes of transport of a purely personal nature and, save for the Flying Scotsman, Orient Express, Concorde or perhaps some great ocean going liner, there can’t be a public transport icon which is so recognisable and well known, and there has certainly never been a mere bus that falls into such a category, save perhaps in some ways for the Routemaster’s elder cousin the “RT” type.

Personally, when it came to the Routemaster it was never really understood quite what all the fuss was about. There are aspects of the design which just never did appeal, in particular the snub nose of the radiator cowl and drooping bonnet line which presents an unfortunate down at heel kind of persona, something most of its contemporaries didn’t possess. The Routemaster was never a success in terms of commercial sales either, being designed purely for the use of Londoners and, when it was made available for sale in other parts of the country, provincial transport operators were just not interested, it having been developed at a time when new rear-engined bus technology was starting to take hold and operators were looking to such developments with some enthusiasm.

Obviously the Routemaster’s success lay in its design for use and the ability to fulfil the role for which it was developed over a much longer time span than that originally intended. Its demise from normal revenue earning service in London in recent years is partly responsible for the rise in the affection it has felt across the country and beyond and much of the hype was perhaps embodied through rose hued spectacles but that said, never has a public service vehicle attracted so much attention when the scrapman and disposal contractor loomed.

Perhaps when the hoards of mourning enthusiasts and well wishers surfaced to finally bid farewell to the Routemaster from normal London service, many were actually seeing off a trend in transport operation which had manifested itself in a peculiarly British way – that of the front-engined, half-cab rear entrance double decker bus. It was the final demise of a reminder of a bygone age – of simpler times perhaps when life seemed less fraught and the World as we knew it a safer, more comfortable place to live. When the Routemaster disappeared from normal public service duties in London at the end of 2005 we also said goodbye to other aspects of bus operation from those halcyon days; the conductor, the open rear platform, the characteristic “ding-ding” of the tuneful bell signals.