On Thursday 19 August 2010 we went to London. We caught the 12:20 from Derby to St Pancras which was bang on time. After admiring the 'new' St Pancras station our goal was East Croydon. The easy way would have been Thameslink, sorry First Capital Connect, but we had plenty of time and buses are cheap for pensioners.

Transport for London's web site has a wonderful mapping system called 'stick maps'. You simply enter Kings Cross to get a diagrammatic map of all bus services from KX, print it and then enter East Croydon and do the same. You then look for somewhere served by buses from both locations. In our case it was Peckham.

So we caught a 63 from Kings Cross to Peckham where the bus station was closed for essential maintenance. We had to walk to the next stop for a 197 to East Croydon. The total journey time was about two hours all on the front seats of deckers.

We spent Friday exploring Croydon travelling on the trams. See my blog HERE. I did however take a few bus pictures . . .

1. This bus at New Addington reminded us of Hulleys but with centre doors.

2. In Wimbledon: claims to be an Optare. My colleague was remembering when as a boy he saw trolleybuses to Kingston and trams to The Embankment in Wimbledon.

3. An Optare decker with a very deep top deck window in Wimbledon. I didn't realise they built double deckers.

4. This will soon be a French bus owned by RATP (Regie Autonome des Transports Parisiens).

We caught a tram back to Croydon and got off outside the bus station. One thing that surprised us was the lack of any form of pedestrian crossing from the tram stop to the bus station.

5. A Deutsche Bahn bus pulling out of Croydon bus station.

6. A Dennis Dart I assume.

7. Metrobus are part of what was once Northern General and thus British owned but I suspect the bus is a Polish built Scania.

8. A Wright bodied VDL Bus on the tram track.

9. A Dennis Dart and a tram.

10. Finally mission accomplished a double decker and a tram (and someone trying to cross the busy road).

We caught another tram to Addington Village which seems not to be a village but a bus station where a bus recovery exercise had been laid on for our benefit. All the recovery work was being done by one man with no assistance at all.

On Saturday morning we caught a 75 to Lewisham to explore Docklands Light Railway.

After Docklands, our plan had been to catch a Circle Line train from Tower Hill to St Pancras. However Tower Hill station was closed and I saw a Routemaster on service 15 going to Trafalgar Square.

19. Despite displaying TRAFALGAR SQUARE the conductor chucked us all off at Charing Cross.

20. The other side of the road at Charing Cross with Trafalgar Square in the background.

We then caught a 91 back to St Pancras and a punctual journey back to Derby.

Whilst all London buses are red, there is a fantastic variety of vehicle designs and owners these days. In addition to the German and French owners I have commented on, some buses are owned by Abelio which is a subsidiary of the Dutch railways and the former Stagecoach companies were bought by an Australian bank. My impression is that the bus services are more reliable than they were 40 years ago when bunching and short turning was endemic. The great thing about London buses is the short dwell time at stops with dual doors and hardly anybody paying cash fares.