The London LS: The Leyland National Bus in London Service

Dissatisfied with the reliability of its AEC Merlin and Swift single-deck buses, London Transport in 1973 purchased six Leyland Nationals for evaluation. Liking what it saw of this ultimate standard product, where even the paint swatch was of Leyland's choice, LT took up an option to buy fifty more from a cancelled export order and then bought further batches of 110, 30 and 140 to bring the LS class to 437 members by the middle of 1980. A year later the last MBAs and SMSs were replaced on Red Arrow services by 69 new Leyland National 2s. Straightforward but reliable, the LS satisfied London Transport's single-deck needs for a decade and a half, often standing in for double-deckers when needed, and then on to the tough years of early tendering. The type served the ten years expected out of it with few worries, only starting to disappear when minibuses came on strength in the late 1980s. Although the LS was formally retired by 1992, refurbishment programmes gave survivors an extended lease of life.