Served By London’s Red Buses

The initial period from 1933 (when this book begins) to the end of 1939 was undoubtedly the heyday of London Transport. Under Lord Ashfield and Frank Pick, extensive fleet renewal took place culminating in the design at Chiswick of the world-famous RT bus. Progress was brought to a halt by the second world war, during which utility buses had to be bought to replace buses destroyed by bombing. RT production resumed in 1947, to be followed by renewal of the central area single deck fleet from 1952 with the use of RF vehicles. Trolleybus introduction came to a halt in 1940 and those tram routes remaining after the end of the war were to be replaced by diesel buses. The completion of RT and RF production should have led to another golden age for LT, but it coincided with a fall in bus use resulting from growing car ownership. This book takes the story to 1968, when the move away from crew-operated vehicles designed for London really began in earnest.