End of the road for Routemaster
15 December 2005
Last Friday, a symbol of Swinging London was consigned to the past - the Routemaster bus. The Routemaster had served London since the 50s and to anyone born since then, it was as permanent a symbol of Capital as the Tower of London or Tower Bridge. Even this though, could not save it from the march of progress.
I am not advocating that we should never change and move forward when there are clearly better alternatives. It would have been a tragedy if a similar movement to those wanting to save the Routemaster had saved horse-drawn buses at the turn of the century from the ugly face of progress in the form of the motor bus. I do think though, that there should be exceptions and each case needs to be judged on its merits.
To the passenger, a bus is a bus is a bus. Modern buses might be slightly more efficient, have more comfortable seats, be cleaner to the environment - but nothing beats the joy of discovering you can still hop on board a bus made in the sixties and travel on a normal everyday service. A "Heritage Service" can never give the same pleasure. What you get on board is a neatly boxed corner of the past, preserved forever in aspic. You know you are escaping from the present. The Routemaster, until last week was a firmly a part of modern Britain, just as real as a 747 or a Ford Mondeo.
The fact that these buses are not on their way to the scrap yard as we speak underlines the commercial potential they still have. If only London Transport could have seen it, they could have run for another 50 years.