London Bus Routes: H2 - X68

The End Of The Challenge: Routes H2 - X68

There are a lot of H routes, more than any other prefix, and they run in a variety of areas. The first is Hampstead with the H2 and H3, both starting at Golders Green and doing separate loops around the Hampstead Garden Suburb, a lovely place with expensive houses and huge Hail & Ride sections with brilliant views of the Hampstead Heath Extension, before the routes return back to Golders Green. A similar thing happens in Harrow with the H9 & H10, as well as the H18 & H19, both starting at the town centres bus station, before doing loops around the borough, serving multiple places and suburban streets, one running clockwise, and the other running anticlockwise, causing it to be rather uninteresting the second time around, which is a rather unique scenario. The remaining H routes to serve Harrow Town Centre are all rather boring, with one staying well clear of it and that is the H13, and that one is rather interesting. The two terminuses are on either side of the Ruislip Woods, one being the St Vincent's Nursing Home in Northwood Hills, and the other being Ruislip Lido. These two terminuses are actually so close to each other on either side of the woods that it would be quicker to walk between the two than get the bus, and the Ruislip Lido side is one of the most interesting terminuses a London bus goes to. It is essentially London's hidden beach, full of sand by a lake, and has a miniature railway running through the woods, and is worth an explore. Moving on to Hounslow for the remaining H routes, where again a lot of them are rather boring. I'll admit this is one of the lower points of the challenge, but I had to do them. There were two which stood out to me though from Hounslow and that is the H28 and the H26. H28 runs between two Tesco's, the one in Bulls Bridge and the one in Osterley, and passes the old Osterley & Spring Grove Station where the platforms still exist at track level and the old station building being turned into a bookshop, as well as some dangerous corners in housing streets. The H26 starts at Hatton Cross and runs to Feltham, Sparrow Farm where there's no farm at the terminus, but you do seem some on route. Now I know about this terminus because of a previous visit to explore Hounslow Heath, so I know that just behind the estate here, there's a very strange abandoned tunnel, which you have free roam to walk down and is genuinely a really spooky place. 

There's no I or J routes, I can't even think of a place in London that begins with J, so we move to the K's. Consisting of 5 routes in Kingston with their numbers actually making sense from K1 to K5, and all being single decker routes, and mostly running in back streets in the borough. K1 is the only service to terminate at the main Cromwell Road Bus Station in Kingston, and runs around Surbiton, Tolworth and New Malden. K2 starts at the intriguing place name of Hook, and travels through Berrylands, to terminate at Kingston Hospital, just like K4 where the other end of the route is Mansfield Park Estate, also near to Hook which I've never heard of before. Route K3 starts at Roehampton Vale ASDA just like the 969, and after leaving Kingston, Surbiton and London altogether, it makes its way down through Hinckley Wood, does a lovely loop round the cute village of Claygate, and terminates at Esher, places I had never heard of before, and is definitely the most interesting of the K routes. At Esher, the Sandown Park Racecourse is nearby, and although it was slightly raining, of course I went to go and check it out as they're always fun to explore, even though it wasn't as good as Epsom Downs Racecourse. I don't think any racecourse will beat Epsom Downs, even though Kempton Park and Newbury are pretty close seconds. Finally is the K5 starting at Morden and features about 6 Hail & Ride sections, which might be the most for any route, as it runs around Wimbledon Chase, Raynes Park, Motspur Park, which houses an abandoned gas holder, New Malden, Norbiton, Kingston and terminates at Ham, a long way from West or East Ham. 

Jumping forward another few letters to the P routes, I believe there may have used to be some M routes around the Millennium Arena in North Greenwich when it first opened, but not anymore. The 4 P routes, standing for Peckham, even though P4 and P5 seem to stay clear of the main town of Peckham Rye, are not the most interesting. The P4 runs between two very boring places of mine, Lewisham and Brixton, but I didn't give it the credit it deserved. This is because it passes the Horniman Museum, which is a great place to see views of London, and goes through Dulwich, which has an almost village like atmosphere close to Central London. Route P13 also runs between two rather boring places of New Cross Gate and Streatham, whilst meanwhile, the P12 terminates at Brockely Rise, even though the bus blind suggests it ends at Honor Oak Park instead. Route P5 starts at Elephant & Castle, finally the last time I had to come here to get a bus, and ends at Patmore Estate, which is the vacinity of a place named Nine Elms. At the start of the challenge, I didn't know how long this was going to take, so I thought to myself by the time I get up to do P5, the northern line extension would have been open and I could Nine Elms Station after, but I did it a lot quicker than anticipated, so I used Queenstown Road Station instead. 

There's no Q routes for Queenstown Road or any other place name beginning with Q in London, so we press on to Orpington. You may find it strange at first that we're in Orpington now, as you would think if there's O routes, we would have covered them already, but you'd be mistaken. The prefix routes around here are actually R routes, which makes sense because people might confuse the O prefix with the number 0. I thought they chose to use the R prefix as it's the second letter in Orpington, but I think it actually comes from the Orpington Roundabout which circles the war memorial at the southern end of the high street. These R routes by the way was quite possibly the most exciting part of the challenge for me, consisting of several amazing routes. There's 11 R routes in Orpington, and before the challenge, they suffered a rather big shake up with the R2 being cut from Petts Wood to the Walnuts Centre, R3 taking over that section whilst also being cut from Chelsfield Village to Orpington Station, whilst R7 changes its terminus from the Walnuts Centre to take over the section to Chelsfield Village. It is quite easily one of the quaintest terminuses of any London bus route and reminds me a lot of Downe, and on the return the bus makes a rather large loop via the Bo Peep pub, which unfortunately is due to not run this loop anymore, and return immediately from the terminus causing the pub to unfortunately miss out on a bus service. The other end of the route also got an extension from the Aquila Estate to the Sainsbury's in Chislehurst, a brilliant addition to local residents. R1 and R11 both terminate at the intriguing name of Green Street Green, and the other end of R1 is the Grovelands Estate, where nearby is a lovely nature reserve which homes the ruins of an old manor, which was very cool to see. R4 was slightly similar, terminating at Paul's Cray Hill, very high up and had a country park there which was also great to explore but weird to see some trees that looked like they had been burnt out. R6 was very twisty around the suburban streets of St Mary Cray and unfortunately there was a dead cat laying in the street, whilst R9 did a loop around Ramsden Estate, and I was lucky enough to catch a double decker, the only one on the R's. Now for the scenic R routes starting off with the R5 and R10, a rather unique set of services. These run every 3 hours, which technically makes these the most infrequent regular London bus routes, but they run in opposite directions around the same route, like some in Harrow, so really it is one route and runs every hour and a half with the same bus switching between the two routes. They both run down to Green Street Green together, where the R5 runs clockwise through Pratts Bottom, does a loop up to serve Halstead, and then through Knockholt, Cudham and Hazelwood, before returning to Green Street Green. It was amazingly scenic throughout and all the villages I passed through was very nice, but because it is 2 different routes, I then did have to do the route anticlockwise as part of R10, awkwardly explaining to the same driver what I was doing in case it wasn't already strange enough that I got on and off the same bus. The other scenic route is R8, which takes a delightful way through High Elms Country Park through quite possibly the narrowest roads I've experienced on the whole challenge, and yes, the bus did get stuck with oncoming traffic, until once again, I got to see the amazing village of Downe, brilliant to get to see again. It continues through Luxted until it terminates at Biggin Hill, with no view of the airport, but you do get to on R2. This was the most exciting part of the challenge for me, and I do reckon that R8 and R5/10 may be my favourite routes after the 465 and 246. 

That's not the only R routes to exist however, as there's two more that run over in Richmond, the R68 and the R70. The R68 starts in the retail park new Kew Gardens and ends outside Hampton Court Station, whilst R70 starts at North Sheen and terminates on a loop around the Nurserylands Estate which I remember passing through on Route 111. There's also another bonus R route, the RV1, which must stand for the River Thames, and runs in Central London, starting near to the Tower of London, runs over Tower Bridge, and pretty much runs all the way along the South Bank of the Thames below London Bridge, Southwark Bridge, Blackfriars Bridge, and passes back over the Waterloo Bridge, with the view of the London Eye, before terminating outside one of the West End theatres in Covent Garden near to Aldwych. It uniquely ran hydrogen powered buses, and unfortunately doesn't exist anymore. The reason for its nonexistence anymore is because TFL suggested it got very low passenger numbers, averaging 6 people per journey, but I have no idea where they got that statistic from, because the bus was completely packed and was standing room only midway throughout the route. The unique terminus of Covent Garden never got reinstated with any other route, but the bus stop still exists, whether they will ever bring it back into service. Moving onto the 3 S routes in Sutton, I believe there also used to be an S2 standing for Stratford, but it doesn't exist anymore. These routes are rather long, run mostly in Hail & Ride, and serve a lot of suburban streets around Worcester Park, North Cheam, St Helier, Carshalton and Belmont. S3 used to start at the Sutton Hospital, but I believe it got closed, so it now instead starts at Belmont Station, whilst S4 starts at St Helier, one of the stations on the quiet Thameslink Sutton loop, of which most of them contains an old Network South East Permit To Travel Machine, and runs to Roundshaw, creating the rhyming announcement of 'S4 To Roundshaw.'

I've mentioned before that there used to be some T routes that ran around Addington and where feeder services to the London Trams. However, before the challenge, all the routes around there got shaken up to cover for the loss of the T routes, so we move on straight to the U's in Uxbridge. Consisting of 8 routes, although bizarrely there's no U6 or U8, all of them except the U1, running between Ruislip and West Drayton, all terminate at the bus station right outside Uxbridge's tube station. It was rather exciting to do these routes as I had only been in Uxbridge a handful of times on the challenge previously, the last being the A10 to Heathrow Central, which U3 runs to the same place but takes a longer and different route. U2 does a rather convuluted route to the Brunel University, doing a double run to serve Hillingdon Station, as U3 runs much more direct to the university from the station. This also might be the only non-school route to terminate at a proper educational facility destination. U4 terminates at the ProLogis Park in Hayes, having to go through a barrier to reach it, which reminded me of the ProLogis Park in Bow that the 323 passed through. U5 used to start at Hayes Asda, and ran single deckers, but switched their destination with 350 to Hayes & Harlington Station, and gained it's double deckers and route through to Stockley Park, which I was fine with because double deckers were becoming rather scarce on the challenge at this point. U7 instead starts at Hayes Sainsbury's and runs every half hour, but my wait for the bus ended up being over an hour, because two buses in a row decided to break down, so I was left stranded in the rain at a stop with no shelter. Route U9 was a much more pleasant experience though, and is my favourite of the U's, travelling fast past a Dog's Trust building with multiple signs proclaiming to  'Stop HS2', which will pass through this area, until the bus did a loop up to Harefield West, the very edge of London beside the Grand Union Canal with some lovely field views, to then go back to terminate at the hospital. Weirdly, the bus doesn't do the Harefield West loop on the return, something I got caught out on once, and had to walk down to the main village to get the bus behind. The last route is U10, Uxbridge's awkward infrequent route, running every hour to Ruislip, Heathfield Rise, but interestingly, there's some buses from Uxbridge Bus Garage blinded for a U11 to Uxbridge Industrial Estate, which doesn't exist, and I'm not entirely sure if this was a planned route that never happened, because I have never heard of any information of this route.

Moving on ever so closely to the end of the challenge now with the W routes, and my last two local routes of mine, the W3 and W4, both standing for Wood Green. Route W3 has quite possibly the best view from any bus route, and I'm not biased here, because it travels over Alexandra Palace with a spectaclular view of London. Meanwhile, Route W4, I know from experiences had a Hail & Ride section at the end before Oakthorpe Park, where there's no actual park and just sits beside the obnoxious North Circular Road, but I realised that they've now put bus stops along that section, however, they never recorded announcements for the new stops, and I believe to this day, 3 years later, they still haven't. W5 stays clear of Wood Green, and the only place on route that may be what the W stands for is Whittington Hospital, near Archway. Some of these next routes are not immediately clear what the W stands for, especially the short, but surprisingly really busy W7 from Finsbury Park to Muswell Hill, a place which would benefit from a tube station. W6, W8 and W9 all run relatively close to Winchmore Hill, so that could be the contender here, whilst the latter two both terminate at Chase Farm Hospital which feels rather run down. Route W10 is the awkward infrequent W service, just like the U10, and runs between Enfield Town and Crews Hill, and I was lucky enough to not have to wait long and catch an older style bus which was becoming increasingly rare in London. Whitewebbs Park could be the contender here, but is again not immediately obvious, and this route doesn't actually exist anymore, instead being renumbered 456 and extended to North Middlesex Hospital. I don't know why the renumbering was needed, especially as the new extension passes Winchmore Hill. I actually live on the train line that serves Crews Hill, but weirdly I had never been to any of the stations up at this part of London, as I'm usually just heading into London and not out. The final routes from W11 to W16, and W19 all run around Walthamstow, Whipps Cross, Wanstead and Woodford, so it's much obvious why these have the prefix of W. These weren't the most interesting, and some of these were rather long, but I did come across a couple of strange places like an abandoned car park in Chingford Mount, as well as a burnt out Poundland which I think had happened recently, and an abandoned house near to the W13 terminus of Woodford Bridge, the last route that I did. Walthamstow Village was pretty quaint on W12, and the W19 got an extension to the Argall Avenue Industrial Estate from South Grove during the daytime through a barrier, which nobody used and was located near to London's newest railway station of Lea Bridge. 

Right, here we go then.. the final 2 routes, starting with Route X26. From starting on the 22nd of August 2016 with routes 1 and 2, 2 years and 8 days later on the 30th August 2018, it was time for X26 and X68. X26 starts at West Croydon Bus Station, and uses the EL's old East London Transit branded buses after they got some new routemasters, but have since been refurbished so the branding is gone, has one door, which is unique in London for a double decker bus, and has luggage space and USB ports for London's longest bus route of almost 24 miles to Heathrow Central. It's also an express route, and unlike the 607 stopping at any bus stop which is rather notable on route, this one only stops at the super major stops in towns along the route, so there could be examples of when it runs for 15 or 20 minutes without stopping once. For example, it only stops at East Croydon, Wallington, Carshalton, Sutton, Cheam, North Cheam, Worcester Park, New Malden, Kingston, Teddington and Hatton Cross, as well as providing the same good views of the airport as Route 90 all that time ago. It was an interesting experience, and I was intrigued to try out another express service almost immediately after a rather long Piccadilly Line journey back into town at Russell Square. Route X68 starts here, but only in the afternoon peak in this direction only, as it terminates here in the morning peak, providing a service for people to come into Central London for work, to return to the suburbs for the evening. It's suggested the first stop of the route is West Norwood, but what actually happens is that it lets people on at all stops to Waterloo Station, but doesn't let anybody off, and then runs express for about half an hour all the way to West Norwood, where it then stops everywhere again to its terminus. Weirdly, the announcements even say 'limited stop', even though none of the other express routes mention this. In addition, the map suggests it runs express along the route's siblings, 68 and 468 through Camberwell, but the bus instead travels through Brixton fast. I felt rather nervous the closer the first bus of the afternoon got to the infamous purple tower in Croydon, and when it pulled into the West Croydon Bus Station, where my day started this morning on the X26, it was a joyous moment to step off the bus and officially claim that I've been on every regular London bus route. A time of 2 years and 8 days exploring new parts of London, from Tottenham Court Road to West Croydon, and a pointless achievement that I will never forget, I can't say that I will ever go back and do them all again.