London Transport RT1

The London Bus Museum [http://www.londonbusmuseum.com] at Brooklands, Surrey, exists to chronicle the development of the London bus from the earliest days of horse-drawn buses to the end of the twentieth century.

One of its most treasured exhibits is RT1, dating from August 1939, the prototype of nearly seven thousand classic post-war London double-deckers.  Its diesel engine, air brakes and pre-selector gearbox made it easy to drive and comfortable to ride.

It stands in a line of development that was pioneered by the London General Omnibus Company and its manufacturing arm, the Associated Equipment Company [AEC], that shed the horse-bus ancestry of early motor buses and was continued after the formation of London Transport in 1933 by the design-conscious CEO, Frank Pick (1878-1941), who insisted that every possible aspect of London’s public transport operations should be elegant and attractive.

RT1 remained in LT ownership until 1978, was sold for preservation and got into various scrapes, including time in the USA, before being scrupulously restored to 1939 condition at a cost of over £200,000.

The London Bus Museum acquired it in 2010 and displays it in a clear chronological sequence of vehicles dating from the mid-1870s to 1979.

HM The Sultan of Oman’s Royal Flight VC10 A4O-AB: interior

The Vickers VC10 aircraft had a distinguished career in both civil and military aviation.  Built at Vickers-Armstrong’s Brooklands plant from 1962 onwards, they were popular planes, designed to cope with short runways and “hot and high” airfields.  Fifty-four VC10s were built, of which nine survive in retirement.

Of these, A4O-AB is undoubtedly the most luxurious.  Originally sold to Freddie Laker’s British United Airways and registered G-ASIX in 1964, it found its way into the royal flight of the Sultan of Oman in 1974.  The Sultan, Qaboos bin Said Al Said (born 1940), understandably values his comfort, and his aircraft was adapted accordingly to provide  a lounge dominated by two large swivel chairs alongside a comfortable couch and walnut tables, two bedrooms, a commodious galley and a section seating 32 staff in an approximation to orthodox business class configuration.

During its thirteen years in the Omani Royal Flight A4O-AB inevitably gained its share of legends – flights to London purely to pick up fresh strawberries, and journeys to India in which the Sultan’s hawks travelled in the main cabin to the detriment of the carpets and upholstery.

When A4O-AB was replaced in 1987, the Sultan offered it to the Brooklands Museum as a memento of the aircraft that were built there.

This presented a practical problem, in that each of the fifty-four VC-10s had flown out of Brooklands when new, but very few had ever returned.  Though these planes customarily landed at 10,000-feet runways, at the disused but practical Brooklands airfield only 3,500 feet were available.  Return visits for maintenance had been directed to the nearby runway at Wisley.

The numerous precautions for this one-off landing were interesting, if slightly unnerving.  Following the pilot’s premise “if there’s any doubt, there’s no doubt”, the crew inspected the approach on the ground and by helicopter.  Various trees and lamp-posts were removed, police and fire-services were alerted, trains on the nearby London-Bournemouth line were paused and residents were warned to expect more noise than usual.

In the event, A4O-AB arrived on time and in good order, to be greeted by its designer, Sir George Edwards (1908-2003), on July 6th 1987.

The pilot of that final flight, Captain Richard King, gives an account of his encounters with G-ASIX/A4O-AB, including the final flight, at http://www.vc10.net/Memories/A4OAB_Royalflight.html.

Visitors to the Brooklands Museum [http://www.brooklandsmuseum.com/index.php?/explore/vickers-1103-vc10-ex-g-asix-a4o-ab-1964] can board A4O-AB to admire the facilities, including the bathroom, and – by invitation – sit in the cockpit.

Greenwich Foot Tunnel, south entrance

Greenwich is one of the places where smart London overlaps workaday London.

Amidst the grand buildings of the Old Royal Naval College and the National Maritime Museum and the splendid restoration of the Cutty Sark are down-to-earth enjoyments such as the covered Greenwich Market and the celebrated Goddard’s Pie & Mash Shop  [http://www.goddardsatgreenwich.co.uk].

Over the river at Island Gardens is the stunning view of Greenwich that Canaletto painted in the middle of the eighteenth century, largely unchanged.

The best way to reach Island Gardens from the Cutty Sark is by a mundane piece of municipal engineering, the Greenwich Foot Tunnel, designed for the London County Council, shortly after Greenwich became part of London rather than Kent, by Sir Alexander Binnie (1839-1917).

It’s one of the monuments to the work of the energetic Labour Mayor of Poplar, subsequently MP  for Woolwich, Will Crooks (1852-1921), whose campaigns to benefit working people in the East End included the park at Island Gardens (1895), the construction of the Blackwall road tunnel (1897) and the Greenwich (1902) and Woolwich (1912) foot tunnels.

The surface markers of this unobtrusive piece of engineering are the two elegant brick, glass-domed entrance buildings.

Because it’s a public highway, the Greenwich foot tunnel is open twenty-four hours a day, though the lifts don’t operate at times of low demand.  (Sometimes the whole tunnel is closed for maintenance, and pedestrians are recommended to use the Docklands Light Railway instead.)

The tunnel is less trouble than hopping across on the Docklands Light Railway – and it’s free.  The tunnel is worth the walk:  at the north end, consider the section of reinforced lining that resulted from bomb damage in the Second World War.

London Bus Museum, Brooklands: T31

The London Bus Museum, not to be confused with the London Transport Museum at Covent Garden, presents a chronological collection of London-area buses from the age of horse-drawn transport to the late twentieth century, artfully displayed like a sort of art gallery of buses, in a purpose-designed building at the Brooklands Museum in Surrey.

Pride of place is given to T31, a 1929 AEC Regal single-decker which was built for the old London General Omnibus Company, carried passengers for London Transport until 1952 and then served as a training vehicle until 1956.

It was the very last surviving London Transport bus that had originated with General, and was bought by a group of enthusiasts off the road for £45.

During its long career the rear entrance was moved to the front, and the petrol engine changed for diesel.  Its restoration to original condition took until 1979, and it was bought by the London Bus Museum in 1994.

Part of T31’s historical appeal is that it’s the very first British bus ever to be taken into preservation – a truly far-sighted act of faith in 1956, when the idea of retaining out-of-date workaday vehicles such as trams, buses and trains was widely ridiculed.