Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Conversation >

On the buses

10:39 / 12.03.04

I have a peripatetic job and don't drive, so I have this week been on buses, tubes, trains, trams and Shanks' pony around London.

Buses are fairly easy. £1 wherever you go now and, outside of the city centre, you can still pay for your fare on board, unless it's a bendy bus. £2.50 and you can catch all the buses a busophile could wish for the next 24 hours.

Tubes are relatively easy to figure and with a Zone 1 and 2 travelcard, after 9.30 a.m., I can also travel on any buses I like anywhere in Zones 1 to 6.

But! If I start off the day with a train trip and buy a train travel card, can I use that on buses and/or tubes too?

And, when in Croydon, Queen of the South, where the Bears go, they have trams. Damn fine too. Can I use anything other than specially purchased tram tickets from the special tram ticket machine at each stop to pay my way on those?

If I buy some weekly pass, which would offer free travel thereafter on more than one mode of transport?

And, Ariadne, can I have a backie if you bike past Vauxhall sometime?

Alles klaar?

Whisky Priestess

10:58 / 12.03.04

I believe a generic Travelcard what lets you go on the tube also covers any form of transport run by TfL within the stated zones. Thus DLR, train, Silverlink, tram, tube, bus and pretty much anything bar a rickshaw are all available to the Travel or Oyster card holder.

11:02 / 12.03.04

although they are associated with london transport i think the travelcard only gets you a discount on river buses...

11:18 / 12.03.04

Buses are excellent, not too sure about this prepay system though, I only had a quid on my and the machine swallowed it up. Buses let you see the city and as mentioned elsewhere the tube distorts distance, you feel like you've been travelling for miles when i reality you've only moved along a few streets....

I don't think the travel cards carry over, I used to think they did but a driver told me I had to pay - maybe he thought I was a tourist and thought he could bag an extra quid...

I nearly saw a fight getting onto the number 32.

I've only been on the tram once but it was cool.

A girl from my work is working from home today because she fall off the bus last night - true story.

11:25 / 12.03.04

Some of the buses in Southampton have names, such as "The Solent Belle", "The Knights of the Round Table", and other things that sound inappropriate to be calling a bus. Do any London buses have names also?

Jack The Bodiless

11:38 / 12.03.04

Yes. I believe 'The Nasty Bastard' and 'Push Me Again And I'll Fucking Have You, Son' are favourites.

11:51 / 12.03.04

I'll gladly give you a lift, Mr Xoc. I only charge 7p but I do give change, and all my bikes have names.

12:04 / 12.03.04

Brighton buses are named after famous or worthy people who have an association (sometimes a fairly tenuous one) with our lovely seaside town.
Different bus routes have different types of people - eg buses on the number 1 route are named after worthies from The Past (Lady Who? Augustus Who?), whereas the number 7 buses are named after pop culture types. With the hilarious result that if you live in my part of town you can Leo Sayer home sometimes.

12:18 / 12.03.04

Yet again, I rely upon the kindness of (relative) strangers. Thanks for the info, folks. In my innocent way, I've been expecting this kind of information to be readily to hand on leaflets or big posters and have never seen it.

Think I might get a weekly pass type deal. I'll go check out the tfl and Oystercard websites. Might depend on what my work will reimburse though, if I don't get tickets per journey.

Names for buses sounds a fine idea and Leo Sayer certainly should be memorialised, if only for the perm and the puppet dancing. Don't think they do that in our humble little city but I'll keep my eyes peeled. I'm sure the tube trains all have names.

The prepayment machines are a pain. If they don't work, or if the bus arrives and you're running for it and have no time, you just have to jump aboard and hope not to be inspected. I've only seen an inspector once in the last year that they've been on the go but it was a bit like a SWAT team boarding and sweeping down the bus.

12:57 / 12.03.04

I've always been able to use One Day Travelcards on buses with no problem. Oystercards I have seen used on buses also.

And when I was waiting for a train to Bradford yesterday I saw a train called Doctor Who. It made me very happy.

15:58 / 12.03.04

I miss having buses that if you're running late, allow you to chase them through traffic to make a heroic leap onto the back platform. So much fun!

And the best: A song that actually mentions the 73 bus!

"Let’s go down to the old West End
Where we used to go when you were my girlfriend
Take the 73 to the city
With you sitting there, looking so pretty
I’d take you where you could shake it down, now
To the rocking part of town " - The Nips, 'Gabrielle'

16:32 / 12.03.04

Ooh, yeah. The only time I ever felt like a Londoner was when I leapt onto the platform of a moving double-decker bus and said to the conductor "Elephant, please, mate."

Goodness Gracious Meme

17:08 / 12.03.04

I like the Brighton Bus names too.

Had a friend's mum down for the day recently, and managed to get her all giggly at the idea of going for a ride on Adam Faith.

17:18 / 12.03.04

May I ask a silly question? Are all london buses back-platformy jumping on ones, with no fronty doors?

Weekly travel cards for zone 1 and 2: bus, tube, dlr, trams and rail are £18.20, or at least were in 2001, says Mister Rough Guide. And you need a passport photo for the card. Oh dear.

18:26 / 12.03.04

Don't need a passport photo for the tube weekly pass, at least, any more. Can buy them out of a machine in tube stations, no questions asked.

There are lots of the old open-platformed buses still about, gb. I love them. They even have tv to watch (usually David Attenborough or Michael palin stuff). Sadly, they are being slowly replaced by the "bendy" Mercedes buses. Locals, I have noticed, if they see a bendy bus and a Routemaster coming, tend to wait for the old fashioned bus to come along. Presumably because they're quicker. They stop, unload and load. The bendy buses sit about while all three doors empty and fill and they stop at every stop, just in case.

There's a route map at every bus stop too, to tell you where you're going to go if you catch one.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

03:22 / 13.03.04

And the best: A song that actually mentions the 73 bus!

That's nothing- Bobby Conn's got a song NAMED AFTER the 243 on his new album! "Bus 243", it's called, funnily enough. It's all about people in London being pretty.

08:43 / 13.03.04

If we are going to talk about songs about buses, then surely nothing can beat the original:

Transport of Delight - Flanders and Swann
Some people like a motorbike,
Some say a tram for me,
Or for bonny Annie Laurie
By the lay them down a dee.
Such means of locomotion seem rather dull to us,
The driver and conductor of a London omnibus.

Hold very tight please! Ting-ting!
Hold very tight please! Ting-ting!

When you are lost in London
And you don't know where you are
You'll hear my voice a-calling
"Pass further down the car!"
And very soon you'll find yourself inside the terminus,
In a London transport diesel-engined 97-horsepower omnibus.

Along the Queen's great Highway I drive my merry load
At 20 miles-per-hour in the middle of the road.
We like to drive in convoys - we're most gregarious:
The big six-wheeler scarlet-painted London transport diesel-engined 97-horsepower omnibus.

Earth has not anything to show more fair
Mind the stairs! Mind the stairs! Mind the stairs!
Earth has not anything to show more fair
Any more fares? Any more fares? Any more fares? Any more fares? Any more fares?

When cabbies try to pass me, before they overtakes,
I sticks me flippin' 'and out and jams on all me brakes,
Then jackal taxi drivers can only swear and cuss
Behind that monarch of the road,
Observer of the Highway Code,
That big six-wheeler scarlet-painted London transport diesel-engined 97-horsepower omnibus.

I stops when I'm requested although it spoils the rides
So he can shout "Gert out of it, we're full right up inside!"
We don't ask much for wages, we only want fair shares
So cut down all the stages and stick up all the fares.
If tickets cost a pound a piece
Why should you make a fuss?
It's worth it just to ride inside
That 30-foot-long by 10-foot-wide
Inside that monarch of the road,
Observer of the Highway Code,
That big six-wheeler scarlet-painted London transport diesel-engined 97-horsepower, 97-horsepower omnibus.

Hold very tight please! Ting-ting!

10:25 / 14.03.04

I fell off the number 38 once and really banged my knee
hard. But i didn't have to miss work over it. My roomate told me falling off a routemaster is a "rite of passage" in London living. ..

15:21 / 14.03.04

I shall boycott the No 38 henceforth in protest, CB.

I recall that potus /Seldom Killer listed a series of "Becoming a Londoner" rites of passage once, one of which was jumping aboard a moving bus. I felt a warm glow of belonging sweep over me the first time I did this.