LDN - Mercy for Route 127??

Since the beginning of the privatisation,  the light had never shone on the route.  The route was first cut back from Streatham Hill and Selsdon in 1990 and 1994 respectively.    LondonLinks took over the route in 1997 and converted the route from DMSes to single deck B6s.  With 2 deckers from Nostalgia Bus for the school journey, thus makes a good mixture of SDs and DDs on the route. The contract then 'reassigned' to Sutton Garage in 98, replacing B6s with Ms, which was almost 20 years old then.  The story goes on and London General contracted out the service further to Selkent (Stagecoach) and later Blue Triangle.  Already a rapid change on the operators and vehicle types had been seen by the end of 99, a period of 2-and-a-half years.  Jan 2003,  the contract was reassigned to Mitcham Belle which aquired second-handed SLF Darts from Soverign (N. London) to run the service.  It was probably the best time for the route so far, with PVR increased to 12.  With the closure of Mitcham Belle London's operation after a series of strikes, the route then passed on to Central Parking System.  There was a lot of negative comments when the route was first taken over and various types of vehicles were rolled-out on the road.  Here is a picture of ex-Arriva L4, which was probably one of the oldest vechicles in the London's PSV fleet then.  



Centra managed to struggled their service until the latest route tender, when the route was supposed to be reassigned to Metrobus in April 2006.  Seems like Centra couldn't wait for any longer to get out from SE London.  The route was then passed on to Metrobus on 10th Dec 2005.  Until, the new vehicle arrives, supposingly March 2006, various stocks from Metrobus and London General had been and will be seen on the route.  Here is a picture of Metrobus 872 (ex-London General PVL72) at Tooting Boardway.



Would the route begged for its mercy this time or would the route be forbidden by the God forever.  We shall see.

[ Last edited by smal on 2005-12-14 at 12:00 ]