ldn: NEW East London Transit routes

The local development agency in east London secured a government grant of HKD 400m to redevelop the area around Barking and Dagenham.
This area was an industrial area right up to the early 1980s, in fact it was a vehicle assembly complex for various companies.
However, 12 years ago, all was closed and building demolished.

The agency funded two new routes -EL1 & EL2; route EL1 replaces most of existing route 369, with route EL2 goes further to Dagenham Docks.
There is no logic- at the moment- in route EL2- imagine sending a bus route to serve the former airfield at Kai Tek in HK- as it is now

The money secured from the govn't was used to fund the purchase of 14 new Wright bodied volvo B9 [by Go Ahead] and rebuilding all bus stops and bus shelters to allow for wheelchair accessibility.

Here are 2 photos taken today of routes EL1 & EL2. Note the most unusual 'non red' livery- TfL made a point of insisting that all buses serving on TfL routes should be 90% red- and they even specified the specification for the red colour!

for comparison, here is also a photo of a volvo B7TL bus from First- from almost the same angle. You can see that there aren't that many differences between the two bodies styles!.[of course the front..]

Regards

Yoram