A couple of central London buses are not like the others. They have numbers in the 500s, they exist to ferry commuters to and from major rail termini and they used to be the most frequent services on the network. Alas post-pandemic working patterns have destroyed their rationale and TfL intend to withdraw both the 507 and the 521 at the end of next week.
The Red Arrow network launched in 1966 and at its peak included eight high capacity routes crisscrossing central London. Flat fares were charged, capacity was prioritised over seating and multiple doors were used for loading passengers quicker. In 2002 the two remaining routes pioneered the use of bendybuses and more recently they've operated with fullyelectric vehicles garaged at a bespoke depot in Waterloo. But eco-investment counts for nothing in the cold light of financial reality so a lot of high tech cattle trucks are about to be released for use elsewhere.
Join me for one last ride on the Westminster shuttle.
Route 507: Waterloo to Victoria Location: London central Length of bus journey: 2 miles, 25 minutes
There is no direct tube line between Waterloo and Victoria, nor any tube station close to Lambeth Bridge, so the 507 exists to fill the gap. The area is dense with civil service deskage so I can well imagine the original Merlin buses crammed with bowler hats, briefcases and folded broadsheets. These days the crowd that assembles round the back of Waterloo station looks rather more casual but I suspect I saw a few tweedy highfliers in their midst. And it is still a crowd because at least 30 of us piled aboard, this because I made the effort to turn up just after eight at the height of the morning peak. Come in the middle of the day and the 507 instead carries mostly air.
In closure news, yes there is a yellow information poster at the first bus stop on Upper Taxi Road. Alas it's a generic poster so although it mentions the withdrawal of route 507 it doesn't tell passengers what to do once it's gone. It should be telling them to catch re-routed route C10 instead, and it should be telling them which of Waterloo's multitude of bus stops that'll depart from but it says none of this because it is inherently useless. Even the webpage you're directed to doesn't tell you that, almost as if TfL haven't worked out what they're doing yet.
Boarding the bus offers the novelty of entering via the middle doors and beeping your card there. This used to be commonplace on several routes but today only the 507 and 521 offer the opportunity and after next week the practice will be extinct. The regulars dart for the relatively few seats, like a game of vehicular musical chairs, and the rest of us find something to cling onto because this bus can be seriously jolty. The first jerk comes at the zebra crossing just down the road, which because it's a dispersal route for morning commuters can take a while to cross. And then we're out onto York Road where another 10 passengers swell our number and I have to shuffle down the rail a bit.
Ten years ago the 507 departed Waterloo every 3-4 minutes in the peaks but today it's only every 7-8. When the C10 takes over that'll have an 8 minute frequency but it'll have come all the way from Canada Water so the current regular spacing of buses will probably be a casualty. The C10 also has rather more seats than the 507, i.e. there'll be less room to stand. Meanwhile expect existing C10 passengers to be peeved that the route is being diverted around Waterloo station rather than running direct from Elephant & Castle to Lambeth Bridge, thereby adding 5 minutes to their journey time.
We're not taking the obvious route to Victoria via Westminster Bridge, we're heading south towards Lambeth Bridge instead. That means the first proper stop is outside St Thomas's Hospital, which is where some of our more orderly passengers alight. We're also gaining schoolchildren, it being that time of day, and I wonder if they ever realise that staff from the Department for Education might be standing amongst them. The snazzy digital display screen at the front of the bus is ticking down our expected arrival time at various upcoming stops, although not especially accurately and sometimes jumping backwards as well as forwards. Hang on, an announcement is being made...
"Route 507 will be withdrawn from service on 29th April and replaced by revised routes 3 and C10. Visit tfl.gov.uk/central-london-buses for further details."
That's clearer than many onboard withdrawal messages, although I notice it never appears on the digital screen so those with hearing impairment (or their headphones in) could easily miss the news. The schoolkids are already planning their alternative bus, and it isn't either of the routes suggested in the announcement. We're now passing close to several top tourist sights, specifically the Florence Nightingale Museum, Lambeth Palace and the Garden Museum, but it's too early for any of that to be useful. Instead the view from Lambeth Bridge of the Palace of Westminster gleaming in the morning sun is just dazzling, and what a fantastic sight to have on your daily commute.
If you still want to travel this way in future you'll need to catch tweaked route C10 from Waterloo followed by tweaked route 3 to Victoria, and here on Horseferry Road is where you'll change. Your journey won't cost extra because of the Hopper fare, but it will on average take 5 minutes longer due to all the hanging around, this because route 3 only runs every 10 minutes. I fully expect lots of existing 507 passengers not to bother changing and just to walk the last bit.
Horseferry Road is at the heart of civil service London, plus MI5 are housed just round the corner, so withdrawing the 507 disproportionately disadvantages public servants. In particular it's home to the Department of Transport, whose financial squeeze is at the heart of all these cutbacks, so I like the idea that Sadiq may have thought "I know how to get the bastards back, I'll scrap their bus service". Further local fallout includes staff working at the Home Office and would have included those at Channel 4 HQ had the government not packed them off to Leeds instead.
Route 3 has linked Whitehall to Crystal Palace for decades, but this counts for nothing when TfL have loose ends to tie up. It's therefore being redirected towards Victoria rather than Parliament Square, the rationale being that anyone who really still wants to go to Whitehall can always change to the 87 at Lambeth Bridge instead. I sometimes think TfL's accountants won't be happy until every road has just one bus route serving it, a target they've now achieved on Millbank by de-3-ing it.
Strutton Ground is the last stop served exclusively by route 507 and also where everyone else who boarded at Waterloo gets off. This may be because they know what's coming next, which is essentially a massive traffic jam all the way to Victoria. It takes us three goes to escape through the lights onto Victoria Street and then ages to crawl the quarter mile to the far end, having got stuck in exactly the same congestion that blighted my journey on route 11. Whipping out my calculator that's 50% of our total journey time wasted on travelling just 25% of the distance, which for one of the shortest bus routes in London is pretty poor going.
On the return journey the 507 takes a less jammed route via Vauxhall Bridge Road, but for some reason the 3 won't be going this way when it takes over. This means one bus stop on Rochester Row is about to lose its bus service forever, as a yellow poster at the stop now confirms. According to the instructions what you're supposed to do is walk quarter of a mile to the next stop, wait an average of 5 minutes, catch a bus 2 stops, get off, wait an average of 4 minutes and then continue to your destination. It might have been quicker to write "screw you" instead.
Our last few passengers, who very much aren't commuters, endure the final spin round Victoria and we enter the bus station from the far side. The 507 has one of the four prime locations outside the front of the station, not because it's a particularly important route any more but because its vehicles are so damned long. But the Red Arrow's prestige status will be extinguished at the end of next week when this key slot is gifted to a mere double decker, probably the 3, and Victoria's civil service travellers will all get to pile aboard that instead. Times change, arrows blunt.
...and if you've been sitting there thinking "I don't get this 3/C10 thing, I wish there was a map" you are not alone. No such explanatory diagram has been produced, even though it would be extremely useful and even though they managed one for the 6/16/332 changes in northwest London. Instead passengers have to make do with explanations in words, be that on the website or at bus stops, mainly I suspect because writing text is so much cheaper than attempting cartography. Be it scrapping buses or not producing maps, saving money never makes travel easier.
