This is the S2, a bus which ran between Clapton and my neck of the woods between 1970 and 2008, back when 'S' meant Stratford.
It now means Sutton, there already being an S1, S3 and S4 threading across the borough, but it's taken until 2024 for the gap to be filled with an S2.
This new route is part of a major raft of changes in Croydon and Sutton consulted on in 2020, confirmed in 2021 and finally introduced on Saturday. The changes have their own dedicated webpage, previously blogged, which comes with four bespoke maps. This isn't one of them, it's my attempted scrawl of the full 'S' network.
The S2 goes nowhere new, it merely combines half of two previous routes. Firstly it's taken over the northern end of the S4 (so the S4 can be extended to cover the defunct 455) and secondly it's taken over the southern end of the 470 (which was always a bit too long anyway).
These are good changes, not least because the S4 and 470 didn't used to run on Sundays and the S2 does. So I went for a ride yesterday, fully embracing the coincidence of new routes called SL2 and S2 being introduced on the same weekend.
Route S2: St Helier - Epsom Length of journey: 9 miles, 55 minutes
The S2 kicks off on Green Lane, one of the main spine roads on the massive 1930s expanse of the St Helier estate. Nearby are the steps down to St Helier station, the 15th least used in the capital so hardly a busy hub, and across the road is a semi-shuttered parade of minor retail staples. Residents can get their coffee at King Cafe, their groceries from Ami's, their chippy tea from Link Fisheries and their hair done at Simply Elegant. The S2's first stop is on the other side of the road pointing the wrong way, so finding it may need a bit of local knowledge, and here I found a brand new electric bus ready to sweep me to Epsom. It's typical of many a vehicle now being introduced across London - wood effect flooring, USB sockets, cosy-looking seats... and a blind that's annoyingly unphotographable.
TfL didn't used to allow electronic blinds because they were deemed less clear than traditional printed rolling blinds and accessibility is key. But new hi-def LED blinds are much sharper, indeed for the average passenger the lettering's indistinguishable from the usual printed style, plus they illuminate better in low visibility. Expect to see a lot more of these from most bus operators as existing vehicles are eventually replaced. But although the refresh rate's fine for the human eye it's less good for devices that take quick snapshots, hence cameras tend to capture part of the display rather than all of it. I took 25 photos of the S2 yesterday and not one blind came out properly, all I got were horizontal stripes generally depicting half or less. This isn't a new issue, indeed outside London it's been commonplace for a while, but it is going to make it increasingly difficult to photograph buses with an identifiable route and destination. I'll save my best photo, which isn't great, for the end of today's journey.
Green Lane is properly green and boasts a tree-lined walkable central reservation, but also lacks another bus stop for almost the first half mile. It was hard to tell where the bus stops were because the iBus system wasn't working - no display, no announcements, no nothing - almost like being back in 2004 again. What's more these were new multi-functional digital displays, often impressively clever, but all we got to see was the Navaho homepage suggesting the software wouldn't power up properly. I wondered if it was just this bus having a 'First Weekend' issue but no, I caught another later and it was similarly mute. New technology doesn't always mean better information, or indeed any information, alas.
The S2 serves two useful places at the start of the route, the busy Rose Hill Roundabout and the beleaguered St Helier Hospital. But then it veers off abruptly into the backstreets to feed through parts of Benhilton that wouldn't otherwise see a bus service. Some of these streets are hard to negotiate, indeed a keep left sign at the junction of Duke of Edinburgh Road and Prince of Wales Road proved particularly tough to edge past. They're also hard to remember, which is why the only other passengers aboard the bus were another S2 driver and her mentor clutching a stapled list of 'Route Instructions. I'd totally have gone the wrong way at one point so it's just as well I'm not a driver myself. As a mark of how tough route-learning is they both alighted just before the town centre, where things get easier, to ride all the way back to the start again.
Lenham Road is the designated driver changeover spot and here we lingered. The new driver first spent time fiddling with the only non-electronic mirror, then sat tapping on his beeping console like he was trying to enter some 100-digit passcode. It turned out he'd been trying to launch the iBus software without realising it didn't work, and all in all that was five minutes wasted. By now we had half a dozen proper passengers, all of whom had correctly worked out that the S2 was the new S4. We had however left several people behind, one who thought better of it and stepped back, one who it turned out was waiting for the S1 and one standing promisingly in a Hail and Ride section brandishing a large pink suitcase but who was actually waiting for an Uber.
From the bus you never see the shops in Sutton High Street, only the 80s-looking gyratory that runs parallel to it, and which has three stops along its length. The full complement of local routes is now displayed at each - S1, S2, S3 and S4 - at last a quartet rather than a gappy list. I was pleased to see that all the tiles along the entire route appeared to have been correctly updated to show the S2 (even right at the end in Epsom where it's not TfL's job). We only picked up one new passenger behind the shops (a lady with a crutch and a spangly grey cardigan) but rather more at the station, indeed the bus soon became pretty busy. The remainder of the route now tracks the amputated section of the 470, a Monday-Saturday service, and it was excellent to see so many people taking advantage of the inaugural Sunday connection between Sutton and Epsom.
But it's very much not a direct route, instead zigzagging north and south to thread through suburban streets on the very edge of London. As the bus progressed the properties got larger, more detached and increasingly verdant, until we were passing half-timbered villas with room to park four cars behind screens of blossom and topiary. A sign on the courts at Cheam Fields Club invited residents to apply for membership to enjoy Tennis, Bowls and Bridge - suggesting Cheam's hardly Hancock's Half Hour, more The Good Life. All the roads round here are Hail and Ride, not that anyone would have realised with iBus not working, indeed if there was a special stop to serve Cheam station I wholly missed it. Eventually we reached the traffic lights at Cheam's central crossroads, where the perfect four shops in prime position were an antiques shop, a WH Smiths, a kitchen showroom and a Caffe Nero.
We'd been toying with the Surrey boundary for some time and soon, just beyond Nonsuch Park and the cricket club, we finally crossed it. Surrey council still pay TfL for cross border services, hence six red bus routes still make the leap, and their bus stops retain the familiar roundel design. Houses suddenly seemed larger, signs somewhat snootier (Private road, No turning, No L drivers) and parents more likely to drive to collect their kids from football. According to my stopwatch we'd now had the allotted 40 minutes the timetable at the start of the journey had promised. Alas there were temporary traffic lights ahead just beyond Ewell East station, and it took ten further minutes to queue to get past what turned out to be a fairly small hole, and out onto the bypass.
In Ewell Village, with its herringbone brick shopping parade, a mystified pair of pensioners boarded the bus. "I’ve never seen this one before," she said. "Must be new," he replied. "Well at least it says Epsom on the front." I'd encounter them again on my return journey, dutifully scouring the map on the yellow poster and unpicking what it'd mean for future shopping trips. The map could have been easier to unpick - beyond Sutton all it really needed to say was 'the S2 is the new 470' - but I think they eventually worked it out. The journey concluded with one long run down Epsom Road, past such disparate buildings as pebbledashed bungalows, commuter flats, a fusion restaurant and a Job Centre Plus, before finally pulling up in Epsom High Street surrounded by a flourish of proper shops. If the iBus had been working I'd have realised it was the final stop, whereas instead I trooped off behind everyone else.
It's been 16 years since I last rode an S2 and in that time the engine's gone electric, the seats no longer rattle and the blind's changed from yellow to dazzling white. Progress is inexorable, from Stratford to Sutton, and will eventually be rolling out on a bus route near you.
