Every 10 years the Routemaster Association likes to take over Finsbury Park with a mass line-up of London's favourite heritage vehicle, the RM bus. Unfortunately this year Haringey council made things difficult so the 70th anniversary bash, RM70, had to find a different home. They settled on a very different location, the whoppingly modern Chiswick Business Park, for the fairly good reason that this used to be the site of a bus engineering works. And then they organised an astonishingly feeble publicity campaign to encourage people to turn up at 'The Former London Transport Works, Chiswick' (precise times and events to be specified) over the weekend of 20/21 July 2024. A lot of Men Who Like Buses managed to put the clues together and turned up yesterday to find the eastern car park chock-a-block with well over 50 buses in a very very long line. Hearts quivered.
Even a non-expert would have spotted that not all Routemasters are the same. Some were green or even blue and white rather than red. One was missing its top deck because it was used as a tow truck. One was owned by the Minister of State for Rail. One served teas and coffees. One was RM1, the prototype whose 70th birthday this was. Some were utterly pristine but some were shabby wrecks awaiting renovation. Many displayed evocative heritage adverts but one was in full Pride livery on behalf of a German supermarket. Most were proper RMs but some were longer RMLs. Some were taking punters on a free trip round the local neighbourhood while others stayed resolutely still while the owners hid inside. And all were being quietly worshipped by men with cameras waiting patiently for everyone else to get out of the bloody way.
Once you'd walked up and down the line a few times further amusement could be had from a variety of stalls offering souvenirs and ephemera. Official anniversary merch included pin badges (£4), lanyards (£4), programmes (£5), mouse mats (£6), notebooks (£14) and hoodies (£eek), plus tins of liquorice allsorts, fruit pastilles, mini shortbread rounds, fudge selections and stem ginger biscuits. Other traders had tables of diecast models, redundant bus stop tiles, vintage bus timetables, yet more diecast models, subscriptions to voluntary organisations and books on such diverse specialist topics as South Wales Buses in the 1990s, Independent Buses Around Stoke-on-Trent and Wemyss Trams. In a massive pile of fare charts I spotted one for London Country route 385 dated 1968, which would have been pretty much exactly when I was learning to the read the destinations on the blinds of buses passing my house, but I couldn't wait ten minutes while some other collector hunted agonisingly slowly through the stack, plus it would most probably have got distressingly wet before I got it home.
The best thing about the venue was probably the footbridge leading to Chiswick Park station which offered a pleasingly unusual vantage point above proceedings. The other best thing about the venue was that it's the actual terminus of route 70 (Chiswick Business Park - South Kensington) which was perfectly appropriate for a 70th anniversary. The best thing about the event was that it was undertaken for the love of buses so admission was unticketed, walk-up and free. The other best thing about the event was the opportunity to meet likeminded souls, so a special mention to the three readers who came up and said hello and engaged in transport-focused conversation. But quite possibly the best thing about the event, given the desperately lacklustre publicity, is that it's a two day event so if you really want to go you haven't missed it. Everything kicks off again at 10am and runs until 6pm, just across the road from Gunnersbury station, and if you miss it it's a very long time until RM75, RM80 or whenever this riot ofRoutemaster royalty next reassembles.
