Route 129: Lewisham to Gallions Reach Location: London southeast, crossriver Length of bus journey: 9 miles, 70 minutes
The 129 has been searching for a purpose ever since it was introduced as a stumpy three mile route in 2006. The original idea was to connect the new Millennium Village on the peninsula to the centre of Greenwich, a double decker shuttle which was one of the ten shortest bus routes in London. Planners intended it would one day be extended to new developments on Surrey Canal Road and thence to Peckham, but New Bermondsey Overground station remains a mirage two decades later so that never happened. Jump ahead to 2022 and the 129 was extended instead to Lewisham, this to make up for route 180 being diverted for Crossrail reasons, although that didn't bring a huge rush of punters either. Now it's become one of three cross-river buses in east London, striking out through the Silvertown Tunnel to connect Lewisham to City Airport and Beckton, and we wait to see if this is a link anyone genuinely needs.
Things start badly. The 129's first stop ought to be outside the Lewisham Centre but it's closed due to 'Urban Realm development works', which according to a poster were supposed to finish last week but evidently haven't. At least it tells you where to go instead. The second stop alas has no poster, just a Countdown screen insisting several 129s are due in the next few minutes when in fact bugger all are coming. Here I meet a flustered old lady trying to get to Canary Wharf with the aid of some scribbled instructions her nephew gave her. Alas her intended chain of buses fails at square one, causing instant confusion, and trying to persuade her to give up waiting and catch the DLR instead falls on deaf ears.
The 129 instead starts temporarily round the back of the shopping centre on Molesworth Street, pumping out every eight minutes whereas last week it was every twelve. Grabbing the top front seat is easy, which totally won't be the case when we reach North Greenwich (where the spodcount will increase from two to twenty). We set off past the newly-completed Lewisham Gateway development, part of which has been vacated due to recent flooding which has displaced 400 much-peeved residents. Then finally we're back on line of route, where I can confirm nobody has bothered to put up a new 129 timetable at the Lewisham Station stop because of TfL's usual uncoordinated backroom inefficiencies. Things have started badly.
It's a fairly short hop to Greenwich, initially climbing past copious council flats, hundreds of newbuilds and a robot fixing a gas main. By an accident of timing we're following a 199 so hoovering up fewer passengers than we could have been, even though our bus is free and theirs isn't. Just before the A2 is a cul-de-sac called Friendly Place where the business on the corner is a dental surgery, which feels wrong. Just after the A2 is the smart Georgian townhouse where Liz Truss lived before she moved to Downing Street, as yet unmarked with a blue plaque which feels right. Onwards past the town hall and cinema and into the maelstrom of eateries that central Greenwich has inexorably become. Beyond the Cutty Sark the entrance to the Greenwich Foot Tunnel is visible, and if you were trying to get across the river it'd be a lot quicker walking through that than staying on our bus.
We've reached the start of the original runty 129 outside the Old Royal Naval College, suddenly with so many more miles to go. Potential passengers are asking the driver if he's going to North Greenwich, because last week that was the key destination on the front of the bus but it's now vanished in favour of a less helpful housing estate in Newham. For a direct bus they really should have taken the 188 which takes a shortcut whereas we're doing the full length of constricted Trafalgar Road before heading north. "Are you going under the tunnel?" asks one keen old lady, and technically the answer's no but the driver helpfully says yes.
From IKEA onwards the 129 used to be one of half a dozen buses terminating at North Greenwich but now it's more special, and also as aforementioned it's free. A dog owner with a chocolate labrador takes advantage. We plough on past kids doing holiday kickabout and trees bedecked in blossom, buds and discarded plastic sheeting. The ridiculously inefficient T-junction by the Dangleway slows us down but eventually we curl into the bus station, precisely half the journey behind us and half ahead. Here the wholesale turnover of passengers takes place as all the usual North Greenwich passengers turf off and the Day One contingent of the curious and the obsessed troop aboard. They are great in number and audibly peeved not to be able to get a front seat. Wahey, here goes with the tunnel bit.
We exit the bus station novelly by turning right at the roundabout, then right again down a special canyon-like bus lane. Three hi-vis-ed stewards wave us on, just this once. In no time we're turning into the main flow of traffic almost immediately before the tunnel portal, and then we're in. A double decker in a Thames tunnel is a proper novelty for London. We stick to the left lane along with the HGVs while everything else sticks to the right, all proceeding at just under 30mph and all contributing to the Mayoral coffers. It's less straight than I was expecting but not as wonky as the Blackwall Tunnel. As sightseeing trips go it's not especially incredible, although if you stop and think precisely what we're ducking under maybe it is. One final bend and then daylight appears in the distance and then we're out - just under a mile, fractionally under two minutes.
Welcome to Newham where, unlike the less than super SL4, we do actually intend to stop. Just not yet because in all the years of roadworks nobody's managed to add a bus stop here. Apparently one will be ready at Dock Road later in the year but for now we sail on, round a landscaped gyratory which had its traffic light hoods removed overnight. We're not going to Canning Town either, we're climbing eastwards onto the Silvertown Viaduct and aiming into the less busy side of the Royal Docks. Above us threads the cablecar, just one of its pods visibly occupied, our new bus entirely undermining the reason for its existence as a transport connection. The 129 is effectively the Dangleway Replacement Bus, and also £7 cheaper and with unique views of its own.
The first stop is a good half mile beyond the tunnel outside West Silvertown station, or technically just past. Here the pile-off begins as we lose the passengers who merely wanted to ride through the tunnel, which is the vast majority. The 129 then begins its new life threading through the Newham hinterland, an estuarine strip initially bursting with fresh flats. It can't currently stop at the next bus stop because extensive cycleway works are in progress but 'Thames Barrier' is announced anyway. Nobody is inconvenienced. The announcements then glitch into overdrive and start mentioning future stops, repeated stops and especially Connaught Bridge, perhaps because we're stopping there twice but more likely teething troubles.
The only genuinely useful destination this side of the river is London City Airport, which is great news for frequent flyers in Greenwich who want longer in bed. To get there requires a double run, just long enough that we see the previous 129 heading out just as we're heading in. The 473 and 474 also do this which proves awkward because the airport only has one bus stop, now served by three routes in both directions, and our concurrent arrival clogs it up. Fourteen taxis are waiting patiently alongside the DLR viaduct and I suspect will end up transporting more airline passengers than will any 129. We retreat and cross the docks via the Connaught Bridge, unhelpfully slipping between Prince Regent and Royal Albert DLR stations and stopping at neither.
When Crossrail started in 2022 TfL entirely rejigged bus stopping patterns in this corner of Beckton, mysteriously rerouting the 300 and leaving Royal Albert Way unbussed. The 129 now follows its former path, making sense of the former subtraction as if this were the plan all along. We pass a few parks, a closed city farm and not many houses before lining up on Tollgate Road where potential passengers are far more plentiful. None oblige. One of the remaining enthusiasts in the front seat lifts his sleeve to reveal the bus-related tattoo he just got, and the other is perhaps less impressed than he'd hoped. We've now been going over an hour, and as a blessing the driver doesn't deviate into Beckton bus station but stops outside.
For our denouement we continue into peripheral suburbia and aim for Gallions Reach. The 129's final mission is to serve the new Great Eastern Quay development which has upthrust on the Thames foreshore over the last few years. While other buses veer off towards the big Shopping Park, we instead continue to almost the water's edge and Magellan Boulevard where this bus terminates. Except it turns out it doesn't because they're still building flats at the far end and nobody's added a bus stop down there yet. Instead we loop back to Shackleton Way, once a reversing JCB gets out of the way, and stop beside a scrap of park and a very basic container toilet. Residents of the adjacent flats now have a direct connection to civilisation, although they were only ever 250m away from an existing bus stop so the new bus is more a convenience than a necessity.
I have no interest in riding the 129 back the other way because it's pretty mundane apart from the two magic subterranean minutes in the middle. Let's hope other people find it useful and it doesn't prove a wasted connection.
Route 129: Lewisham to Gallions Reach
