Route SL5: Bromley North - Croydon Town Centre Length of journey: 7 miles, 35 minutes
Another arc of the Superloop sprang into action yesterday, and it's an oddity. Firstly it's the shortest of the seven circuitous routes. Secondly it doesn't serve any major centres of population other than at its endpoints. And thirdly sheesh, look at that, it's a single decker.
The new express route links the towns of Bromley and Croydon, which if you consider outer London as a clockface are at five o'clock and six o'clock respectively. That's why the SL5's route is short, there being no good reason to extend any further at either end. There are also only eleven stops, three of which are in Bromley and two of which are in Croydon, so a lot of the intervening territory is being skated over. The route has been carefully chosen not to parallel what the trams do, nor to shadow the 119 bus which already links the two towns via a longer, slower path. But the SL5 doesn't take an optimal route, it still goes round the houses, and allow me to show you that on a jumped-up map.
TfL are keener to depict the route as a stylised tube-like diagram, and it's this that appears along the side of the bus and on the leaflet they were giving out on day 1. They've got a lot better at inaugural shenanigans since the first Loop launch when all anyone got was a generic coloured circle on glossy card of no practical use. Casual staff in branded hi-vis were once again employed to stand at major stops and inform waiting passengers, even cajole them on board with the promise of a faster journey. They also had a small number of shiny pin badges to give out, which I discovered later they were most likely to do at one of the quieter stops in the middle where interaction had been light.
Let's take a ride.
The northern launchpoint is outside Bromley North station, which is also where interchange with the SL3 to Thamesmead will begin next month. A crowd has gathered, partly because many other buses start here but also because the novelty of the Superloop has brought the fans out. What's striking is how young most of them are, not the archetypal Old Men Who Like Buses but schoolmates and TikTok buddies meeting for the novelty of it. You don't get this when 'normal' routes launch, but the hype around the Superloop has perhaps gifted it superstar status. "Only 20 minutes to Croydon" chirrups Hi-Vis Girl, which I suspect is a seriously over-optimistic estimate and so it proves.
Bromley is always a pain to pass through, the pedestrianisation of the high street forcing an awkward delaying detour. But it's profitable passengerwise and by the time we reach Bromley South there are over 20 people aboard. Many are even genuine passengers laden with shopping or luggage, the last of whom are floundering to find a seat. When I rode the SL1 and SL10 on their Day 1 a single decker would easily have sufficed, but on the SL5 the absence of an upstairs is already proving cluttered (and this is not a one-off). The route already looks like an overnight success.
As we speed off out of town the bus-teens are already offering their opinions on the journey so far. The vehicle is a "geriatric" Dennis Dart Enviro 200 in service since 2012, and they can feel the "nightmare" vibrations when they lean against the window. The USB ports are "well cool" and should allow them to film the entire route without running out of juice. The route is "quite good" and will help the ringleader reach his auntie's house in just two buses. The free pin badge might be worth "shitloads" on eBay, but the economics student reckons it's a matter of supply and demand instead. They've brought snacks.
At the end of Westmoreland Road the obvious direction for a quick journey would be straight ahead but instead we turn right. The obstructive issue is this bridge outside West Wickham station...
...which has an unforgiving 7 foot width restriction. It's also the only way across the railway for a mile and a half so the SL5 has been forced to make a looping diversion one way or the other. The route's planners picked north via Hayes Lane rather than south via Hayes, because the 119 already goes that way, and so skipped the very-deserving population of West Wickham. This instead gifted the outlying folk of Park Langley and Eden Park an excellent express bus service, which is perhaps a good thing because before today their Croydon-ward links were particularly poor.
'The Chinese Garage' is an unusual name for a bus stop, not least because the pagoda's designer originally intended it to look Japanese. It landed beside the Park Langley roundabout in 1928 and has been turning heads ever since, although they haven't sold petrol here, or indeed cars, for some time. The building's most recent rebirth is as a Majestic Wine shop and Tesco Express, and during busy trading hours the stream of vehicles trying to enter or exit the car park can clog up the roundabout somewhat (and thus slow down the buses). On this occasion thankfully we sail through.
Four out of six of the SL5's intermediate stops are on the next run south, either on South Eden Park Road or Monks Orchard Road. These also have fresh bus shelters, as befits the Mayor's premier orbital route, whereas previously passengers would have waited for a handful of buses exposed to all weathers. One isn't quite finished and still has a dolly stop, whereas the rest already have their illuminable Superloop roundel on top. It's going to be interesting to see what happens at the Langley Park School stop on Monday when the girls' school and boys' school turf out, because even a double decker would struggle and a single decker totally won't cope. Alas it's the low hanging trees along this very stretch that forced the SL5's vehicle height issue.
If you were judging solely by distance you wouldn't pause an express route at Bethlem Royal Hospital because it's much too close to the bus stops either side. But stopping outside a medical facility gives this Superloop route its raison d'être, even if a hospital focusing on psychiatric issues and mental health won't be the passenger generator somewhere with A&E and outpatients might have been. The Hi-Vis Bloke hanging around the freshly tarmacked shelter looks particularly underutilised.
If you're out riding the SL5 and looking for somewhere to break your journey, Bethlem's excellent Museum of the Mind is open from Wednesday to Saturday and is always worth a visit. What's more they've just opened a new exhibition by artist Alison Lapper, she of the curvaceous statue Alison Lapper Pregnant which was displayed on the Fourth Plinth in 2005. That bump became a much-loved son called Parys but he died tragically at the age of just 19, and here in a few bleak works she mourns his loss and empowers her canvases with visceral grief. It packs a total emotional punch.
The last stop before Croydon is outside Shirley Library, a facility now reduced to a "Select and Collect" service just two days a week due to serious council financial ineptitude. The good people of Shirley already had three frequent bus routes to whisk them into Croydon and now they have another, this time non-stop, because they're one of the major winners in the Superloop lottery. But two miles is a long way to go without a bus stop, not even one to switch to the trams at Sandilands, especially if traffic is bad and you suddenly find you can't get off. On this occasion thankfully we sail through.
The majority of passengers - and we're still unexpectedly packed - pour out at East Croydon station. This is where you'd switch to the SL7, the original long-haul to Heathrow, were you Superlooping properly. But those who want the shops rather than the trains stay aboard along with the first day riders intent on reaching the very end of the route. This comes in Park Street, in what's laughingly called the Central Croydon Conservation Area despite half the blocks having been summarily demolished. Here the bus-teens hop off and plan their next move, which sounds like it'll be straight back to Bromley, and the driver flees for a welcome breather at the end of the flyover.
The journey's taken 35 minutes, of which five were within Bromley, five within Croydon and 25 zipping inbetween. I bet it's not that quick all day, indeed I suspect it was significantly slower once the Saturday shopping throng built up. But the SL5 does indeed look like a gamechanger for those making orbital journeys and particularly if you're fortunate enough to live along its route. Also I think all the red tiles are in place at all the relevant bus stops plus all the proper timetables, which is a definite improvement on those early Superloop launches. I also spotted totally up-to-date spider maps in bus shelters, even in residential backwaters like Park Langley, although the new map in Bromley is going to need replacing in just three weeks' time when the SL3 arrives. Hey bus-teens, I'll see you there.
