110 The London BusI
f you wanted to travel
from Croydon in south
London to Heathrow
airport in the west,
would you go by bus?
You certainly could, using the
X26. This remarkable service
runs every half hour, using
double-deckers with a special
luggage pen in the lower
saloon for the benefit of flight
passengers.
The X26 was launched in its
present form in 2005, but is based
on Green Line coach service 725
(later 726), which dates back to
the early 1950s. As with so many
London routes, it was once much
longer, starting from Gravesend
in Kent and continuing to
Windsor in Berkshire; but even
in its current form, at 23.7miles
it is the capital’s longest daytime
red bus route. In order to helpminimise delays over such a long
route, it is a limited-stop service;
hence the X for ‘express’ in the
route number.
Even during its relatively short
life as the X26, the service has
seen various changes of operator
and vehicle type. Initially it was
run by Go-Ahead subsidiary
Metrobus with Scania OmniCity
single-deckers, then Quality Line
took over. Demand grew, and
double-deckers were drafted in.
Then when Go-Ahead London
General won the contract in
2017, it refurbished a batch of
nine-year-old double-deckers for
the route. These are Volvo B9TLs
with Wright Eclipse Gemini 2
bodywork, and were previously
used on the group’s East London
Transit operation. They have
been replaced there by New
Routemasters.
The refurbishment job is
impressive (see p46). Externally
the buses gleam, and inside
everything looks fresh and new,
from the relatively unblemished
flooring to the grab rails and
stanchions, which are orange
rather than London General’s
usual yellow. They are single-
door buses, which helpsavoid too much
loss of seating to
accommodate the
offside luggage racks.
Nevertheless, there
are only 17 seats on
the lower deck.
When I sampled the route
during April’s brief heatwave, I
was keen to see whether in fact
it was used by airport-bound
travellers who needed the
luggage racks. In my admittedly
limited experience the answer
was yes, but only up to a point.
People really did board with
suitcases – apparently business
users, moreover, who might have
been expected to be using a taxi
or some other supposedly more
upmarket means of transport. But
they appeared to be in a minority.
By far the majority of
passengers boarded and
alighted at intermediate stops.
It soon became apparent that
many of them were not waiting
specifically for an X26 (perhaps
unlikely with a half-hourly
service); they were simply using
it as an alternative to other
services running on the same
parts of the route.
Whatever the users’ reasons for
travelling, the buses on the route
were certainly busy all through
the day, and on the final leg of
our journey, from Teddington to
Heathrow, there was standingLondon by Bus
BELOW: WVL340,
a Wright Eclipse
Gemini 2-bodied
Volvo B9TL
refurbished
for route X26,
leaving East
Croydon alongside
the tracks and
platform for
Tramlink.Route