116 The London Bus
B
exleyheath garage
— code BX today
— was the only
London Transport
depot built new
for its trolleybus network,
although the Tram & Trolleybus
Department always called it
Bexley.
Transport World described this
south-east London facility as a
‘model home for trolleybuses...
carefully planned throughout’.
It opened on 10 November 1935
when trolleybuses replaced trams
on routes 696 (Dartford-Welling-
Woolwich) and 698 (Bexleyheath-
Abbey Wood-Woolwich), which
were separated from the rest of
the trolleybus network.
These had originally been
operated by Bexleyheath Urban
District Council and DartfordCouncil, which merged their
tramways during World War 1 to
form the Bexley-Dartford Joint
Tramways Committee.
The new depot was badly
damaged twice by bombing in
World War 2, first in an air raid
on 7 November 1940 and again
by a V1 flying bomb on 29 June- The second incident
caused significant damage, with
12 trolleybuses destroyed and 26
requiring replacement bodies.
The physical isolation of the
Bexleyheath routes was one of
the factors that caused its routes
to be included in the first stage of
London Transport’s programme
to replace trolleybuses with
motorbuses, and on 4 March
1959 motorbus service 96
replaced the 696, while the
698 was replaced by extending
the 229, which had operated
hitherto between Orpington and
Bexleyheath.
The plan then was for new
Routemasters to replace all
the trolleybuses, but delivery
from AEC and Park Royal was
running behind schedule, so
Bexleyheath received RTs,
made surplus by service cuts
following the bus crews’ strike
the year before.
Fast forward to the introduction
of route tendering in 1985 and
London Buses was losing work
to other operators. As the fleet
reduced in size, it had more
garages than it required, and
in August 1986 Bexleyheath
garage was closed with its routes
reallocated to Plumstead, Catford
and Sidcup. But the site was
retained.ABOVE:
Aerial view of
Bexleyheath
garage. GOOGLE
BELOW: D2 class
trolleybus 432,
a 1937 Leyland
with Metro-
Cammell body, at
Bexleyheath depot
in the late 1950s.
MICHAEL DFRYHURST
London Bus Garages
Bexley
The only new garage built to
accommodate any of London’s
huge trolleybus fleet, the one coded
BX has had a chequered history
of changes of operators as well
as vehicles and even a two-year
period when it was closed