Celebrating a British icon 85
it took passengers longer to
board the Merlins as they
were unfamiliar with the fare
collection system, and also
because the Merlins were too
long to be able to pull into every
bus stop, forcing them to block
the road and slow the flow of all
traffic.
Driver-only operation of
double-deckers had been
legalised in 1966 and an early
adopter of them was Manchester
City Transport whose general
manager was the visionary
Ralph Bennett. He oversaw the
development of what became
known as the Mancunian, a
modern looking two-door double-
deck body built on both Leyland
Atlantean and Daimler Fleetline
chassis, the first of which entered
service in 1968.
Bennett joined the London
Transport Board in September
1968 and it announced a plan
to buy 17 Fleetlines with a body
style modelled on the Mancunian
for delivery in 1969. This became
the DMS class, although Bennett
tried to have it branded as the
Londoner. The first did not arrive
until late 1970, by which time a
further 100 had been ordered.
Like most of the Merlins, these
had front entrances and centre
exits. The entrance doors were
split into two flows, allowing
passengers either to pay through
self-service turnstiles or pay the
driver. It was also decided thatfuture single-deck orders would
be for the more manoeuvrable
33ft version of the AEC Swift,
which had a smaller and less
powerful engine.
Despite these changes in
approach, further conversions
took place during 1969 using the
longer Merlins.
In November 1969, route 233
linking Croydon and the housing
estate at Roundshaw became
the first driver-only double-deck
route in London, using some of
the XA-class Atlanteans as well as
FRM1, a unique prototype rear-
engined Routemaster that was
built in 1966.
In January 1970, some of the
Atlanteans were used for new
Peckham circular route P3 while
in April further examples were
used on new routes C1 to C4,
which replaced the previous
Routemaster-operated express
journeys on route 130 between
Croydon and New Addington.
These XAs were fitted with
Johnson fareboxes.
The first of the shorter Swifts
also began to enter service in
1970 and were used largely to
convert crew-operated double-
deck routes to driver-only
operation.
Further examples followed, but
with the first DMSs entering
service in January 1971, London
Transport concluded that its
future deliveries would be
double-deck.Routemaster reprieved
In 1972, following reliability
problems with services converted
to driver-only operation and
flat fare, London Transport
reconsidered whether it should
continue to remove conductors
from busy routes, particularly in
central London.
It concluded that this was no
longer practical, as boarding
times would more than double,
leading to longer journey times.
Under the original reshaping
plan, the Routemaster fleet
was due to be withdrawn from
1975, but it was now decided to
continue their use indefinitely,
and some of the new DMS
double-deckers would now also
be crew operated.
This effectively marked the
end of the bus reshaping plan as
originally conceived, although
some more routes were changed
over to driver-only operation
during the 1970s. At the time,
this was known as one-man
operation, abbreviated to OMO,
but in 1974 Jill Viner became
the first female bus driver in
London, leading to a change of
terminology to OPO or one-
person operation.
The longer boarding times
associated with driver-only
buses continued to hamper
their wider application and
London Transport continued
to experiment with ways of
speeding up this process.50 Years Ago
ABOVE: DMS435,
a Daimler
Fleetline with
Park Royal body,
near Aldenham
Works on a route
converted from
single-deckers to
double-deckers
in 1972. Most
Fleetlines were
disposed of early,
helping prolong
the London career
of the legendary
Routemaster.
TONY WILSON