104 The London Bus
S
harply increased
bus patronage
in the years
immediately after
World War 2 led
London Transport to formulate
ambitious plans to redevelop
existing garages and build new
ones to cater for growth and
relieve pressure on overcrowded
facilities.
One of these is at North Street
in Romford, which opened its
doors in August 1953 and was
intended to relieve pressure
on the garages at Hornchurch,
Barking and Seven Kings,
all of which were operating
beyond capacity. The area was
also expected to see significant
growth in services as a resultof the building, by the London
County Council, of a large
housing estate at Harold Wood.
When first opened, it had a
peak requirement of 67 buses
running on nine routes, but
within five years this had
increased to 99. The garage
was initially described as North
Street, with code letters NS, to
differentiate it from the now
closed Green Line garage in
Romford.
In October 1975 Romford
gained an allocation of 13 ex-
British Airways Routemasters,
with forward entrances and
folding doors, which were used
for around 11 months on route
175 until they were redeployed
for driver training.In February 1978 London
Transport launched Multiride
tickets in the Havering area
in a bid to speed up boarding
times on driver-only buses. The
experiment covered several
routes operated by Romford
garage. Passengers could buy
card tickets worth 10 units for
50p, which were then cancelled
by being inserted into a slot
once, twice or three times,
depending upon distance
travelled. Multiride journeys
cost about half that of buying a
separate ticket for each journey.
The experiment was abandoned
in February 1980.
In 1992 as a result of tendering
losses it was proposed to close
North Street, Seven Kings andLondon Bus Garages
ABOVE: Aerial
view of Romford
garage. GOOGLE
Built as part of London Transport’s postwar expansion plans, North Street garage
is one of six bases used by Stagecoach East London