Celebrating a British icon 27
for London would curtail the
route’s operation outside Greater
London, but following agreement
by Surrey County Council to
subsidise the section within the
county, it will continue unaltered.
The Alexander Dennis Enviro200
single-deckers will be replaced
by slightly newer vehicles of the
same type.
Route 466 was introduced
in 1998 when the Croydon
bus network was changed in
advance of the opening of the
Croydon Tramlink. Running
initially between Caterham and
Shirley, it replaced parts of route
400 between Caterham and
Croydon as well as the Croydon-
Shirley stretch of route 166. An
extension took it into Addington
Interchange in 2000.
It was operated initially by
Arriva London South from
Croydon garage, but contract
changes in 2003 saw it pass to
Metrobus. Five years later Arriva
London South regained the route
and it returned to Croydon. Thecurrent contract was originally
due to expire in August 2018 but
has been extended for a further
two years under the terms of
TfL’s Quality Incentive Contract.
London’s first civilian airport
was in Croydon and from its
earliest days this was served by
local buses and, despite ceasing
to perform this role immediately
after World War 2, buses
continued to display Croydon
Airport as a destination until the
early 2000s.
Route 194 initially linked the
airport with West Wickham,
but was extended to Forest Hill
in 1936. Although Croydon
had provided a few buses on it
at times over the years, it was
operated largely by Elmers End
garage until that site closed
in 1986; it then transferred to
Croydon. Retendering in 1992
saw Selkent take over until it
returned to Arriva London South
2003.
The route had been diverted
to run to West Croydon insteadof the long closed airport site
in 1996. A change to its north-
eastern terminus saw it take on
its current route in 2003.The shrunken 197
The garage also provided buses
on another well-established
Croydon area route, the 197
that linked Norwood Junction
and Caterham for much of
the postwar era. It was one of
the first London routes to be
tendered and operation passed to
London Country in August 1986.
At the same time it was curtailed
to run between Norwood
Junction and Croydon.
Three years later, London
Buses’ South London subsidiary
won the contract and it returned
to Croydon garage, which has
run it ever since. It was extended
to Peckham in 2005.
Route 264 began in 1987 and
ran initially between Tooting
Broadway and Croydon on
weekdays, replacing that section
of route 64. Weekday and
Saturday buses were provided
by Merton garage but Croydon
ran it on Sundays, when it was
extended to New Addington.
All operation passed to
Thornton Heath garage in late-- In 1990, tendering saw
operation contracted to South
London and it was rerouted to
South Croydon Garage, although
Thornton Heath continued to
provide buses. It was cut back
again to terminate in Croydon in
1991 and operation transferred
to Croydon garage between
November 1997 and early 1999.
Although Sunday operation
returned to Croydon in 2000/01,
in September 2001 the entire
allocation transferred to
Beddington Farm until that site
closed in 2012, whereupon it
passed to Croydon.
The route was extended from
Tooting Broadway to St George’s
Hospital, Tooting in 2003. This
coincided with the introduction
of a night service, initially
numbered N264; this was
subsumed within the daytime
route in 2004.
Several London routes have
been shortened in recent years to
aid reliability. An example is the
London Bus Garages
TOP LEFT: Two
Croydon-based
Arriva double-
deckers in the
town. Alexander
Dennis Enviro400
T65 is on route
466, while the
412 behind is
DW507, a Wright
Gemini 2DL.BOTTOM LEFT:
EMC9, one of the
battery electric
Optare MetroCity
EVs that Arriva
operates on
route 312.