BUSWORLD PHOTOGRAPHY

I AM CHRISTOPHER LEACH THE ARTIST. I started this blog so that I can share with everyone my vast collection of transport photographs showing a personal and nostalgic view of the industry with images that span some 45 years taking in the U.K and some of Europe. I have no darkroom and so rather than being the perfectionist after tidying them up I upload the images warts and all, and even those that won't scan squarely or are scratched. In a way it adds age and character. You are all free to download these for your personal use but please remember I still own them and you are not just free to use them without prior permission for any knd of publishing. Click on images to enlarge them and if you want to see more leave your comments or visit my website for the mother-site with galleries including those Buses & Girls: PICTUREWORLD

Friday 24 February 2017

MCW Metropolitan on 53 in Whitehall

Till I did my scan I was wondering how I could have taken a classic LT view of Whitehall without a Routemaster in sight but of course there is one coming along. More interesting is with another MCW Metrolpolitan tucked in behind the DMS I wonder if that too was on the 53. What amazes me about London was there seemed to be diligent looking bus inspectors with pens and notepads at many a timing point studying a pocket watch yet buses on one route still managed to run in convoys of three like this with the most work-shy crew tucked in at the back not picking any people. That doesn't happen so much today as each bus in satellite tracked from a control room.

2 comments:

Malc said...

It is very likely that the other Metropolitan in shot was also on the 53. The 53 was the only route serving Whitehall which was scheduled for Metropolitans. It is possible that the other Metropolitan was one of Peckham's allocation wandering onto route 12 - it generally happened on Sundays, but only happened rarely (possibly never) during the week. The bus in the foreground, MD132, had a short life, entered service in January 1977, withdrawn from service in September 1982 and scrapped the following year.

christopher said...

No it wasn't a Sunday so it was even more unusal. In the Sixties I used to be at Art College in Maidstone and I used catch the 53 at about 10.pm towards Lewisham and thumb it back from there. One could do things like that in those days and feel quite safe in South London and today of course no one would pick you up not even trade plate guys. I usually had a sweet sounding untampered RM 400 or 500 series top deck all to myself, I think NX got them from HL when they got RML's for the 207.