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THREAD/For my final thread before Christmas, I'm sticking with the transport theme and whilst not a walk as such, will take a look at how London Transport’s road services were affected during the Blitz and beyond. At the start of the war, LT possessed a huge fleet of buses, as
well as a substantial tram fleet, which was in the process of being replaced by trolleybuses. As far as the motor buses were concerned, the fleet was built around several classes, mostly built by AEC, perhaps most notably the STL class (centre) and the then new RT class, which
had been intended to replace the older classes in the fleet and eventually to become the new standard vehicle in the fleet. This was eventually to be achieved post-war with a modified, mass produced version built using methods learned during the war based on aircraft production
methods, which London Transport had adopted during the war in the manufacture of Halifax bombers. The tram fleet was ageing and had war not intervened, would have been replaced entirely by trolleybuses but the advent of war caused this programme to be halted and the trams had to
carry on “for the duration”. To begin with, London’s bus fleet had to contend with the blackout and the introduction of headlamp masks in common with the other few remaining vehicles left on the road. Windows were also fitted with mesh to mitigate the effects of blast damage to
to vehicle windows and of course to passengers. With the coming of the Blitz in 1940, London Transport began to suffer damage to vehicles, sometimes in their garages but sometimes when they were in service. The occupants of this bus which had been left in Arthur Street, at the
northern end of London Bridge, were fortunately taking shelter in the nearby Monument Station and avoided death or serious injury when their vehicle was hit. The official advice was to stop running during an air raid but in practice, many drivers used their discretion and would
try to continue whilst it was safe to do so but if the raid was in the direct area of where the bus was travelling, then they would take their bus out of service and direct their passengers to the nearest available public shelter. In the case of these trams in Blackfriars Road
during a raid on the night of 25 October 1940, some of the passengers had decided to remain on board beneath what they thought was the relative safety of the railway bridge, whilst the bulk of them had gone with the tram crews to a nearby public shelter. Those that went to the
shelter were proved to have made the correct decision, as the bridge was hit by a bomb which easily penetrated the structure and hit the trams parked beneath with heavy loss of life. Vehicles parked in garages were of course more vulnerable but to begin with, casualties were
limited to individual vehicles damaged by incendiary bombs at locations such as Athol Street, Poplar and Hammersmith, Camberwell and Bromley. The tram depot at Abbey Wood was hit on 7 September 1940 and many trams destroyed, as can be seen here. Fortunately, as a result of the
tram replacement scheme, London Transport had had the foresight to store many of the withdrawn trams as a strategic reserve and therefore, there was never a real shortage of trams due to enemy damage. This wasn't the case with the trolleybus fleet and every vehicle lost or
damaged, such as we see on the previous page at Bexleyheath Depot, represented a serious deficiency in the service, let alone the human cost that often came with the loss of the vehicles. Where possible, the damaged trolleybuses were repaired but such was the number of vehicles
written off, a consignment of trolleybuses destined for export to South Africa was requisitioned and placed in service in London, where they continued to serve until the end of trolleybus operation in the capital. The motor bus fleet began to suffer serious losses on 22 October
1940 when the garage at Bull Yard, Peckham was hit by incendiary bombs, with the loss of 48 vehicles Another serious attack on 10/11 May 1941 destroyed Croydon Garage (seen here in 1937), with the loss of no fewer than 58 buses. The extent of the damage can be seen in the photos
below. Amazingly, there were no human casualties in this particular incident and equally amazingly, some of the damaged vehicles could be repaired by using the large stock of spare bus bodies that were held by London Transport for their peacetime overhauling process. There was
only a finite stock of these spare bodies and London Transport soon began to suffer from an acute shortage of vehicles. At first, buses were brought in from towns and cities outside of London but with the spread of the Blitz to these "provincial" cities (the condescending phrase
that was used at the time), these vehicles were soon required by their owners to keep services going in the home towns. London Transport and other operators across the country were then given permission to order buses built to a very austere and basic standard, both mechanically
and in terms of passenger comfort. In London Transport's case, they had traditionally purchased most of their vehicles from AEC, as well as a substantial number from Leyland but for these "Utility" vehicles as they were called, had to turn to unaccustomed manufacturers such as
Bristol, Daimler and Guy, as we see in this photo below. When they entered service, many of these vehicles had wooden slatted seats in place of the usual comfortable upholstered seats and also had many of the windows blocked by metal or wooden sheets in place of the usual glass.
The bodies for these vehicles were built using unseasoned timber and by the late 1940s, were beginning to fall apart at the seams and needed urgent repair or replacement, although mechanically they remained quite sound. The coming of the V Weapons in 1944 caused new problems for
London Transport and the worst incident involving flying bombs came on 18 July 1944 at Elmers End Garage, which took a direct hit from one of these weapons. Sadly, 16 people including 10 London Transport staff lost their lives here and another 32 buses were completely destroyed
with another 28 vehicles that needed re-bodying. It speaks volumes for the resilience of London Transport's staff and organisation, that a full service was operated the following morning, with sufficient vehicles scraped together from around the fleet and staff who rallied to
assist from other areas. As often in these incidents, there was an act of heroism involving a member of staff, John Cunningham who was the appointed "watcher" on duty when the flying bomb came into view. He sounded the alarm and remained at his post sounding the alarm and ensured
that staff headed for the shelters, thus saving many lives in the process. Sadly, John Cunningham lost his life in the subsequent explosion. When the garage was rebuilt in 1954, one of the entrances was named "The Cunningham Gate" in his honour and contained a memorial stone
commemorating the London Transport staff who lost their lives here. Sadly, the garage was closed and demolished in 1986 following the privatisation of London Transport but fortunately, the memorial was rescued and is now part of the London Transport Museum's collection at Acton.
This is my last thread before Christmas, although I expect that I'll be tweeting nonsense between now and then, but if we don't communicate before then, I'd like to wish you all a very happy and peaceful Christmas and lets all hope for better things in 2021!/END
