Our History

Celebrating 50 years of route 123

As part of the trolleybus conversion programme vacant route number 123 was introduced on April 27 1960 between Manor House and Ilford Station replacing most of the old 623 trolleybus service and route 41 extension.

In the early days the buses were mostly Routemaster’s from Walthamstow Garage with some older RTW types from Tottenham until 1965 when the RTW’s were replaced by Routemaster’s

The next significant change was in 1968 when the service was re-routed at Tottenham Hale to Enfield instead of Manor House replacing withdrawn section of Route 275.

In 1977 the route was withdrawn between Winchmore Hill and Enfield Town and converted to one person operation using DMS type buses from Walthamstow Garage with Palmers Green and Wood Green buses withdrawn.

Another re-routing in 1985 meant that Turnpike Lane was served with the route now using the newer Leyland Titan type buses.

The route was shortened again in 1988 when the Wood Green garage to Winchmore Hill leg was cut.

1991 saw another milestone in the routes history when following the privatisation of London Buses the contract to operate it was awarded to Capital Citybus (now known as First London)

In 2005 the contract was awarded to Arriva London at Tottenham garage where service is run from today.

The route now runs between Ilford High Road, Ilford Station and Wood Green Station, via Gants Hill, Southend Road, Tottenham Hale, Bruce Grove and Turnpike Lane.

Route 123 50th Anniversary Celebration

As part of the 50 year celebration Arriva London ran Routemaster buses from the Heritage Fleet and produced a 1:76 scale model.

Some images supplied courtesy of G.Mead, Ian Armstrong and Jim Balke
 

Published: Fri 12 Nov 2010Modified: Fri 12 Nov 2010

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