X55 and X81: Ensignbus Running DaySaturday 6th December 2014Prepared by Ian Smith, 17th December 2013.Part Three: Shenfield Station to UpminsterX81: Shenfield to Brentwood (RML 2588)I seemed a very long time before the RML came back to the Shenfield Station stop on its way back to Grays. Again it was the seat behind the driver. So when M1 passed us a minute or so later it was once more squeezed between the driver and the window pillar (the picture, that is, not the bus!)
BrentwoodI did not stay on the RML for long. Very quickly we were back into Brentwood, a very bus-rich environment, with a wide variety of operators. SK07HLV on the 261 was an EnviroDart of Ambus, already secondhand (from London United where it was SDE17).First Essex has several routes, including the 9 (Warley-Basildon). First Essex 41525 is an ex-First London Dart SLF/Caetano, earlier DMC41525. I alighted from RML2588, which burbled off towards Lakeside and Grays. Behind it was First Essex Dart SLF Pointer 43715, now getting on in years but still looking smart. Go-Ahead London, in its Blue Triangle guise, now supplies the London connection to Brentford with route 498 (Remember the old London Transport Country Area maps, where there was a gap in the Country doughnut, with Brentwood and Romford linked with a dashed line: Central Bus route 287?). Providing the red bus presence now was Optare Olympus 888, far from its origins with Metrobus at Croydon. First Essex Dart SLF 43801 (a 2002 model) looked smart in the new First livery, with prominent Essex fleetname. Regal Busways provided EnviroDart 651 on the local 565 route. First Essex Dart SLF 42486 let the side down in the looks department, with a pair of red bumper corners (which it has worn since at least August). It was heading east for Chelmsford on the 351. Ensignbus 703 came back from Brentwood Station on route 81, heading for Shenfield and Hutton. Blue Triangle 890 trundled up from the west with a 498. X86: Brentwood to Upminster (T499)Then T499 turned the corner by the traffic lights, and came down to the stop. Last year it had been given a temporary livery as a US Army Clubmobile. Now it was gloriously turned out in original pre-war triple-green GreenLine livery. It was working on the X86 between Brentwood and Upminster.Behind it was RP90, London Bus Museum's AEC Reliance, shadowing the 10T10. It pulled in past the Stephenson's Solo on the 72. I joined the Regal, claiming the seat behind the driver once more. We headed out along the London Road, to Brook Street, then turned left onto country lanes, ducking under the railway and over the M25. We met RF319 coming the other way on the X86. We headed towards Cranham, briefly joining the route of the London Outer Orbital Path, as we crossed over the trunk A127 dual carriageway. We met a Stagecoach Scania on the 248 to Cranham: the route no longer requires RLHs! We reached Upminster, and turned down into the station forecourt, where I alighted. RP90 was still just behind.
T499 and RP90 loaded up again and headed off for Brentwood. I headed up the bank onto the High Street to find the bus stop for the X55 south.. Part Four: Upminster to Gravesend Photos by Ian Smith. Click on any of them for a larger picture.
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