WE pulled away round through the narrow back streets, passing RF679, and turned right to reach the War Memorial, where we came across RT3148 and a Southdown Leopard. The latter was heading for Kingscote, so went straight ahead at the roundabout, but we turned down the High Street and delicately negotiated the speed humps. I navigated Mike down to the Station, where we paused briefly for a photo.
We continued, up the ramp to the railway bridges, then north-west towards Felbridge, where we passed the day's other RMC, 1469, heading back for East Grinstead. The 424 is one of those strange routes with alternative routings but without suffixes to the route number. I didn't volunteer to navigate this section, as I had previously gone by both routes (Snow Hill and Crawley Hill), and could not remember either clearly. Today we were going via Crawley Down, so after forking left at Felbridge we forked left again. A brief spot of countryside was met as we dipped down to cross the Felbridge Water and wind up the other side, then suburbia resumed through Crawley Down. We turned right onto the 434 route for the brief run up to The Dukes Head, where we turned round the roundabout.
Rewinding the final destination blind unwound it from its roller, so we had an interesting few minutes upstairs at the front trying to coax the blind back onto its roller so that it would wind on, despite having no useful sticky tape. We did succeed, and East Grinstead (King Street) duly appeared for the return trip.
We had an uneventful ride back to East Grinstead, and I duly alighted at the dolly stop in King Street. I went up into the carpark, where RM2116 was accompanying a trade stall, looking glorious in the sunshine in the 1933 style livery it first received in 1983 for LT's Jubilee celebration. I recrossed King Street just as RML2330, repainted in dark green, came in on a 409 turn.
Also loading in King Street for its turn on the 424 was Daimler Fleetline XF3. Up the side street RMC1469 was parked, giving an opportunity to view its RCL-style front display. Further up in the carpark was RM835, wearing Clydeside yellow and red livery.
Now I wouldn't want you to get the impression that this had suddenly turned into a Routemaster event. It was just happenstance that at this time of the day I saw a variety of them in succession. It is nice, though, to see the green RMLs making a comeback, even if they don't sound right yet! But there were other buses around too. Red RT2043 was resting from its exertions on route 409. I went over to talk to Roger Stagg, but he was somewhere else at the time. NBC green RT604 was likewise resting in the bus park.
Also resting in the bus park were RF672 and GS1, both between turns on the 494. I now wanted something different to do, and stumbled across a pair of Greenline RFs...
All photos by Ian Smith. Click on most of them for a larger picture.
Back to Ian's Bus-stop
Part 2: East Grinstead
Part 4: Greenline RFs