As it says on the bus, RM 1000 was the 1000th AEC Routemaster to be delivered to London Transport, new in March 1962.

The bus first started life without its branding as that came later as the bus just carried advertisements.

But RM 1000 was later retired from use and soon carried branding to commemorate London Transport's milestone into buying their 1000th Routemaster as the bus is still active at various events each year including the 70th Anniversary of the Routemaster after the bus was purchased back in 1987 for preservation.

In May 2022, Corgi modelled this bus and is also the most recent Routemaster casting produced by the popular model manufacturer.

The reason for drawing the AEC Routemaster is because 1) its about time I drawn one with a 3D interior and 2) which was the final push is because the type celebrates its 70th anniversary this year.

If you hear the word London you might have an image of these very famous buses in your mind, they are regarded as an icon from London and are well loved by many with some still in the capital city working tours and other uses such as private hire, some might say this bus gets far too much attention like in the media but just to prove how much loved these buses are, back in the 2000s there was a protest to keep these buses on the road but with the rise in technology and low floor buses making more of an influence it was clear the Routemaster had its day after being replaced by low floor double deckers and articulated buses.

In 2012 Wrightbus launched their own modern day answer to the AEC Routemaster, named as the NB4L or New Routemaster but unlike the original Routemaster, Wright's New Routemaster brought along some controversy in its time, once being dubbed as the 'vanity project' by locals and now the rear platform is permanently closed off, the air-con being unreliable so hopper windows were installed, and now most if not all are in the process of being refurbished with one being converted to all-electric drive, something which is unlikely to happen on the rest of the fleet, plus exactly 1000 were produced but many more AEC Routemasters were made in many more configurations including standard length, the RML and also the RMX. Some had front entrances and those were called the RMA with the RMC coach primarily for London Transport's Green Line services. However AEC produced a one-off rear engined Routemaster which is named as the FRM.

The type replaced the AEC Regent III RT but unfortunately after the AEC Routemaster there was no proper replacements as AEC ceased trading before any new answer to the Routemaster came out. The only true replacements were Mercedes-Benz Citaro Gs which like Wrightbus' New Routemaster brought some controversy including some bursting into flames with some accidents including a few fatalities concerning cyclists which the latter is what led to their premature withdrawal from use and were seen in other areas in the UK and even as far away as Malta.

But with such a popular type, the AEC Routemaster is a popular type in preservation and is quite popular in model form aswell in many scales especially in OO (1:76 scale) but the largest has been produced by Sunstar and Revell in 1:24 scale even to this day and the largest was 1:12 produced by Hachette.

I myself have had some memories of this great type, I have taken a few photos of this type like in York and once at White Rose Centre in Leeds whilst one was being used for a one-off Mothers' Day pamper event in 2018. I once looked round one in York in 2015/16 which was the only time I snapped Routemasters in York but speaking of the historic city, perhaps the most unusual Routemaster EDS 300A has an open staircase after having a large chunk of its rear being removed for the sake of making the bus look more older than it already is, that bus belonged to Yorkshire Belles but the whereabouts of that bus is now unknown.

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**Originally uploaded in 2012**

LT1 was the first Wright New Routemaster built for London and was new to Arriva London.

The New Routemaster project was started in 2008 as part of a design competition to design the 'new bus for London as the project was started by ex-Mayor of London (now Prime Minister) Boris Johnson. As a result the New Routemaster is often affectionately nicknamed 'Borismaster' by locals and enthusiasts. Ironically the 38 route the bus drawing depicts was previously worked by articulated Mercedes-Benz Citaro Gs as when Boris had just become Mayor of London whom clearly wanted the bendy buses out and the NB4L seemed to be the ideal replacement, what do you think?

Wrightbus might have built this bus but its actually designed by Heatherwick Studios. The Wright StreetDeck and Gemini 3 have some similarities with the New Routemaster like shallow upper deck windows, curved roof and similar wheel arches.

Production lasted six years and overall 1000 of this type were built, however during these six years, the buses proved to be highly controversial as some branded the buses a 'vanity project' when it was reported the fares went up on the New Routemaster's first day of service. The iconic rear platform on all this type has been permanently closed allegedly due to a lot of fare evasion happening on these buses, this was one reason the articulated Citaros were disliked among Londoners with some calling them 'free buses'.

Also the whole fleet received new hopper windows because the air-con equipment was unreliable and was once reported to be loud.

There are a few unique members of the New Routemaster batch, including LT812 which is the only one which is shorter than standard. Also, Wright also released the less common 'SRM' basically a Volvo B5LH but with the New Routemaster style body, it was to compete with the Enviro400 City which suspiciously has numerous similarities to the New Routemaster. Unlike the Enviro400 City the Wright SRM has not been sold outside London.

The New Routemaster meanwhile isn't as different to some types of buses. Did you know a Volvo Ailsa (A103 SUU) was built with the second set of doors placed at the very rear opposite side of the rear staircase. Similar story with Walsall Corporation's XDH 56G a Northern Counties bodied Daimler Fleetline built to the same configuration. Also in Berlin, tri axle MAN Lion's City double deckers feature three sets of doors and twin staircase like the New Routemaster, but are slowly being retired and are being replaced by Enviro500 MMCs.

In 2010, Yutong launched a bus for Skopje, Macedonia which bears a striking resemblance to the original Routemaster and one of the potential designs for the New Bus for London. The bus in question is a Yutong City Master. They are powered by diesel engine whereas the New Routemasters are actually hybrids so are powered by diesel and electric.

In the early 2010s a couple of New Routemasters were seen outside London for round the world tours whereas a couple stayed in the UK primarily for testing and public demonstrations. Neither of those tests in West Yorkshire and Scotland got anywhere and no similar vehicles were ever bought outside the capital city.

In 2022, it was decided that the whole New Routemaster fleet was to be refurbished, and sure enough the first few have been done already despite a few news sources saying they were to be retired from service. So far none have been retired due to age but sadly LT174 is the so far the only New Routemaster to be written off due to being destroyed by fire.

The New Routemaster has been released in toy form by many sources including Corgi who was one who released this type in model form and is a regular in most of their catalogues. LT1 seen in the drawing was Corgi's first release of the New Routemaster with the exact same destinations and adverts again as seen above.

Today though, LT1 carries the old gold London Transport fleetnames, even the Arriva fleetnames now appear gold.

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In 2002, London received their first 31 articulated buses for the Red Arrow route 507. MAL31 was the last of this batch.

Later MAL31 was often seen on other routes during her time in service like the 521.

In January 2006, MAL31 was modelled by Creative Master Northcord Ltd wearing this livery and sporting the destination depicted in the drawing. The bus also resides in my existing collection.

10 years later, MAL31 was transferred to CT Plus Bristol for the P&R 904 service and was painted in the dedicated blue livery. Since then there has been no word of where this bus has been since 2014 so is presumably withdrawn or scrapped.

Mercedes-Benz Citaro Gs have been a famous yet controversial type for London due to various reasons. One including a breakout of fires that occurred in 2004 which gave the Citaro a bad name for quite a bit. All of this type had to be recalled for fire suppression modifications which resulted in the Mercedes-Benz Citaro G demonstrator being drafted in to help with the unique Hispano Habit bodied Volvo B7LA.

In later years these bendy buses were involved in some crashes mainly with cyclists, some of those were fatal which added more controversy to this type. As a result when ex-Mayor of London Boris Johnson just started his role as mayor, he shown a huge dislike to bendy buses and wanted to get rid of this type, and gradually he did just that and replaced the buses with 1000 Wright New Routemasters. Because of all this, its all sparked debate which is ongoing to this day about how efficient bendy buses are compared to double deckers. Many have argued a bendy bus carries more people with them carrying more standees in particular. Also, many bendy bus enthusiasts (like myself) have questioned their safety, which many have put down to our British roads as they've been a common theme abroad for years, longer than we've been having them. Remember Leeds has had a longer history with articulated buses and no problems related to them being bendy buses as the only issues were one ended up in a bakery window, and an isolated one-off engine fire, both occurring in 2006 on the Wright Fusions working route 1. A Wright StreetCar was also noted to have had an engine fire, but damage was much less extensive and was repaired. That incident was also posted on YouTube.

I suppose both double decker and bendy buses have their advantages and disadvantages, one disadvantage for doubles is that they often hit low bridges, this has happened in Leeds a few times in the past. In York, the requirement for bendy buses is still strong despite only around 3 left for route 2/2A for them to access through a low bridge near the railway station. However, bendy buses are more expensive to maintain, also one would question depot space. The other good thing about bendy buses is the quick alighting system where you can easily get off at the back but on a double decker you have to exit one door most places outside London. One other problem for the bendy buses in London was fare dodgers which could be put down to the fact the bus has three doors like the New Routemaster, but as explained in my earlier upload about the New Routemaster the rear platform is no longer in use so now is working more like a normal London bus. Again, abroad BVG are working tri axle double deckers with three doors and two staircases and they've been having no issues, even British manufacturer ADL is producing the next generation of such for the Germany city.

But whether you love them or loathed them, they were good people movers, as mentioned they had no controversy elsewhere as Aberdeen who've had them for 22 years now are using ex-First York Citaros for their 1/2 services which has seen little change over the years.

Back to London's bendy bus history though, the Citaro wasn't the first one as history can date back to the 80s when a Mainline liveried Leyland DAB was on trial in the capital city, a video can be seen on YouTube. In the early 2000s a few Wright bodied Volvos from First were there for a short time on route 207, only one being repainted into the red livery. Route 207 was the last bendy bus route in London which was later worked by double decker Scania Omnicitys.

Despite the controversy in London the Citaro has been a popular type across Europe. Citaros are still being sold in the UK to this day including the articulated variety but only for airports for now although articulated bus orders have slowed right down for operators, the most recent being for Metro in Ireland who works Van Hool ExquiCitys which look very much like the Wright StreetCars.

Meanwhile to this day there are some ex-London bendy Citaros still about knocking in places, sadly Brighton & Hove who received a few ex-Red Arrow ones with the latter 57 plate ones have withdrawn their artics although a farewell day with one providing a free-ride with donations accepted for an unknown charity. Also at least one is preserved and that happens to be another one of the ex-Red Arrow examples but it wasn't MAL31 which is most likely scrapped. Another place to see ex-London Citaro Gs are some airports dotted across the country, Manchester had a few for a short while working alongside their own bought new, also a bit more closer to home Leeds/Bradford Airport have a few ex-Stagecoach and Brighton & Hove ones and are repainted into a dedicated grey/white livery. These buses work airside duties with a small number of Optare Tempos.

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In 1970, London Transport bought a huge 2646 strong batch of Daimler Fleetlines with the DMS style body. The bodies were either built by Park Royal or MCW as both options had little differences that told them apart.

The buses were built between the years 1970 and 1982 and proved to be unreliable buses as they were let down by slow boarding/alighting times so weren't punctual, this was caused by the boarding/alighting system they used some of the ticketing equipment proved unreliable also.

Because of this many of the Daimler DMS' were withdrawn early only to be sold on to other fleets outside London including China Motor Bus. The Daimler DMS proved to be a popular second hand choice for many it seemed as many were converted to single door operation with the front doors configured for standard boarding/alighting as the split front doors were rather unique as I believe the Daimler DMS is the only bus to have this feature.

The DMS has been modelled a few times by EFE and other manufacturers alongside parent company to EFE Gilbow who was one of two manufacturers who made the big 1:24 scale versions packed with generous amounts of detail.

In the end the Daimler DMS was replaced by Leyland Titans with Park Royal bodies, and MCW Metrobuses as these two types proved reliable and also led longer lives as most didn't make it to outside London as they were so favourited.

In all some Daimler DMS' exist in preservation including the first one DMS 1 in the drawing but the rest are no longer in service as most have been scrapped sadly.

The Daimler Fleetline chassis was the second rear engined double decker chassis built for the UK after Daimler's rivalling Leyland's Atlantean. Later Fleetlines were sold by Leyland. There wasn't any such replacements for the Fleetline however I guess Leyland's Atlantean in a way was, as this move boosted sales for the type right up until the early 80s. The Daimler name was barely mentioned on buses afterwards but only small hints like from Daimler-Benz who are now known as Mercedes-Benz but if anything the Daimler name can be heard more often now on double deckers of today with the likes of the Optare Metrodecker and Wright StreetDeck which have a Daimler OM934 engine or if you want to count the Daimler OM934 engine which is more famously the engine for the Citaro but also a very fair few Wright StreetDecks with Go-Ahead and Bus Vannin.

DMS 1 had a Park Royal body and was of course the first one built so it was a great candidate to be preserved, and as seen to this day, the bus still exists, sure enough in preservation and is stored at the London Transport Museum.

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All drawings I do have been done using just MS Paint since the beginning as I very rarely use bits of work from other sources.

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Over the years Metrobus Ltd of Crawley received some Leyland Lynxes with both Mk1 and Mk2 bodies.

K101 JMV was new in August 1992 and became part of the 7 strong fleet of Lynxes at Metrobus after spending time with the Volvo Training School for a limited time since new. It was given fleetnumber 101

This bus later spend time with Go-North East with fleetnumber 4999 as Go-North East was under the Go-Ahead group just like Metrobus was. K101 JMV was wearing the Northumbria Buses livery and was branded for the 516 (Newcastle - Morpeth - Thropton) route.

Later, K101 JMV was withdrawn in 2004 as many Leyland Lynxes all over the UK were withdrawn around this time but it didn't mean the end for this lovely bus.

K101 JMV then received the 101 fleetnumber again and was preserved in the 'Red Rider' livery before being repainted again back into Metrobus livery.

The Leyland Lynx was a popular bus back in the day and was Leyland's last single decker bus before production ceased in 1994. The last variation of the Lynx was of course the Mk2 bearing a few different features to the Mk1 design, this being revised panelling on the roof, lower floor, and the biggest difference being the protruding front end. The Lynx which replaced the Leyland National gave way to Volvo's B10B and DAF's SB220 since Leyland's demise during the early 90s.

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I am to post bus drawings more often on Twitter throughout 2021, and the link to my Twitter account can be found right here where I also post about the odd random thing aswell > twitter.com/MetroRider30

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