Victoria Coach Station

[teamsaint]

don't you just love it when metropolitan types who enjoy the luxury of excellent subsidised rail services have a good laugh at the expense of us "get your hands dirty" types out here in the "Do it yourself" wild west, where the last train ran in the days before space flight !!

[alycidon]

A few weeks ago there was an interesting programme on the TV about Victoria Coach Station, and I made a mental note then not to visit the place - although I have no plans ever to return to London, at all, anyway.

The last time I was in Victoria would have been 1948/1949 when we returned from Bristol by what passed for a coach - but I'm pretty sure that it was only a bus!

[french frank]

The last time I was in Victoria would have been 1948/1949 when we returned from Bristol by what passed for a coach - but I'm pretty sure that it was only a bus!

Did it look like this:



Remember the old double deckers that had no passenger doors? You stepped on the open platform then went inside, sat down (or not) and waited for the conductor to come along, with his rack of coloured tickets, and paid your fare.

[Nick Armstrong]

Remember the old double deckers that had no passenger doors? You stepped on the open platform ...

[teamsaint]

And they had a little metal "Stubber" plate to stop you setting light to the bus with discarded unstubbed cigs.

at least they did in Southampton.

ah, the old No 15...7 stops from heaven......!!

[french frank]

Nothing new, is there? I don't remember the conductor hanging off the platform like that, though

[french frank]

Tell me this is the latest idea for the new London Routemaster:



Not exactly the same as ours, but the same idea. We had 1d - blue, 2d - mauve. 3d - light orange, 4d - limey yellow (I don't remember anything more expensive than that).

[greenilex]

If you go to the London transport Museum in Covent Garden you get a genuine printed ticket from an old rotary ticket machine...

[amateur51]

If you go to the London transport Museum in Covent Garden you get a genuine printed ticket from an old rotary ticket machine...

I think these treasured machines were called a "Gibson".

[Bryn]

Nothing new, is there? I don't remember the conductor hanging off the platform like that, though

I not only remember them doing it, it did it myself, back in the mid-'70s. Oh, and open rear entrance Routemasters still operate on the numbers 9 and 15 routes today, the 'conductors' there mainly to keep order on the boarding platform.

http://golondon.about.com/od/londontransport/a/routemaster.htm

[Dave2002]

A few weeks ago there was an interesting programme on the TV about Victoria Coach Station, and I made a mental note then not to visit the place - although I have no plans ever to return to London, at all, anyway.

Maybe you don't like cities. I have lived relatively near to London for most of the last fourty or so years. It's only in this century that I've started to appreciate it more. I used to think it didn't compare with other major cities, such as Paris, Amsterdam, Rome etc., but now I think it has a lot to offer, and for music and theatre it has surely to be one of the greatest centres in the world, even if you can hear Tchaikovsky 4 and Beethoven 5 rather too often. For theatre in English it is tops. It is dirtier than some, but there are many places of historical interest.

I would agree that Victoria is not a part of London I'd rush to see before anything else. London's railway stations do not have the style of stations such as New York's Grand Metropolitan, but few do, though there are some lovely stations on the line up into Connecticut.

The river views are about as good as most other city river views, though Paris and Stockholm and Budapest are high on the list too. Budapest and Prague are interesting, but smaller, while Rome and Venice are of course splendid.

I have yet to visit Berlin, Madrid, Lisbon, Warsaw, and indeed many other cities, capital or otherwise.

As capital cities go, London is a pretty interesting place, though it is perhaps too large, and too many people live nearby. Despite some of its faults, I would not dismiss London as a city to visit, even if only occasionally.

[scottycelt]

Oh, I used to know the place well often boarding the last bus to Manchester Airport (via Heathrow, Stansted and Birmingham Airport!) after many evenings at the Proms in the 80's. Crucially, the last train to Manchester was always beautifully-timed that it made sure it left a few minutes before scores of potential passengers pouring out from West End shows and concerts, complete with the distinct possibility of much-needed rail fare revenue, could realistically get to Euston. So it was the coach or a night in a dodgy "hotel" nearby.

Those who have never got the last coach to Manchester from Victoria haven't really lived. Being there during the day is certainly a rare experience, but even that palls in comparison to the same place around midnight. Mere dinginess is replaced with almost total blackness and the already foul air is replenished with a new, beery aroma from the hordes of noisy, screaming patrons exiting the public house opposite.

There were (maybe still is) two coaches that left for Manchester at the same time around midnight ... one bound for the city centre, the other for the airport. The regular routine was that a significant chunk of the intended travellers (many no doubt who had previously exited the aforementioned pub) would board the wrong coach, with their large luggage already safely stored deep in the compartments underneath. The result was that both coaches left about 30-45 mins late following a routine pre-departure ticket check with the inevitable cries of 'Eee loove, we're on the wrong ****** bus!'

Ah, sweet, sweet memories .... though it was maybe just as well that I rarely neglected the vital importance of having one or two fortifying and consolatory pre-travel drinks in that pub myself.

[alycidon]

Did it look like this:



Remember the old double deckers that had no passenger doors? You stepped on the open platform then went inside, sat down (or not) and waited for the conductor to come along, with his rack of coloured tickets, and paid your fare.

Not quite as bad as that, ff! Your picture is of a Bedford OB [MHU 915] delivered in April 1950 but if my memory serves me correctly, we travelled on an L6B, probably with a KHW/KHY registration. I was only six or seven at the time!

I certainly do remember the racks of tickets which weren't superseded in Bristol until 1956. Even more memorable were the ticket punches which used to jam, and then the conductor would hurl it at the downstairs front bulkhead. From 1956 Bristol used setright machines that used to cough out a little yellow ticket. Happy days!

[alycidon]

Maybe you don't like cities.

I lived in Barkingside till the age of seven, moved down to Bristol, then 1978 to Ryde [Isle of Wight], and then 1987 to Inverness. 2003 to a village south of Inverness - so, I think that I've got cities out of my blood. Seeing programmes about London, I'm sure that at the age of 70, I just wouldn't be able to cope. We went to Bristol a few weeks ago, and that was horrendous! [albeit not half so horrendous as the Tokyo station featured on TV last week].

[Nick Armstrong]

setright machines

Great minority interest stuff!!

Needless to say there's a website about them!!

http://www.ticketmachinewebsite.com/setrightticketmachines.htm

It's the curvier Gibsons (I learn, about 90 seconds ago) that I remember... !

http://www.ticketmachinewebsite.com/...lbumid=6070877