Now to 8th December.....

One of the special visitors was Stagecoach's RML2665, caught in Whitehall.

RML892 is at the old Streatham Garage, showing the TfL posters that adorned these buses in their final week, telling us that we can still ride RM's on the 9 & 15.
Something we cant do is ride the longer RML version as none of these were allocated to the heritage routes, unless you count the odd appearance from RML2760.

The 159 was the last full route to lose it's conductors on 9th December 2005.

I spent the daylight hours on a chilly but bright Saturday 12th November 2005 to capture the 159 a few weeks before that fateful day, and then I spent the last full day on 8th December 2005 with hundreds of enthusiasts to snap away and ride the RM's for one last time.

Here are some pictures from the both those dates.
Scroll down the page to view more. Click on the thumbnails to see the image.

We start at the old Streatham Garage (AK), which is now sadly a go-kart racing venue!
Buses stand on the forecourt, sharing it with the 60 & P13.
To start us off is RM875, only 1 of two buses out on 12th November with a yellow relief band. This is of course a Marshall refurbished bus, of which there were 9 out that day.

Next up is RM54.
This is an interesting bus as it was the only remaining Routemaster to have non-opening upper deck front windows.

I took a ride through the Saturday traffic through Brixton, Kennington, Westminster and Trafalgar Square up to Oxford Street, where I got off to photograph RM1975 which had done a short to Oxford Circus.

A tale of two back ends. You've heard the saying about looking like the back of a bus, well now you can choose which one!.
See the difference between a 1992 refurbishment sported by RML2572 (right) and a Marshall sported by RM1292 (left).

I thought a view of the platform area was a good idea, showing the conductor's cubby hole and the stairs.

Oxford Street has not been the same without the Routemaster to grace it.
RT3062 leads RML2307 towards Marble Arch.

RM1 was given a day out and I caught it outside Brixton Garage. I couldn't get on it at County Hall, but managed to change at Brixton to ride the last leg on it.
I got a little too close, but at the time the batteries on the camera were beginning to play up, and I just had to get a shot when I could.

My final picture of a 159 was actually from a 159.
When I was a child, this was my favourite seat, downstairs at the front looking over the bonnet, where you could see the driver.
I jumped on an ordinary RML from Brixton Garage to Streatham Station, and the seat was empty. Thus my last ride on a Routemaster on the 159, and indeed on a mainstream route in London was looking out over the familiar shape of a Routemaster bonnet up Streatham High Road.
It brought back so many memories, of rides on the 37 from East Dulwich to Richmond on a summer Sunday, of the 12 to school in Camberwell, and riding the 68 or 109 to Croydon.
Happy days.