 | Photo © Richard Pywell. |
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Whatever next – a night bus in the depths of the countryside!! No, actually, DW1 (801 DYE) was photographed threading its way through the sulvan glades of Oaks Road, Addington Hills at 06:12, working the 05:02 N159 departure from Marble Arch on 20 May 2007, on diversion owing to roadworks. The sight of a DW has only been possible since an allocation was introduced from South Croydon garage last year – before the loss of route N68 the whole allocation was from Thornton Heath garage with DLAs, and indeed the bulk of the allocation still is.
| Photo © Richard Pywell. |
This journey only runs through to New Addington on Sunday mornings, terminating at Streatham on other days. Even then this is the last journey; buses run later on Sunday mornings to cover the later start of Croydon Tramlink. Incidentally, just ten minutes before this shot was taken a fully grown wild deer bounded across the road at this point, just one and a half miles from Central Croydon!
The day 159 runs between Marble Arch and Streatham; the N159 does the same but then continues over route 109 to Croydon and then via the former 130 route to New Addington. The Croydon Society Transport Group has suggested that the Night Bus service between Central Croydon and New Addington should run instead via the 64 routeing, serving Selsdon, Monks Hill, and Forestdale estates, rather than via the sparsely populated Shirley Hills Road. This route is purely historical, and the 130 no longer even serves Croydon, while the 119 duplicates the night N159 service between East Croydon and Shirley Park, even running at similar times throughout the night.
The N159 dates back to 1999, when it replaced route N109, at the same time as the 159 was re-routed to serve Westminster Bridge instead of Lambeth Bridge. The N159 was a direct replacement for the N109 south of Kennington, although the N109 had run from Aldwych via Westminster Bridge and Elephant & Castle, whereas the N159 followed the day routeing from Marble Arch. At this time the route had a branch to Coulsdon. This was withdrawn in April 2000 in favour of an extension of the N68 from Purley to Old Coulsdon, with the New Addington service being doubled to half hourly. The N159 was originally operated by London Central from Camberwell garage, but when the contract expired in March 2001 it was retendered with the day 159 to Arriva London South. At the same time the routeing through New Addington was altered to match the 130 via Fieldway – previously buses had run straight along Lodge Lane, although following the 130 through from Parkway to Homestead Way.
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