Old and New Buses Locally

On a Saturday or Sunday walk coming from Wimbledon Common, it was surprising to see an old London Transport Routemaster    bus adjacent to the war memorial.

Naturally people gathered round to take photographs and to allow young people of whom there were many,  close up views. The 'bus was a number 93 the current route of which does indeed pass by the Common Parkside.

Having only recently visited the Acton ancient  underground train, bus  and tram depot with older brother and younger sister see Old Transport Museum I assumed  wrongly, that the Routemaster was from there. 

A local (to maytrees) on site information column used to be known as Worple but is now part of a large group called nextdoor worple. In any event my query on that site reading:                               

Routemaster buses.

The 93 bus from Putney Bridge to North Cheam has been replaced for a while by the old Routemaster 93 from Putney Heath to Epsom. The new or should I say old, 93 is stopping at normal bus stops in Wimbledon and taking passengers many of whom of course are taking photos. The reason for the change is unclear though; perhaps an anniversary of the first bus running the route?

To my surprise some seventy replies comments and other posts following that query were made. including one signifying that an old single deck green line was running along Woodcote road  in Wallington, to feed the 93 Routemaster.

One knowledgeable reply read:

Special running day organised by the Cobham bus museum based at Brooklands. Some of the older buses only ran from North Cheam to Dorking (93 used to go there on summer Sundays) because LEZ restrictions and the £250 charge for non compliant vehicles. The green bus was probably recreating the 712 Green Line route which used to run through Morden. There used to be several of these such events held in London, now sadly no more as the Council will not make exemptions for historic PSV vehicles unlike cars over 40 years old which are exempt.

Another response indicated that the old buses were running on these routes for one day only. Interestingly some commentators were unhappy about the lack of facilities for disabled users although the old buses ran alongside the normal buses using the same bus stops. One comment though read: 

On Saturday I talked to a lady in a wheelchair in Leatherhead and she was thrilled to see the buses of yesteryear. 

Another nextdoor worple comment was to the effect that a boy apparently with autism, enjoyed the old buses so much that he managed eight separate journeys.

There were no charges or fares for using the buses which were being driven by volunteers.