Romancing the Routemaster

Posted on 6/28/2007 Post Comment -

A picture of cricketer Saurav Ganguly standing on the rear platform of a routemaster double decker in Belfast set me thinking. The bus seemed to be an exact replica of the ones that plied in many of the Indian cities like Bombay and Trivandrum. Way back in 1967, I used to travel by public transport bus to school. Those days Trivandrum(now Thiruvananthapuram), capital of Kerala, had a couple of double deckers with call signs A 1, A 2 and so on.

 

These were British Leyland with the coachwork of the classic routemasters of London. A deep throated grunt announced their arrival and it was quite a sight to see them majestically swing past the round-about just before the bus-stop. The boarding platforms were wide and generous, unlike the narrow doors of many of  the present day city buses. A curved staircase led to the upper deck. It was quite a thrill to occupy the front seat on the upper deck as it gave the feeling that I was driving the bus. The rear seat with its single glass window was another attraction. The only problem was that this was one window that could not be opened.

 

The lower deck had long seats placed sideways over the rear wheel wells. This was not preferred accomodation as one could not see anything outside because of the seating position. Later on, in Delhi, I got to travel on articulated double deckers. These retained much of the characteristics of the routemasters except that the drivers cabin was separate and the bus body was half mounted on the truck chasis like platform. These buses also made their stately way across the broad streets of  New Delhi and one could travel on the top deck keeping a vary eye for the tree branches that drummed on the roof and could poke you in the eye, if you are not careful. Unfortunately, these buses had to make way as they were found to be too slow and had a carrying capacity of lesser number of passengers that the ordinary single deck buses. Thus, they also rode into the sunset, almost two decades before the famous London routemasters took their final bow.