240A

Much more famous for being the last route to operate the last TDs, London's last half-cab single deckers, the 240^A became RF operated for a few years before the road was lowered under the bridge at Mill Hill.

RFs 410 and (right) 473 at Edgware in November 1962. The RFs show a mix of old and new - they still carry the route plates over the entrance, but have painted garage codes.

Photo © MA Sutcliffe, Peter Gomm collection

Reason for single-deck operation

The low railway bridge at Mill Hill Broadway, before it was reconstructed along with the building of the M1, meant the double-deck 240 terminated east of the bridge and the 140 to the west.

The low bridge at Mill Hill which caused single-deck operation of the 240A. TD104 heads into Mill Hill Broadway from Hale Lane. See also here for a picture of the reconstruction in progress.

The General’s route 104 was the first to operate the new single-deck LT Scooter in 1931, when LT1001 was delivered to Hendon (AE) and worked the route for three months, before moving to Muswell Hill for the 111 (later the 212). Further deliveries for the route, later that year, went to Edgware (EW) and Cricklewood (W).

At that time, the route worked in two sections, the full route between Edgware and Golders Green being single-deck due to the low railway bridge at Mill Hill, with a double-deck section between Mill Hill East and Golders Green.

As primarily a single-deck route, the 104 was renumbered 240 in October 1934, when it operated a fascinating mix of buses – as well as the Scooters (including a Sunday allocation from Holloway (J)), Cricklewood allocated one T and the single-deck London Six LS6, with NSs for the double-deck section. These ran alongside STs from Edgware but were replaced on Saturdays by STLs from Chalk Farm (CF).

The outbreak of war saw the allocation simplified, with just W providing LT Scooters and STLs. A diversion via Sanders Way in Mill Hill East was introduced in 1940, meaning the route no longer served the station, which had closed in 1939.

Mill Hill East station opened in 1867, on the GNR line from Finsbury Park to Edgware via Highgate. This line became part of the pre-war Northern Heights project, under which the Northern Line would be extended beyond Highgate (the station now known as Archway) over existing steam-operated rail lines. The line from Finsbury Park had branches to High Barnet and Alexandra Palace, and the plans also envisaged an extension north of Edgware to Bushey Heath. Steam services ceased in 1939 and were replaced (in part) by rail-replacement buses from Finchley Central to Edgware.

The war meant that the Northern Heights project was never completed. The extension from Archway to High Barnet opened in 1940, and to serve the Mill Hill Barracks the branch to Mill Hill East was electrified and opened, still as a single track, in 1941 – the last element in today’s Northern Line. The Alexandra Park branch, which passed under Muswell Hill by a weak bridge that forced London Transport to work the busy 212 with single-deckers, continued to operate a shuttle from Finsbury Park until 1954, but the section between Mill Hill East and Edgware never reopened to passenger traffic and closed completely in 1964. Despite considerable work, including the building of the depot (which later became LT’s Aldenham Works), the extension north of Edgware was never built.

Returning to the 240, later in 1940 the single-deck section was shortened to run only to Mill Hill Hendon Way, and the allocation for this section moved back to EW. When Mill Hill East station reopened in May 1941, the single-deck section was extended to terminate there (and the rail replacement service from Finchley was withdrawn), thus diverging slightly from the double-deck section; the double-deck service resumed its former route in 1944. From 1945, this single-deck extension became peak-hours only.

From being largely open country in 1930, the area around Mill Hill was now becoming built up and new roads required new services. In consequence, part of the 240’s single-deck service was extended (using the same Scooters from EW) to Page Street, at the end of Bunns Lane, as new weekday route 240^A.

In May and June 1949, Edgware's Scooters on the two routes were replaced by nine new TDs, a year after Cricklewood's STLs on the 240 had been replaced by new RTs. The following year, the LMR station at Mill Hill was renamed Mill Hill Broadway, but still only offered the north-south service that is now Thameslink (officially 'First Capital Connect').

In July 1951, the 240’s single-deck section was withdrawn completely and the 240^A was extended daily over the new Bittacy Rise and Pursley Road to Mill Hill East station. The new TDs were highly prized and thinly spread, so when the service was increased on the 240^A in November 1951, a pair of former Green Line 10T10s were required until a couple more TDs could be found after the winter. Apart from this period, the TDs settled into a routine throughout the 1950s.

The introduction of the RFs and in particular the service reductions after the 1958 strike saw the TD fleet diminish so that by late 1959 they were working only at EW and at Kingston, where the 215^A was deemed too tight for RFs. These latter finally gave way in February 1962, leaving the 240^A to run London's last half-cab single-deckers on 9 October 1962.

RT4772 (which has just returned to the UK from Canada) on the 240^A and RM516 on the 240 share the stand at Edgware Station.

Throughout this period, the route had run a more frequent service between Edgware and Mill Hill Broadway than further east, with the short-workings described in the timetable as Mill Hill Watford Way and on the blinds as Mill Hill Broadway. The RFs continued this arrangement, running for just over three years until more changes came to the 240 and 240^A in 1966.

The road under the railway was lowered, permitting through operation by double-deckers. This was introduced by the extension daily of the 240 over its 'natural' routing through to Edgware, using a mixture of RMs from Hendon, RTs from Edgware and RTLs from Cricklewood. In addition, trolleybus-replacement route 221 was extended on Mondays to Saturdays from North Finchley to Edgware over the full route of the 240^A, replacing it on those days. The 240^A remained as a Sunday-only route, now RT-operated. The RFs last ran on 22 Jan 66.

This rather fragile arrangement lasted a further nine years, with the RTs giving way to OMO SMSs in January 1971 and the route finally being replaced by Sunday operation of the 221. It ceased operation on 30 Mar 79, the same day as the last RF.

SMS773 at Golders Green on a Sunday in the 1970s.

EDGWARE LT Station, Station Road, Hale Lane, Mill Hill Green Man, Hale Lane, Mill Hill Broadway, Mill Hill Broadway Flower Lane, Flower Lane, Bunns Lane, Page Street Bunns Lane, Page Street, Pursley Road, Sanders Lane, Bittacy Rise, Engell Park, Bittacy Hill, MILL HILL EAST STATION

Red RF routes

Route 240^A

Red RF routes

Route 240A

Route 240^A