London Buses Route 453 - History

History

The 453 was formed from London Buses route 53 on 15 March 2003, the weekend that the London congestion charge began. It was run by Stagecoach London. The route operates from Deptford to Marylebone, initially with Citaro O530Gs, known as "Bendy buses", although double-deckers had to be used for the first four weeks as Mercedes-Benz could not deliver enough in time. Night bus variant N453 was introduced at the same time, also using articulated buses.

The 453 originally started from the first busy single stop on the 53, at Deptford, outside Addey and Stanhope School, then follows the 53 via New Cross, New Cross Gate, Old Kent Road, Bricklayers Arms, Elephant & Castle, St. George's Circus, Westminster, to Whitehall, then Regent Street, Oxford Street, Great Portland Street, Regent's Park and to Marylebone. The section north of Oxford Circus was a new service designed to create a new south - west link at Regent's Park Underground station.

The buses were based at Selkent's Plumstead (PD), as were those for the 53, which is a long way off route and results in a lot of empty running. The planned terminus at Deptford's Seager development (by Deptford Bridge DLR station) was delayed for three years. As there was nowhere else suitable to turn the buses round, buses ran empty all the way to and from Lewisham to turn round and stand. Selkent proposed to extend the service to Catford (TL), where the route would have been based, but buses are now able to turn around at Deptford.

This was the second of the "bendy bus" routes to operate out of Zone one (after the 436; the 507 and 521 were the first bendy buses, operating from 5 June 2002). In common with all bendy routes in London, tickets are not issued by the driver. Anecdotal evidence suggests that fare evasion rates are quite high despite more intensive ticket checking than normal, sometimes backed up by the Metropolitan Police stopping a whole bus and then checking everyone's tickets. In an interview with James Righton of New Cross-based musical act Klaxons in the 2006 NME Student Guide, he encouraged readers to take the "45free" bus, a reference to the easily avoidable fare.

A surprising change from 15 January 2005 was the reduction of the Monday to Friday frequency from every 6 minutes to every 8 minutes, although there are a couple of extra peak hour journeys. This was mainly to free up five Citaros for route 25 for East London.

A large section of the route of the 453 parallels the Bakerloo line (Marylebone, Oxford Circus, Elephant and Castle etc.) and is very useful at times when the Bakerloo line is suspended due to engineering works.

Operation of route 453 was transferred to London General on 16 February 2008, with a new batch of Citaros, which have the new Euro 4 style front and rear ends.

On 24 September 2011, route 453 was converted to double deck using new Alexander Dennis Enviro400.

On 19 November 2011, route 453 was retained by Go-Ahead London.