London Buses route 71

London Buses route 71 is a Transport for London contracted bus route in London, United Kingdom. The service is currently contracted to Transdev London.
The service runs daily but the route is covered by London Buses route 65 at night.
History
The 71 is an example of a what can be called a "drifting route", where the service's current routing bears little or no resemblance to its original route. On route 71, only a few streets in central Kingston remain the same as when in 1952 it first ran from Hammersmith to Kingston. At the time, it provided the first regular service over the Chiswick Bridge (other than previous Sunday only routes 110A/111) and served new places in the Ham area.
The route once gained a brief extension from Hammersmith to East Acton, but by 1961 had lost its Sunday service, with the Sunday only 90C (Staines to Richmond/Hammersmith, now route 290 and 190) covering the Hammersmith to Richmond section instead. From 1960 to 1964 there was also a Saturday only extension which ran from Kingston via Hampton and Lower Sunbury to Sunbury.
In 1968, route 71 was effectively split in half at Richmond. The 90C was introduced on Mondays to Saturdays (an addition to the Sunday only service) between Richmond and Hammersmith only. At this time, route 71 was quite similar to the present day route 371, however it still lacked a Sunday service. Also, the Richmond Hill area was not served and the Kingston terminus was at the bus station rather than the High Street.
A year later in 1969, the service was extended again from Kingston onwards to Leatherhead, replacing route 65. In operating terms, the route generally ran in two sections which overlapped, from Leatherhead to Ham and Surbiton to Richmond. In 1978, this was formalised with new route 265 taking over the Leatherhead to Kingston section (also running on to Richmond on Sundays), with the 71 operating from Surbiton to Richmond only, still without a Sunday service.
However, route 265 only lasted until 1980, at which point the 71 was extended back as far as Chessington. At the same time, the route was diverted via Richmond Hill on Mondays to Saturdays. This replaced the commercial 235 route operated by Pioneer. The section between Chessington and Leatherhead was left to London Country Bus Services with their Green Line route 714 and also occasional garage journeys on route 468. As well as this, certain Monday to Friday peak hour journeys on the route 65 and 71 continued south as far as Malden Rushett.
In 1982, BL class single deckers were replaced by newer LSs in the Kingston area. BLs had operated the 71 on Sundays (with Routemasters running on Mondays to Saturdays). However, the longer LSs could not negotiate a turn on the King's road, so northbound 71s were diverted via Wyndham Road. This Sunday-only diversion provoked initial opposition from residents. On the first day, someone purposely parked a van very awkwardly at a junction, and residents waited with cameras to get photos of the bus mounting the pavement. However, the bus was being driven by a skillful Norbiton driver, who managed just about to get past without even touching the kerbs. The driver, Malc McDonald, said about the incident "I can't understand why the people with cameras looked so disappointed — surely they would have been pleased that their local bus route was able to operate safely?".
Route 65 continued to run between Ealing and Chessington Zoo until the 1987 Kingston Bus scheme, from which time it was cut south of Kingston. Route 71, operated by Kingston Bus with first-generation Daimler DMSs, was enhanced to replace it, including a small diversion via Copt Gilders estate.
As a result, a short section of Leatherhead Road in Chessington, between Bridge Road and Garrison Lane, was unserved by London Buses (apart from the summer Sunday 72). However, LC’s 468 (by then running from Leatherhead to Epsom (“cluster hospitals”) via Chessington) was divided into two Surrey Council supported routes, the 568 (now 467) from Epsom to Chessington Zoo and the 514 (now 465) from Dorking and Leatherhead to Kingston. Both served the affected section of Leatherhead Road. There were still peak hour journeys on the 71 south of Chessington Zoo to Malden Rushett.
In 1989 a new route was introduced, the X71, providing peak hour journeys from Hook Ace of Spades roundabout to the British Aerospace plant in Ham in the morning, returning in the afternoon. The express section was between Kingston and Ham, as well as the route running straight into Kingston via Penrhyn Road rather than going round via Villiers Road as the 71 (and 65) had done.
In 1990 Kingston Bus and its modern garage at Norbiton was closed down, bringing with several local route changes. The 71 was cut to run just between Chessington Zoo and Kingston, the 371 taking over from Kingston to Richmond. This is the point where the last bit of the original 71 route was lost. The route moved to London United’s Fulwell garage. The X71 was extended to Malden Rushett to replace the odd 71 journeys, but did not serve the Copt Gilders estate.
The X71 disappeared in 1992, when route 514 was replaced by route 465 which at first featured peak hour extensions to Ham as a replacement. In 1993, there was another switching of routes, with the section between Surbiton and Kingston swapping with route K1, with route 71 adopting the more direct Penrhyn Road route.. These were replaced during 2009 with Scania OmniCity double deckers.
Whilst the weekday service has always been double deck (officially anyway) the Sunday service was operated by one person operated single deckers from 1971 until 1982. From 1971 to 1977 it was operated by AEC Regal IV (RF-type), from 1977 until 1980 by Bristol LHs, and from 1980 until 1982 by Leyland Nationals. From 1982 a top deck was added to the 71s Sunday service using Metrobuses.
Current route
Route departing Chessington
*Chessington World of Adventures
*Chessington South railway station
*Chessington Copt Gilders Estate/Gilders Road
*Chessington North railway station
*Hook White Hart
*Hook Ace of Spades Roundabout
*Surbiton railway station/Claremont Road
*Kingston upon Thames Eden Street
*Kingston Cromwell Road bus station
Route departing Kingston
*Kingston upon Thames Cromwell Road bus station
*Kingston Eden Street
*Surbiton railway station/Claremont Road
*Hook Ace of Spades Roundabout
*Hook White Hart
*Chessington North railway station
*Chessington Copt Gilders Estate/Gilders Road
*Chessington South railway station
*Chessington World of Adventures

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