Route 174 and 175 Heritage Bus Running Day

The Ford factory at Dagenham produced its first vehicle on 1 October 1931. Shortly afterwards, a new bus service was introduced to serve the works, running along New Road and down Kent Avenue from Dagenham Chequers and numbered 224. The level of service increased rapidly and on 6 July 1932, three new peak hour routes were added, including the 175 from Stapleford Abbotts via Collier Row, Romford and Becontree Heath. In off-peak times, the 175 ran as far as Dagenham Chequers, at the southern end of Heathway. Two in every three journeys reached no further north than North Romford Chase Cross. The route was operated from Hornchurch garage (RD), using ST class double-deckers.

The 174 by contrast is a post-war route, introduced in May 1950 to serve new roads east of Heathway and running between Romford Parkside Hotel (in North Street) and Dagenham Kent Avenue via Dagenham Road and Oxlow Lane, initially every 17 minutes. After five months, the northern terminus was changed to Harold Hill Myrtle Road, running via Straight Road and replacing the 86B. Operation was from Barking (BK) and Hornchurch (RD), like the 175 using Guys.
February 1952 saw an extension in Harold Hill to Gooshays Drive and conversion to STL operation. In August 1953, operation transferred to North Street (NS), with a BK allocation (now RTL) on Saturday only. After a phased transition, STLs were finally banished in favour of RTs from December 1953.

As part of the London Bus Museum's programme of bringing heritage buses to the roads of London, our latest event sees buses from the 1940s to 1970s running every 10 minutes alongside the normal daily service on route 175 (Dagenham New Road to North Romford Chase Cross), with limited journeys on route 712 (Romford Station and Passingford Bridge).

In addition, limited journeys will operate on route 174 (Dagenham Kent Avenue and Harold Hill Gooshays Drive) with certain journeys extended to Noak Hill Pentowan.

Bus List:
U 1 - G351
RD 2 - RLH53
RD 3 - STL2377
NS 4 - RT4779
NS 5 - RT2177
NS 7 - RT1798
NS 8 - RML2579
NS 9 - CityBus 250
NS 10 - RT4275
U 11 - RT4548
RD 12 - RT3933
U 13 - RT3871
U 14 - RT1790
RD 15 - RT1658
U 16 - RTL1076
U 17 - RT714
U 18 - RT4424
NS 19 - RM848
NS 20 - TA tba
NS 21 - RM1993 Leyland
BK 22 - RT2150
BK 23 - RTL1105
NS 24 - RM1843
NS 25 - RMA50
NS 26 - RT624
NS 27 - RMA9
NS 28 - RM1397 Leyland
NS329 - DML41424
NS 30 - M1440
NS 31 - RML2456
NS 32 - RM2208
NS 33 - Reading
HA 41 - RF600

Link: https://www.londonbusmuseum.com/route...

175 Timetable: shorturl.at/fkFM6
174 Timetable: shorturl.at/nJLMS
Map: shorturl.at/vOW18


Filmed on: 25/03/2023

Filmed using:
- Canon EOS 250D