London Buses route 185

London Buses route 185 is a Transport for London contracted bus route in London, United Kingdom.The service is currently contracted to East Thames Buses. The 185 does'nt have a base garage and is split between Mandela Way and Belvedere, both quite a distance from the termanating places. The 185 is also torn between bus modles. It sometimes has the Plaxton President which is it's main one but also uses the Wright Eclipse Gemini shared with the 1 at Mandela Way and the 132, 180 and night bus N1 at Belvedere.

Despite saying at the top that it's night bus is the N36 which actually runs from Grove Park to Queens Park via Lewisham and Victoria. It does'nt have an official night bus, as the N36 route does'nt run via Forest Hill and Dulwich. Although for most of the route it runs parralel with the 185.

History
The 185 has had a couple of rocky years. The original route was Victoria to Blackwall Tunnel south side, via the current route and Greenwich. This bus acted as a tram replacement route, at the time the goverment was trying to phase out the trams.

In 1882 the Lewisham to Blackwall Tunnel stretch was withdrawn, with the exception of peak services to Greenwich Church. In 1887 the part between Lewisham and Greenwich was completley scraped, in favour of a shorter route. The route only had minor modifcations between then and 2001, such as garage changes and the buses changing from RTL's (Routemasters) to Titans.

In 2001 Stagecoach London (Stagecoach Selkent at the time) operation was termanated in favour of London Easylink. The operation of the 185 ran smoothly for about a year until in 2002 London Easylink went into liquidation and at short notice Blue Triangle was given the task of organising emergancy cover. Quite a large number of operators were used such as the followering:


 * London Central
 * London General
 * First London (even though they had no double-decker operations in the Lewisham area at the time)
 * Blue Triangle and also
 * The Original tour

This was hassle to people who have'nt traveled on the 185 before. Especially with the Original tour central london buses that Blue Triangle had brang in as some were roofless!

Finally after a long time of this operation, in 2003 East Thames buses got awarded the contract, although it was a wonder why Tfl took so long to make this happen. East Thames Buses inatially started operating with low floor Caetono Compass buses, but these were soon replaced.

Route Departing Lewisham

 * Lewisham station Bus station
 * Lewisham High street
 * Lewisham Shopping centre
 * Ladywell Leisure Centre
 * Universty Hospital Lewisham
 * Catford Rushey Green
 * Catford Lewisham Town Centre
 * Catford and Catford Bridge Stations
 * Catford St. Dunstan's College
 * Stanstead Road Catford Hill
 * Stanstead Road Brockley Rise
 * Forest Hill railway station
 * Forest Hill London Road
 * Horniman Museum
 * Lordship Lane
 * Dulwich Libary
 * East Dulwich Goose
 * East Dulwich railway station
 * Dog-Kennel-Hill
 * Denmark Hill railway station
 * King's College Hospital
 * Camberwell Town Centre
 * Camberwell New Road
 * Camberwell Green
 * Oval station