London Buses route 196

London Buses route 196 is a Transport for London contracted bus route in London, United Kingdom. The service is currently contracted to London General. The route is one of the longer routes in South London. Connecting the borough of Croydon to Central London, quite simlar to the 468 which it runs parralel with for most of it's journey. (The 468 runs from South Croydon to Elephant and Castle. Since in 2006 when London General got the contract back to run the route it has been serviced by brand new (and London's new base bus, which used to be filled in by Routemasters) Alexander Dennis Enviro 400 and on one or two occasions Volvo B7TL/Wright Eclipse Gemini have been used. Although some people thought that General could of used this model on a more central route as the front window makes it perfect for sightseeing. (The closest the 196 gets to the city/north of the river is on a short section next to Vauxhall Bridge!) The route runs on main roads and usually in most parts uses the shortest and quickest way there, apart from a slight quirk at Stockwell where it goes straight outside the bus garage (owned by Lonmdon General, and also the home of the 196). The weird bit is that the garage is on a residental road, and getting a new double decker bus to go down there without wanting it to get scratched is quite a task!

History
The 196 used to run from Tufnell Park Hotel to Waterloo in 1950, this service (like most at that time) was only on weekdays (Monday to Friday) and ran via places and London landmarks such as Kings Cross, Euston, Kingsway and Aldwych. The service replaced the 239 entirely and the northern section of the 68A between Kings Cross and Waterloo. The garage at the time was Chalk Farm (near Camden Town) which later closed in 1993. The route was then extended to Norwood Junction in 1951 on a daily basis (by that time the route also had benn running on Saturdays). An additional Sunday service was added, running on the new section Waterloo - Norwood Junction. This had completely replaced the 68A. In 1958 the Sunday service ceased due to the partly extended 40 from Camberwell Green to Norwood Junction on that day. 1971 saw the Tufnell Park to Euston section replaced by the 239. On the 5th day of 1974 the 196 saw a massive cutback to Brixton. Then in 1987 saw the changes in bus companies and Cityrama was awarded the 196, although this did not last long, as it was awarded to London&Country just two years later.

But they didn't do a very good job, so London General were next to play the game in 1990. The contract was reassigned to London Central in 1997, who favoured use of Leyland Titans. Yet another change happened in 1999 when it went back to London General. But only two years passed when in 2001 the contract passed over to Connex bus (part of Connex who had a terrible reputation in the UK at the time, with their disastrous work on the railways, in fact Connex owned close by Norwood Junction railway station to the southern terminus). Then with the downfall of Connex bus, Travel London tookover. It was only a short time they kept the contract due to complaints of the oldness of the buses, even though they kept the same buses as Connex (Alexander ALX400/Dennis Trident 2). So the contract was passed away again in 2006 to London General for the third time.

Route Departing Norwood Junction

 * Norwood Junction Grosvenor Road
 * South Norwood High street
 * South Norwood Hill Harris College
 * South Norwood Hill Cypress Junior School
 * Upper Norwood All Saints' Church
 * Beulah Hill Spa Hill
 * Beulah Hill Biggin Hill
 * Norwood Crown Point
 * Knights Hill Crown Hill
 * Knights Hill Norwood Garage
 * West Norwood railway station
 * West Norwood Libary'
 * Norwood Road
 * Tulse Hill railway station
 * Tulse Hill Town Centre
 * Norwood Road
 * Brockwell Park
 * Herne Hill Dulwich Road
 * Herne Hill railway station
 * Railton Road
 * Alantic Road
 * Ritzy Cinema
 * Brixton Town Centre
 * Brixton tube station
 * Brixton railway station
 * Brixton Academy
 * Stockwell Road
 * Stockwell tube station
 * Binfield Road
 * Stockwell Garage
 * Lansdowne Way
 * Wandsworth Road Lambeth Collage (Vauxhall Centre) and Southbank University