London Buses route ELW

London Buses route ELW is a London Underground rail replacement service for the East London Line in London, United Kingdom. The service is currently contracted to First London. The service does not accept TfL bus tickets, bus passes or any on board payments.

History
The route was introduced on 23 December 2007 as a replacement for the East London Line, running between Whitechapel and Wapping, along with Route ELP (Rotherhithe - Canada Water) and Route ELC (Canada Water - Surrey Quays - New Cross - New Cross Gate), in addition to Route ELS (Whitechapel - Shoreditch Bethnal Green Road) which had been running since the closure of Shoreditch Station.

Route ELS
The ELS was introduced on 10 June 2006 as a replacement for the East London Line, resulting from the permanent closure of Shoreditch Station, running between Whitechapel and Shoreditch, operating the same hours as the peak extension Shoreditch service on the East London Line. The route initially used two Optare Solos operated by Travel London from Walworth Road Garage. The frequency of services was every 20 minutes Monday to Friday peak hours (every 10 minutes Sunday market hours), although this was reduced to every 30 minutes when the route was absorbed into route ELW on 19 July 2008.

Extension to Shoreditch
On 19 July 2008 the ELS was withdrawn, being replaced by a peak hour extension of the ELW to Shoreditch, and a conversion of the ELW to single deck. The double deck Enviro400s, which ran from Dagenham Garage were replaced by single deck Marshall Capital Dennis Darts (DMS), running from Lea Interchange. A low bridge in the Shoreditch area restricts the use of double deck buses between Whitechapel and Shoreditch, but since the ELW is little used the route can accommodate single deck buses over the whole length of the route. With the conversion to shorter single deck buses, the opportunity was also taken to re-route the ELW southbound from Cable Street to The Highway via Cannon Street Road, a more direct and less congested routing than the previous routing via Dock Street.

Route ELW will be discounted from 15 May 2010.

Current route
Note: Rail Replacement Service ONLY stops at the London Underground Station stops listed below.

Route departing Wapping

 * Wapping station High Street Stop A
 * Shadwell station Cable Street Stop A
 * Whitechapel station Whitechapel Road Stop B
 * Shoreditch Brick Lane Peak Hours Only

Route departing Shoreditch

 * Shoreditch Brick Lane Peak Hours Only
 * Whitechapel station Whitechapel Road Stop A
 * Shadwell station Cable Street Stop A
 * Wapping station Pursom Street