aldenham works routemaster london transport 

What a shame that the government don't realise that this is the most efficient and environmental way to run a vehicle, it's repaired or overhauled rather than being replaced. A new car takes more energy and causes more pollution to build initially than it will use and produce in its life. Mini turn out 1000 cars a day, if we all kept the cars we had, upgraded the engine to the latest spec every few years (as LT did with Routemasters) we would do far less harm to this planet than buying new all the time.

The once highly skilled middle class that took pride in their work no longer exists today. What a job to have. It was a lifetime career.

Great piece of history. When a man's work was worth something...

What a fabulous documentary,this should be compulsory viewing for children in all schools.Then they could see how their great and grandparents worked.

Nostalgia for a time when recycling actually meant something. Never again will so many skilled craftsmen be employed in such a worthy enterprise.

Makes me feel good to be British to see the pride and care the older generation took in their work and the quality of the finished busses. They looked as good as they day they were built. You never seen such dedication anymore to such things, its all slapdash and done as quick as possible. Im always seeing modern busses with their engine covers open beside a road with smoke or steam coming out. Such a shame. The RT,s and RM,s could have gone on forever if this works still existed, it actually SAVED MONEY for LT. Todays methods are, "oh just rip it out and buy a new one!"

Aldenham Overhaul Works was a great place to 'bus spot' in the school holidays. We could only dream of actually getting into the place to see the rare treasures within, so wandering the perimeter fence with a good pair of binoculars was the order of the day. When the workers finished their shift a parade of about 20 buses left the Works to carry them to their various 'home' locations, and that was a treat to see as many of the buses were rare, out of service ones like pre war RT's. Happy days!

Lovely film! Such care and pride taken. When I was a kid, my neighbour drove for Crossville buses in North Wales. Every year he would take his old Ford Cortina into the works where they would steam clean the underside then spray it with that silver paint (probably contained all sorts of harmful chemicals) then cover every moving part in grease. Oddly enough, that car never rusted or wore out and passed the annual inspection without issue. It's all about maintenance!

RIP Bob Grant (Jack Harper) and Reg Varney (Stan Butler). Every time I see old buses I think of you both laughing.

What a great film and it brought fantastic memories back from when I worked there and did my apprenticeship. Great design and layout of the busses in those days and also the Aldenham Works which was a fantastic place to work. Such a shame that it was forced to close down as the care and attention of our public transport has declined ever since!

I used to work on the rts and rms and rmls on London transport in the 70's as a conductor I worked out of new cross garage and my late father was a chief mechanical engineer at Camberwell bus garage

Such work would be priceless today. Hardworking, skilled men ! With respect, best regards from south Germany

During the 1970s and 1980s I was a bus conductor at Riverside Bus Garage in Hammersmith and whenever we had a bus come back to us from Aldenham Bus Overhaul Works, it looked and even smelled like a brand new bus.

Looks like an interesting job with a lot of potential for taking pride in your work. Nice video.

when public transport was run as a service.... rather than profit

What jolly background music - made me think I was listening to a fairground organ.

My goodness how lovely is this. I absolutely adore those red route master buses. I'm an ex Rolls Royce car painter and can relate to the pride in attitude and ability that these workers have. The UK i remember has now long gone, but posts like this puts a smile on my face because this was a time when the 'Great' in Great Britain actually meant something.

It's all about making as much money as possible. Back in the day this film was made the top priority was actually providing a decent service.

I worked in exactly the same environment in Birmingham’s bus repair works, Tyburn rd in Erdington as a sheet metal worker. I can honestly say we did exactly the same work as London city transport the skill levels of all involved were outstanding and if you needed a job doing from any of the trades on questions ask as long as the favour was reciprocal. Brilliant times never to be repeated unfortunately but glad I was lucky enough to have been part of it .

I used to work at Aldenham up until they closed it in 1986. What a tragedy.There was some great caracters there and a great community spirit. They shipped us off to Chiswick but that didnt last long,

I think we've somehow lost the "plot".....we showed the world how to professionally maintain our buses.....then we "let" politicians destroy a very unique and "British" way of doing things......

I bet this was a fantastic place to work. So sad things change and places close.

It’s so healthy to see a collection of hard-core bus nerds in action. Last weekend( 23-03 24), Barking depot held it’s centenary with a rally of thirty or more RT’S to ride for free. Fortunately, there is a bus stop only twenty feet from my home. So of we went freewheeling. The RT is the bus of my youth, if I could own one I would; but parking is a problem.

Great documentary! Love the hyperactive, rumty-tumty music. Despite the "routemaster" reference in the title, we see only the earlier RT family buses.

Betya these blokes managed to pay off a mortgage & keep a wife & kids from just the one wage packet.

Aldenham no longer exists now. In 1984, however, my late father and I paid a visit during an open day to the public. It was an interesting experience, and a thoroughly enjoyable day. As well as being able to the various working areas, there was a demonstration of how to "upright" an overturned bus using airbags (I dont think the Routemaster used in the demo ever ran again!!) opportunities to drive a Routemaster supervised on the test track, and a free courtesy bus to and from Stanmore tube station. I was in the industry myself for about 10 years from 2007 onwards, but it's a different world now.

Incredible documentary. All work done by hand by British craftsmen with virtually no power tools at all. Probably not the most efficient processes and one can only imagine the cost of overhauling a bus to this standard..

This made me very sad. I drove RT and RM buses for many years and lived not far from Aldenham. These vehicles could have gone on giving good service for a very long time. Such is the price of "progress"

Lovely to watch,I joined the coach industry on the yts in 1987, Working for a local coach operator and loved it, Got made redundant after they were taken over by a bus company, I then worked for vanhool until I changed career in my forties,and Sad to watch the demise of the coach and bus industry in the uk, I was always proud to work and wore the companies named with extra pride, Sadly those days are gone now.

As a kid i recall seeing the chassis's built at Park Royal (AEC) being driven to Aldenham , The driver perched on a seat, hunched over the steering wheel , totally open to the elements, wearing goggles, scarves, lagging etc etc

Was an apprentice welder there in the 70s, then went to Chiswick. Happy days

Lovely, glad this film survived. Lot of childhood memories on buses such as that.

There's also an RLH on the chassis line. You can see the A208 engine with top mounted air cleaner and the chassis with leg extensions to the rear - RLH only features.

Privatisation killed off all those big workshops and the skilled tradesmen that worked there, men took a pride in their trade and work in those days. Buses these days full of plastic and fiberglass "throw away" sections. Lovely video and very informative, enjoyed it. Thank you.

How fitting "The Last Post" at the end ... such painstaking care taken by the workers, you would not get that level of care these days, they run the buses till they fall apart and get new ones. And yes, the buses are the RTs, not Routemasters!

Seems like a better time. Great video

transport aren't looked after like this any more

Excellent video of a bygone era that brought pleasant memories back for me as my mum used to drive Routemasters when I was a kid... Thanks for this...

London Transport was a fantastic company, Bus driver training and engineering at Chiswick works and Aldenham overhaul works. Nice footage. RT buses(1939-79) not Routemasters(1956-2005) feature in this video. All swept away by the Tories and privatisation.

A fast run on a newly overhauled RT was always an experience. Fond memories of RTs on 301, Tring - Aylesbury in the 60s.

When things were done to a standard and not to a cost.

Shame that sort of craftsmanship hardly exists today

Wow - that is amazingly thorough. London buses must have been REALLY reliable between 1956 and 1986.

1950s/60s was a time when Britain was far better than it is now. A time when you left school, went into a job, worked your way up if you wanted to, bought your house, raised a decent family and had a future to look forward to without the threat of unemployment, living below the bread line, working for bad management and a society over run with immigrants. My parents left school in the 60s and never had trouble finding work and went on to have very successful careers and as a result, have several properties and a comfortable lifestyle. I can only ever dream of doing that and I'm 34. I may have my own home, but I'll be paying it off until I'm 67. What kind of life is that? I have many qualifications and can't get a decent job. I have A-levels in Physics and Mathematics. I also have HGV as well as the ADR so I can drive petrol tankers, but can't get a job. I'm so glad I have decided not to have children in this day and age. The future is bleak.

The perpetrators of the throw away world we live in, might want to watch this.

Excellent movie of LT's good old days, nostalgic for many especially for those of us who worked on London Transport's buses. However, I'm sure it's been pointed out dozens of times already these buses are NOT Routemasters but members of the previous generation of RT and RTL family. This was filmed over a number of months during 1960, a few years before the first Routemasters needed an overhaul. Superb, nevertheless, for one who once cycled from North London to Aldenham on more than a few occasions to bus -spot!

Something else the film doesn't tell you is that identity swapping went on at Aldenham from 1955 onwards. In most instances the incoming bus had its identity transferred to a freshly overhauled bus of the same type i.e. RT, RTL, RTW or RF. In this way full use was made of the road fund licence. It followed on from the same practice which went on at Chiswick from when it opened in 1923 but was suspended during WWII.

I think you'll find that these Double Deckers are not Routemasters, but RT [Regency Type] buses. These started being produced by AEC Park Royal in 1938/9(?), and where in use during the London Blitz in 1940. RTs are easy to differenciate from RMs [Routemasters] by the size of the radiator grills (RTs - Long & narrow, RMs short & squat). Also RTs had a more pronounced (almost art deco streamlined) curve, from Radiator to Roof, then the more modern "chunky" fronted RMs. I visited Aldenham Bus Works in 1983 as part of the 50th anniversary of London Transport. It was there & then that I learn't that only RTs can be seperated from their chassis, whereas RMs have their chassis integrated to the coachbody which prevents them from being seperated. I also drove a RM around the test track for £5 (blueys had such spending power back then). If I had £30 more to spare, I could've spun an RM around the skidpan.

Fascinating stuff. I practically lived on those double deckers when I was a kid using them pretty much every day. Wonderful to see them again.

There are no busworks in the UK that would put that amount of effort into refurbishing buses now.

I must say, this is what an overhaul really is, not the piecemeal remedial repairs that pass for scheduled maintenance these days. My experience of heavy transport is having the owner wait for the equipment to fail, then either replace it or repair/replace parts here and there. A full overhaul leaving no bolt unturned is unheard of these days.

What a Great Film!.......now it's all gone! Such a shame :-(

The pride the workers took in their jobs is amazing....whichever politicians allowed Aldenham works to be closed should hang their heads in shame. Oh for a time when public service was seen as a good thing and not a drain on the rich (in this case the wealthy who would never dream of going by bus!

Wow! What an operation and brilliant designs of buses. My Dad drove a routemaster, I still have his badge.

Missing these Leyland Titan double decker buses today very much. Had a lot of them plying on Indian roads till the early 80s era.

A fine example of craftsmanship and pride in a job well done. No surprise then that secondhand LPTB buses were very well sought-after for further use both a home and abroad. The Aldenham works really was 'recycling' in the truest original sense, sadly not appreciated at all by successive UK governments.

This was when there were actual skilled craftsmen that took pride in what they did. Sadly none left now.

I took my bus test in an RT, Len Pilgrim was our instructor 1976. He related the time when an instructor told the trainee to go through the roundabout, but the rookie literally tried to, say no more.😮

And with the closure went the quality of service that we all came to appreciate , once it had gone . 👍🇬🇧

Wow what a wonderful informative historical video. As said the pride put into overhauling these buses is incredible. Many thanks for making such a good video.

No Routemaster bus in this film. Its the RT family buses at Aldenham Bus Overhaul Works, both the AEC and Leyland RT and RTL respectively still very enjoyable to watch. No other livery-in my own opinion-was better worn on red or green London Transport buses than the Chiswick Cream bands yet those at 55 Broadway London, didn't leave well enough alone!

These Stagecoach buses are lucky if they ever get a service never mind an overhaul, most of them are death traps.

NO ROUTEMASTERS , these are RTs or similar. Routemasters weren't introduced till 1961

Those workers took a lot of pride in their jobs and things were built to last th the 60s and 70s.

RT is Regent Three. (Journalists call every red bus a Routemaster)

My brother-in-law worked at Aldenham as an uphosterer renewing all the seats.

I started red rover bus spotting when i was 10 from Kingston bus station ,i filled loads of exercise books with bus tickets from all over London..It was never a craze at my school i did it all on my own sometimes dragging a reluctant school chum with me usually begining my adventure on the 85 to Putney and sometimes take the 38 from Victoria all the way to Loughton then on to visit my Aunty in Epping.

What a fantastic video, it brings back so many memories, I worked at Aldenham bus works from 1979 to 1985 as a vehicle builder it was the best apprenticeship you could have ever had, I didn’t realise it at the time but in later life it has given me so many brilliant skills. Worked in the Highbay the trim shop and various other area. I found some old picture a couple of months ago of the team I worked with waiting in the canteen for the next bus to be dropped in our bay to be refurbished. I wonder where the old team are now.

I have driven a Route master , lovely to drive!

It was depressing to watch. Common sense and good engineering practice gone forever.

Great nostalgic film. The bus featured is NOT the Routemaster [RM], but the RT type [Regent three]. Over seven thousand were made. The privatisation of LONDON TRANSPORT buses in the 1990's was an act of vandalism and greed by the Tories.

What a great video thanks for sharing, being and old man i have been in vehicle engineering all my life and tip my hat to these great people, i have been in london taxi overhauls which happen at 12 monthly intervals the same thing with the busses total overhauls, thats why its important that we try very hard to get the young people of today to get an appreniceship in this feild (very difficult to do ) sadly high spec vehicle engineers are dying out, and this is a shame.

Love the rt and rm buses!! Finest work in British engineering! Why can’t newer buses in the UK be made with brilliant designs like this? Sure it could be modern but still iconic looking. 🙌🇬🇧

I worked here in paint shop 80 to 81 after working at Park Royal vehicles then worked at stonebridge Park garage and Westbourne Park... Great years

very great to see this production line of routemaster!!! thank you for sharing, Good!!!

The bean counters strike again! Sad it's all gone.

Thank you for posting. Beautiful film

Fantastic video nicely narrated. So important that these are kept for posterity.

This is like a second AEC Southall works. Fantastic seeing the bare chassis undergo a cleaning.

I ADMIRE THE PRE THATCHER LONDON TRANSPORT,, BUT I HAD A BUS ENTHUSIASTS DREAM OF A JOB,,at the BartoN Transport Ltd,, Chilwell Nottinghamshire,, From 62 to 98,,,, in the garage Oil changeing,, then clutch engineer,, then Breakdown and recovery local and long distance (we did local service express services and road cruise ) also I did emergency and part time PSV driving,, the buses used to be old,, then we got a new fleet,, when it was easy it was easy,,but when it was hard it was rough,, the BartoN family were good,,and we were loyal,, Thatchers changes ruined a decent company,,May she roast down below,,

When public services were run for the benefit of 'the public' and not for profit. Such a shame all that talent not replaced

Fantastic film of a time when pride in a job and getting it right was foremost. No wonder these buses did the incredible mileages they did. What difference to today's world of cost cutting and throw it away as its too expensive to repair.

I worked at British Leyland truck and bus from 1979 to 1986 in Chorley, Lancs. If I recall right we had a specialty machine shop to make some parts for these buses. The current London buses look rather ugly in my humble opinion.

incredible video,these men were geniuses !

These busses were part of the British identity, and seeing the tremendous care and attention they received, part of the British soul. What means the British identity nowadays in a World more and more global?

What a beautiful documentary

Wow what a great video and insight into routemaster maintenance. I would have loved to have worked there. I have never been on a routemaster but would so love to own one. Thanks for sharing the video it was very very interesting to see how much work went into maintaining these lovely buses.

Lucky if a bus get a coat of paint in its lifetime now.

I saw the works when it was completely empty, I couldn't believe the size of the place. My old foreman, was the last works and building manager there.

Great film,thanks for posting. I much preferred the old London buses, the new ones rattle so much! What did 25 people dislike about that?

Aldenham was actually built to serve as a Tube depot. In 1935 an extension of the Northern Line from Edgware to Bushey had been approved. Construction started in 1938 and was paused in 1939 due to World War Two. Then the greenbelt legislation in 1946 made the Tube extension unnecessary. Aldenham Tube Depot, which was going to be between Elstree South Station and Bushey Heath Station, later became Aldenham Bus Works.

You know what really empress me the most many of the mechanics wearing ties and vest and white shirts and ties,gentlemen absolutely LOL😋

Never seen this before. I was watching an On the Buses episode then saw this. I used to drive buses and coaches. Late 80s to early 90s. This is a very impressive video to watch and how thorough and detailed the work is. Are buses built to last better today or do they still have to undergo this level of scrutiny and checks? 12,000 buses for LT is mind boggling to have to deal with.

Awesome vedio ❤️🔥 Loved it Love British Quality 🔥❤️

The RT and the Routemaster were buses that were really built to last. There are quite a few in preservation.

What ever happened to team work I just don’t know. This video is amazing 👍👍👍

Lovely video. Isn't it wonderful how things used to be....

I worked for London Transport, works & building dept' saw Aldenham just before it was sold off. The film gives an impression of its size, but you had to be in the place to know how massive it was. I wonder what happened to all those skilled men, and all that know how? Those old Gardner 6L engines could have gone on forever, what a fecking waste it all was...............

What a fantastic piece of film thank you for sharing it I was riveted do it. Henry, north of Lichfield

You couldn't get more simple, environmentally friendly and cost effective than that. What do we do now? Scrap them and buy new. It's called erm... "progress"