It has ferried tourists and brides alike through the city on regular tours as well as charters. Just don’t ask for the air conditioning to be turned on.
The current, authentic British made double-decker bus is the second one that our London has had, and it has been in service since 2002. “The original double-decker bus, which was a Bristol was donated to the city by radio station CJBK, back in 1972, they got it from Windsor, I think,” says Mike Harris, a manager with Tourism London.
In early 2000 it was time to start looking to replace the original bus.
“It was just costing us more than we wanted to spend so we went over to England and got another one. It was shipped to Canada after it was remodeled to North American specs over there, in other words, they installed doors on both sides if the bus,” Harris says. “The safety concerns was one of the main reasons why the old bus was put out pasture so to speak, cause it only had doors on the left side.”
While the bus is owned by the City of London, it is operated by Tourism London and it has become recognizable symbol of London.
“It is to introduce visitors to what the highlights of London are over a two hour period, a little bit of history, a little bit of the economics, the different areas of London,” Harris says. “And to a lesser degree, we get a lot of Londoners taking the trip with their kids for the experience of a double-decker bus ride. The bus also serves a secondary purpose of allowing us to emphasize – or to sell – London to Londoners, and let them discover what is in their own backyard.”
Companies and individuals, Harris says, also use the bus for private charters.
“People or companies will come in looking for a private tour for their convention groups. Things like Special Olympics may use it for a special tour for athletes or parents, and the other use of it primarily is for convention or one of the hotels may want to take it to the Grand Theatre,” Harris says. “So they will charter it for that run, from the hotel to the theatre, wedding parties will book it. We get a lot of that actually.”
And even though the bus is chartered throughout the year, the bus does have some limitations; for starters it is not designed for a southwestern Ontario summer climate.
“Well, yes, a couple of downsides to the bus, to be quite candid, it is an authentic British double-decker bus, there is no air conditioning in it. So, the weather we have had for the last couple of days can be a little challenging. One time we used to run two tours a day, morning and afternoon, and we found that the afternoon tour was a bit of a challenge,” Harris says. “In the last two years we have had people go in the morning. We have thought about this, but there is no way. We had the city people have looked at it, trying to figure out if there is a way to put an air-conditioning unit in there, and putting a box on top just doesn’t work, because the thing is 13-feet high as it is.”
It is that sheer size of the bus that Harris says creates perhaps the biggest concern over operating the double-decker.
“When we put the bus out for charters, and we do about 45 charters a year, whenever we do a tour, or we have to take people from point A to point B, we go out and drive it in our van to make sure that there is nothing overhanging that may damage the bus or you know damage the bus. At one time, with the older bus, we used to go through Springbank Park, and after a rain the branches on trees get heavy and they hang lower than they would during a dry day, and we would lose front windows all the time; it was just terrible. It gets to be a challenge to make sure the bus can go down a certain street to make sure there tree branches are not hanging down, so to put an air-conditioning unit on top just wouldn’t work.”
And keeping a British designed and built vehicle running on North American city streets keeps a number of city mechanics busy.
“Quite honestly, it does get to be a little bit expensive because of breakdowns, and with the old bus, we had the old bus North Americanized, where we had a GM diesel engine donated by GM and an Allison transmission, and once we did that, the breakdowns were kind of minimized, to almost zero,” Harris says. “This bus, we can’t do that, because of the configuration of the engine, because it is sideways not lengthways. We can’t find a North American engine to put in there, so that if something goes wrong we could fix it right away. Two years ago, it was down for six weeks because we couldn’t find a part for it. And we had to go over to Britain to find the part. So, this becomes a challenge, in it also becomes a challenge in keeping up with the maintenance costs of it, so while it has not been a loss-leader, it’s a challenge in keeping going and breaking even in the process.”
For over nearly 40 years, and even with the mechanical and climate control challenges, the bus has engrained itself into the city’s culture.
“We get it from Londoners, the double-decker bus is not even unique to London, there is a couple dozen in Toronto, there is a couple dozen in Niagara Falls, and I would suspect in Victoria and Vancouver as well,” Harris says. “But certainly to Londoners it is an icon of London and our connection to London England, in a very proud sense.”
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