Amersham ---- News, Views & Information

Bus Garage Codes
In & Around London

On the main London Country page on this site, it is detailed that Amersham Bus Garage had code MA and not AM (which was allocated to Plumstead). I am grateful to "JB" from Wokingham for providing a detailed explanation.

Why did Plumstead bus garage in South East London get the code AM before Amersham? This dates back to the system of garage codes used by the 'General' in London, where garage codes started initially from A and went alphabetically - A = Sutton up to X = Middle Row (North Kensington) - these codes are both still in use, although code X moved to Westbourne Park garage when Middle Row closed. There wasn't a Z, although Y was a small garage in Fulham that closed a very long time ago. A few garages (whether by design or coincidence) had codes that matched their letter, e.g. B = Battersea, D = Dalston. Once single letter codes had all been used, they started again - there wasn't an AA. AB was Twickenham, this sequence carried on up to AV (Hounslow) which opened in 1913 - the latter is also still in use today - some codes for some reason were never used by the General (AS, AT) After the 1914-18 war, it seems that rather than starting again at BA, they adopted two letter codes that had some relationship to the garage name (e.g. BK = Barking, which opened in the 1920s.) The country garages acquired codes either at this time or when London Transport took over in 1933. Obviously, new codes were created for new garages over the years - particularly when the tram and trolleybus depots converted to buses in the 50s and 60s. www.londonbusgarages.co.uk/ has more on London Transport bus garages. So buy the time a code for Amersham was needed, it was allocated MA

However, the code 'AM' was used for Amersham garage on ticket machine boxes. JB owns a 1960s Almex ticket machine that came from Amersham Garage, and it has 'AM' on the box!

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