A low bridge clearance issue in south-west London led to a rapid switch of singledeckers operated on two Go-Ahead routes.
Following contract renewal, new 10.8m Wrightbus StreetLite DFs entered service on route 170 (Roehampton-Victoria) in early December. This passes under a double arch railway bridge in Lombard Road, which westbound has a mandatory height restriction of 10ft (the eastbound side is 10ft 9in).
While Wrightbus specification sheets for the StreetLite declare that the height of all variants is 2,990mm (9ft 10in) this apparently does not take into account the roof mounted air-conditioning unit fitted in London, which takes the overall height to 10ft 5in.
Although the buses operated on the route for about a week without incident, by 14 December Transport for London had put in place a short diversion, posting notices on the affected stops. The inevitable press ‘outrage’ in the area claimed that that the service had disappeared without warning.
By mid-January, the new StreetLites had been swapped with the Alexander Dennis Enviro200s used on route 286 (Sidcup- Greenwich) in south-east London, which do meet the height restriction. Although some of the drafted in vehicles had destination blinds fi…
