REVIEWS
When a London book is written by Kevin McCormack and published by Capital Transport, readers can be assured that the colour pictures (by many skilled photographers) will be chosen with an eye for quality and interesting detail, described with authority and reproduced to a high standard in well-designed layouts.
This one has some of the feel of the Streets of books that Ian Allan Publishing produced around 20 years ago — McCormack compiled Streets of London — that placed the vehicles in an urban composition in which the buildings, businesses, people, other vehicles and street furniture are as interesting as the buses at its centre.
The big difference is that the page size is larger, making the most of pictures presented in spreads of two or three at most, with a couple occupying an entire spread to themselves.
He has tackled the subject chronologically from July 1960 to March 1999, taking readers to and fro across Greater London from the final years of the trolleybus to the appearance of tram tracks in Croydon.
Routemasters, some shown when new or nearly new and some acquired secondhand, have a constant presence over four decades when the RT family, lowbridge RLH and single-deck RF gradually dimi…