The E11 Route

Friday 5 April 2013.

This was our third bus of the day, so Linda and I could not really complain that it was a single decker.  

We had crossed the main Greenford Broadway from the E2, and were shivering for a few minutes before the welcome sight of an E 11 appeared.  So we were on board by 11.40.  It was a bus so small that it only had one door.  It was headed to Ealing Common.  We came out of Greenford past a fine parade of shops  and a large church  before reaching the River Brent. 

At first we went along predictable lines, past Brentside High School and the playing fields of Drayton Manor School but then we swooped right into Gifford Gardens, for a tour of residential streets, narrow and with cars parked on both sides of the road, requiring skill from our Driver.  This was clearly a ‘hail and ride’ section, though not announced as such, and the driver waited patiently for a lady of mature years to cross the road and join us.  We reached Greenford Road, and went straight for a while before  looping again to reach Castle Bar Railway Station, and the dense public housing of the area some of which is being refurbished at the moment.

We passed some allotments, and Drayton Green open space, with football being played  before going over the railway at Drayton Green Station, and we were back on ground familiar from previous routes:  the sharp right turn into Sutherland Avenue, and then Sutherland Road turning into Argyle Road, and the shops of West Ealing. These include the Cherry Pye Erotic Underwear boutique and the flats where there was once a storage facility.

 

We also noted the Soapy Suds dry cleaner and launderette, and the huge Ealing Police Station, as well as an Iranian food Emporium and the Black George Pub.  I do not know why it has that name, though I can find plenty of news coverage of its troubled past, shootings, knifings and so on. 

 As we reached The Grange Pub, and began to skirt Ealing Common, we were the only passengers left on what had been a very busy bus.

At 12.10 we reached the end of Warwick Dene, and the terminating point of the route.  The driver said it would be ten minutes before he headed back, so we got off, but since I had left my notebook on board and we could not work out which way up to hold the map, we climbed back on board, and Linda offered the friendly driver a peppermint as well as our card.

So that wraps up the E buses of Ealing;  after a brief encounter with the East London Transit system, we shall be off to the Hs.