The T33 Route

West Croydon Station to Addington Village Tram Interchange 

Thursday November 13^th 2013

We chose to arrive at West Croydon, a train stop easily reachable from our three different home addresses and just across the road from the West Croydon bus station with the tram stops squeezed in between. The T in these services stands for Tramlink and they do pretty much what it says on the tin.  Mid morning however is clearly not a peak time for catching the trams anywhere so were amongst the only passengers in this single decker for much of the route. West Croydon Bus Station, though full of  piped classical music, seemed to have most of its doors, including those to the toilets locked.

All three T services are branded as frequent and indeed having missed one in a fruitless quest we easily boarded another. In my view if you look at a map West Croydon is really to the north and so to get to an area largely to the South East of where we started involved doing to what amounts to Croydon’s ring road, in other words the dual carriageway that sweeps through the tall buildings and past the Whitgift Centre. Not really the loveliest stretch of road but looking mellow in the late autumn sunshine.  Close to East Croydon station there were signs of buildings having disappeared since our last trip here. There were no architects or building firm signs but it may prove to be part of the Croydon Gateway scheme which is attempting the area’s regeneration. The station itself is certainly very busy and makes little old West Croydon look like a sleepy village halt in comparison.

Once past South Croydon we broke away from the tramlines we had shadowed briefly and followed the line of Croham Valley and Farley Roads into Selsdon; this is one of the more affluent areas of the Croydon conurbation where several large houses were built in the inter-war years and showing some Art Deco influences.   Those earlier buildings that had remained intact after the heavy bombing of this part of London, now seemed destined to end their days as either small private schools or care homes.

The area is green because of sundry Sports Grounds, playing fields and even golf clubs. Detailed photography was fruitless as we paused hardly at all as nobody seemed to want the bus. In fact at one point I thought we might be on one of those ‘Express’ routes such as the X68 with only a few intermittent stops, but it was just a case of no one wanting to board. Travel had been pretty much in a straight line, thus affording a huge contrast to the twists and turns we had been experiencing in Sutton last week. 

The combination of Sainsbury’s and the Seldsdon Library gave us a temporary breathing space in what seemed a very rushed trip but even so this was where the few other passengers got off, leaving us alone to enjoy the streets of Forestdale – a large private development built on the edges of Selsdon Wood. As Jo put it, we now started ‘tweedling’ amongst the side streets all named for British birds – Kittiwake, Peacock Mallard etc. between the family friendly homes and leafy streets. Part of Selsdon Wood was preserved and is now administered by Croydon Council.

Soon we were to emerge at the roundabout close to Addington Village and take that circuitous route into the Addington Village Interchange and the long promised tram line, Number 3. The trip had been billed as 29 minutes though it felt quicker. There are lots of bus stops at the Interchange and I’m sorry to say we stood there flapping our paper bus map until an amused controller took pity on us and pointed us in the right direction for our next route. This was the seamless interchange. The next one would prove more tricky.