London Buses Route 9 (Heritage) (Closed Permanently)

London double-decker buses may still be rich red, but the similarity to the rear-open-ended Routemasters associated with Swinging London — with hip youth literally swinging off the back of the bus — ends there. Since the millennium, economic and disabled-access considerations have advanced the demise of the Routemasters that started during the 1980s under Margaret Thatcher. However, two buses — the no. 9 and the no. 15 — operate heritage routes using pristine originals, thankfully without any Disneyfied 'heritage' decoration though sadly illuminated inside by flurescent tubes rather than warm-glowing incandescent bulbs as in the old days. The no. 9 covers just three miles of central London, but it will let you off at quintessential London landmarks such as Kensington (near the Royal Albert Hall, the V&A, the Natural History Museum), Knightsbridge (Harrods, Harvey Nichols), Hyde Park Corner (Wellington Museum), Green Park (the Wolseley, Royal Academy of Arts, Fortnum & Mason, White Cube gallery), Piccadilly Circus (Regent St, short walk to Soho), Trafalgar Square (National Gallery, Whitehall), Strand (Somerset House/ Courthauld Gallery) and Aldwych (Law Courts. Slightly overlapping, the no. 15 will take you from Trafalgar Square to Tower Hill via the City of London; also recommended. In February 2012 Transport for London introduced the first of the Thomas Heatherwick-designed New Routemaster buses (originally given the awkward name New Bus for London). The superior decor is one of London greatest new transport things of the century so far, and the New Routemasters can be seen sharing the no. 9 route with its older heritage counterpart. Sadly the service came to a halt in 2014, though the no. 15 still operates as a heritage bus service.