Arriva London Lea Valley Garage [LV]...Farewell

Today was a visit to the much loved Lea Valley Garage, a garage that I have visited many times before and one that I won't be visiting again as, by March 2014, it will be handed over to National Grid who require the site. Another desolate location - as with Northumberland Park Garage, my previous visit - at least there is a huge Tesco superstore as well as an IKEA within close proximity, well a 10 minute walk away. The garage is served by routes 192 and 24 hour route 341.

The garage itself is located at the back of an industrial estate just north of Tottenham, and seems about a million miles away from civilization and can proved difficult to get to, providing you don't have your own form of personal transport. One thing I did note whilst inside the main reception, is that the garage actually overlooks EC (Edmonton Garage), it was probably the aquamarine vehicles in the background that caught my eye.

Lea Valley was opened in 2005 to house the new Mercedes Citaros which had just recently been introduced on the 149, which saw the allocation transfer from EC. The base was subject to more bendies later that year as the route 73 which had just converted to the type moved in from AR (Tottenham) to benefit from the new spacious depot.

The garage was allocated the contracts for the Jewish Free School in Kingsbury, running routes 628, 653, 683 and 688 using some DLAs, some of which can be seen sitting redundantly at the rear of the yard. I somehow don't see those once lovely vehicles entering service again, either in London or the provinces.

Over the years, the base gradually became the centre point for new deliveries whether north or south, one does remember the new T class Enviro 400 for TC (Croydon) that were delivered here in July 2010.

The garage's history is fairly limited, it's not one to have had running days and special events as such, aside from this I have to say I will be sad to see the garage go, but its closure will bring forth some changes, that will in some way revive the scene and see some odd allocations. The changes will go as followed.

• The route 123 and 318 are moving to Edmonton Garage but the drivers remain at AR. The route W6 buses will move to Edmonton but the drivers will be based at AR.
• From WN the 184 and 382 move to EC but drivers remain at WN. Route W3 moves in the opposite direction with the drivers.
• From AD the 125 and 629 move to EC but drivers remain at AD.
• DLA173, 174 and 205-213 will be withdrawn. DLA318 and 319 will move to AD from BN for route 34 with DLA351-356 from LV
• A small number of DLPs will make up the rest of the allocation of the 34
• Route W11 will move to EC

I thank you for reading this post and I hope you enjoy our new rejuvenated garage posts, more pictures from the visit have been placed below. 

From left to right: Arriva London ENS25 LJ12 BYN, DLA361 LJ03 MKF
and T146 LJ60 AVT

From left to right: Arriva London VLW73 LF52 UTL, DW332 LJ60 AXR
and EN20 GN57 BPV

Arriva London T146 LJ60 AVT

Arriva London DWL43 LF02 POH receives some attention in the workshop

Arriva London EN18 GN57 BPO and PDL101 LJ54 BBF

Comment one thing these buses all have in common

A yard shot facing the front of the yard

Arriva London DLA357 LJ03 MKA and T218 LJ61 CGY

I like this shot for some reason....

Arriva London EN24 LJ12 BYM

Notice anything different?

Yard to the right

Another yard shot showing the front of the garage with the maintenance area to the right

Garage fact file

• Opened in 2005 primarily to house the 73 and 149 bendys 
• Storage base for new vehicles 
• In the Northumberland Park/Lea Valley area
• 5 Minutes away from EC 
• Set to close in March 2014