Fulwell Garage
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fulwell Bus Garage is a former London Transport bus garage located in Twickenham in London, England. It is currently operated by Transdev and Travel London.
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[edit] Location
Fulwell Bus Garage Wellington Road Twickenham TW2 5NX
[edit] History
Fulwell Bus garage was originally built as tram shed for London United Tramways in 1902. It had an entrance at each end. One in Stanley Road, and the main one in Wellington Road. The shed had 20 tracks under cover but was never used to its full capacity. In 1931 London’s first trolleybuses moved in alongside the trams and the last trams left in 1935. In 1933 the newly formed London Passenger Transport Board took over London United Tramways. Fulwell became London Transport’s main trolleybus works making use of some of the space available. It was thus one of the last two depots to convert to Motor Buses (together with nearby Isleworth) on 9th May 1962.
As a bus garage Fulwell was divided in half along its length with the sports ground between the garage and South Road. The northern half of the garage, together with the front yard at the Wellington Road end, and a small rear yard were used for bus operation. The southern half of the garage, together with the Stanley Road entrance, and the remainder of the front yard were let out. In the seventies they were used by the Grundy Company, manufacturers of brewing equipment and the metal boxes that school dinners are cooked in!
The amount of work increased after 18th April 1970 when the small Twickenham Garage (AB), near Richmond Bridge, closed.
In 1986/7 the garage was rebuilt, and it remained open throughout. Instead of being split along its length, it is now split across its width. The result is a very large square garage, with an even larger front yard.
[edit] The Stanley Road end
The rear part of the garage was initially used by London Bus sales, for the sale of withdrawn London Transport buses. With the split up and privatisation of London Buses Limited, the sales dept was wound down and closed. The construction company Kelly used the site for a short time whilst they where laying cable TV in the area. In March 2000 a group of travellers moved in.
Once the travellers had been evicted and the site cleared Tellings-Golden Miller (now Travel London) moved in to operate their growing number of TfL contracts.
[edit] Today
Today both halves of the garage remain in operation: the Wellington Road end with Transdev, and the Stanley Road end with Travel London.
Route 267 terminates on the forecourt of the Transdev Garage. As the Stanley Road end is owned by TfL and leased to Travel London, part of the forecourt is used as a terminus for TfL routes that are not operated by Transdev. At present these are 33, operated by NCP-Challenger and Night bus N22, operated by London General.
