London Buses route 390

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**390**

Management
Operated by	Metroline
Garage	King's Cross & Holloway
Vehicle	Volvo B7TL/Plaxton President
Route
Start	Archway
Via	Kings Cross Tottenham Court Road Oxford Circus
End	Notting Hill Gate
Length	7 miles (11 km)
Service
Level	24 hour service
Frequency	About every 8 minutes
Journey time	34-64 minutes
Night	24 hour service
Adult single fares
Cash	£1.50
Oyster	80p (£1 Mon-Fri 7-9.30am)
Transport for London

London Buses route 390 is a Transport for London contracted bus route in London, United Kingdom. The service is currently contracted to Metroline.

1 History
2 Current route
- 2.1 Route departing Archway
- 2.2 Route departing Notting Hill Gate
3 Gallery
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] History

The route 390 is now operated by Kings Cross (KX) garage by Metroline, and uses B7TLs with Plaxton President bodywork (VPL class). They were amongst some of the last buses built at the former Northern Counties plant and amongst the last Plaxton Presidents.

This route began on 1 February 2003 to replace the withdrawn section of London Buses route 10 between Archway and Kings Cross (the northern part). Over the years route 10 had becoming a mammoth to opearate because of its sheer length, and it was split once in the 80's and then again in 2003 to split it further. The buses were the lovely Routemasters which were operated by Metroline from HT (Holloway) garage. It did seem a bit odd that the less glamorous section of the route to Archway obtained the Routemasters but this was because the part of the route that kept the 10 number used Trident/Alexander ALX400 (TNAs) of First London.

The route originally ran to south of Archway, to the rear of Holloway garage, but on 6 February 2004 it was extended from Marble Arch to Notting Hill Gate via withdrawn section of London Buses route 12.

The route was retendered in 2004/5 and was awarded to Metroline but was stripped of the Routemasters and tendered on the condition of low-floor one-person operation. The VPLs were purchased, and these were a batch with televisions installed at the front of the upper deck windscreen and on the lower deck too.

The route was then transferred to Kings Cross garage which acts as a substation to Holloway to take pressure off capacity as this is one of the Garages closest to Central London.