East Thames Buses was born following the collapse of the London tendered operations of Grays
based Harris Bus. Harris' modern fleet of blue and lime buses largely passed to East Thames.
East Thames is owned by Transport for London and TfL clearly hoped that it would be a cheaper
option than tendering routes to private companies. Perhaps unsurprisingly this has not proved to be so. Optare Excel, 334 (P334NHJ) was new to Harris Bus. It is seen in summer 2000 at North Greenwich Station.
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334 again, three years later, on a positioning journey from the old LT depot in Hackney. The depot
was too big for the ETB fleet which probably contributes to its lack of competitiveness.
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320 (P320KAR) leads a line up of 108s in Stratford
Bus Station in October 2002.
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Seen at North Weald in 2000, sandwiched between a Wilts & Dorset Spectra and RM1000, is East
Lancs bodied Volvo Olympian 352 (P352ROO). Like the Excels, it was new to Harris Bus
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