Published: 24 November 2011
by RICHARD OSLEY

TO dizzy-eyed revellers in Camden Town, it has been a godsend, the only way home from the party when the Tube has gone to sleep.

But their lifeboat comes at a price.

In return for an all-hours service, passengers on the N29 bendy bus have always boarded well aware that by the time they get off there is a fair chance they will have lost a shredding or two of red cabbage from their open kebabs.

Anything can happen amid the crush on the night service from the West End to Wood Green through Camden.

The service was  christened the “party bus” years ago and remains saddled with the clichéd joke: “You don’t have to be drunk to use it… but it helps.” It’s a line that Transport for London (TfL) would scowl at, but this weekend the service will get a long-awaited makeover.

From tomorrow (Friday), just hopping on and off won’t be so easy and TfL will discover whether the high numbers of passengers pressing onto the bus do so because they need to get from A to B, or because, to those pesky fare dodgers, it is simply a free ride.

The N29 and its daytime equivalent, the 29, will switch from a bendy bus service to one run with traditional double-deckers.

The N29 divides opinion.

Some have happy memories of late-night sing-songs and drunken debates.

Others remember the tension of being pushed together into a breathless, smelly crush of leather jackets, hairspray and red onion.

Arguments and quarrels have sometimes flared.

In the worst cases, thankfully rare, fights have occurred.

TfL hates any suggestion that buses are dangerous but the 29 and N29 have often charted high in tables showing the services with most “code red” incidents in London.

This happens when drivers are so alarmed about something they push a panic button.

Admittedly, the button may be pressed if the driver sees something worrying outside the bus as he passes by.

Councillors in Camden and Islington have campaigned for an improved service and reassurances for passengers, lobbying the Mayor and his transport team.

The key question, however, is whether the change to a double-decker will really soothe the problems the bus’s popularity creates.

The queues for the N29 will still be there in Camden Town.

When the bus arrives in NW1, it will still be full of revellers who have been partying elsewhere, in the West End.

The complaint in the past has been that the N29 tries to do too much.

The bus picks up everyone from the West End and then picks everyone up in Camden Town as well, stirring a big moving soup of bleary eyes who just want their beds.

When the New Journal was invited to the TfL offices in the wake of a violent incident linked to the N29 several years ago, one official suggested that a solution might be to start a service in Camden Town, so there was a clear, empty wagon for the large numbers to fill. It would spread the load.

It sounded like a good idea.

TfL did not pursue it.

The drive to get rid of bendy buses became a more pressing concern for those in charge.

From Saturday morning onwards we will see if that was the best bet.