Martin Voller may have been the last man on the 588 – the Marie Celeste of London buses.
Ever heard of the 588 bus? No, I didn’t think so. Ever heard of the Marie Celeste? In case not, she was a ship found floating with no one aboard, and no obvious signs of foul play.
Well, the bus and the ship have much in common.
The 588 started running on the 13th July 2013, operating between Hackney Wick and Stratford City via Westfield. This means it was the first public bus route across the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. It also means that if you live in Hackney, the 588 route compares to having your own personal shopping taxi.
The launch of the 588 coincided with the re-opening of the Copper Box Arena (the 7,000-capacity Olympic venue now home to the London Lions basketball team).
Plenty of reasons to hop on it, then.
In early December, I was heading on foot from Hackney towards Stratford railway station when I first noticed the 588. I saw it said ‘Stratford City’, so I thought I’d spare myself the walk from Hackney.
Since there are hundreds of big red buses roaming around all the time, when Londoners see a new service we take it in our stride (especially if it saves us a walk). But what knocked me back when I got on, was the complete and utter lack of passengers! I was the only one! And when I spotted the same service going in the other direction, which I did twice, I counted ONE solitary passenger.
Admittedly it was around 10:30am – not exactly peak time; but still, that’s not normal in London! So I did a bit of research, just to check how unusual it was.
On an online forum ‘Au Morandarte’ reported: ‘I was speaking to the driver of the 588 and he said that I was his first passenger of the day at 11am, and he started at 7am! So it wasn’t well used.’
‘Alex-397’ added: ‘When I tried out the service I was the only passenger for the whole journey, and saw no passengers on the two other buses. Like most new routes, I guess it will take time for passengers to build up.’
Unfortunately, that time has already passed. The 588 was a temporary initiative, and it has since been replaced by an extended version of the 388. The last bus ran the route on 14th December. But the photograph below shows it really did exist – honest!