The 1970s were among London Transport's most troubled years. Prohibited
from designing its own buses for the grueling conditions of the capital,
LT was compelled to embark upon mass orders for the broadly standard
products of national manufacturers, which for one reason or another
proved to be disastrous failures in the capital and were disposed of
prematurely at a great loss. Despite a continuing spares shortage
combined with industrial action, the old organization kept going
somehow, with the venerable RT and Routemaster families still at the
forefront of operations.
At the same time, the green buses of the Country Area were taken over by
the National Bus Company as London Country Bus Services. Little by
little, and not without problems of their own, the mostly elderly but
standard inherited buses gave way to a variety of diverted orders, some
successful others far from so, until by the end of the decade we could
see a mostly NBC-standard fleet of one-man-operated buses in corporate
leaf green.