Eagle
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Yep :P The ELL-to-SLL connection. Closed 1911, reopened 2012.
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Abbey line (St. Albans) no longer to be converted to light rail
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Yep :P The ELL-to-SLL connection. Closed 1911, reopened 2012.
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R
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That was it - the 140th anniversary one! I'd only planned to go as far as Watford on my day off, but when the guard said the train was going to Euston, I changed my plans rapidly.
I think the viability of a St Albans > Hatfield > Hertford (and possibly beyond at each end, to connect to the Abbey line and maybe Hertford East) has improved now that there will be some scope to offer connections between a series of mainlines. Especially good in times of disruption, although that in itself introduces some problems - like capacity that might be overstretched at times.
For such a project to really be valid (to link rail lines and have integrated ticketing) it would need a fast connection to all of the lines, which then makes it near impossible because a light rail/tram setup would be more affordable but too slow and hardly up to rail standards (with people still opting to change in London).
For someone going Hertford to St Albans, the journey time might be too long. So you'd then be looking at justifying the line with people only using it for a few stops, where a regular bus, cycling or even walking might seem more logical.
If there was a will and the money, all of the above issues could be solved I am sure. Yes, a few industrial units and maybe even a home or two would go, but that's not impossible. Some passing loops could potentially see some sort of semi-fast services to skip the smaller stops and speed up transfers.
A bigger problem might be that you would lose the now established cycle routes, which would surely now need to be protected in some way as it's part of the national cycle network?
Part of me thinks the only way you could make it all work would be to use lots of tunnelling - and that instantly makes it a non-starter!
So that brings it all back to a more simple link between St Albans and Hatfield using a single line tram with passing points, so you can keep the Alban Way open to cyclists. But it would then compete with the existing buses and might not be used anywhere near enough throughout the day or weekends as it wouldn't really be that significant an improvement.
HCC would be better off subsidising a more regular bus service, perhaps by expanding the Line2Line service offered by FCC and being able to offer a bus every 5-10 minutes throughout the day and/or peak, and say 15-20 minutes in the evening; then possibly seeking to improve the road (getting rid of the pinch points, which might require some compulsory purchasing of its own) to make buses faster.
Ah, but it was like the Thameslink project. The reopening was planned in 1915 and just overran a bit.
Gwenllian2001
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Ebbw Vale.
Aictos
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Indeed, in fact IIRC there is only one service which links St Albans directly to Hertford via Hatfield and Welwyn Garden City which is the Greenline 724 service from Harlow to Heathrow, ideally though UNO ought to introduce a hourly/half hourly service on this route to allow the 724 to go over to being a limited stops coach service.
This is because the links between these stations are okay between Hatfield and St Albans but virtually non existent between Hatfield and Hertford which would help as a good service but also help in times of disruption with pax between Hertford and Stevenage being able to use trains from Hatfield and taxis for these wanting Watton At Stone - win win for all
ChiefPlanner
Established Member
We had the train crew in hired Victorian costumes , a headboard which was donated to the local museum - good day out by all. The schoolkids were given a free Travetcard for the day...very enjoyable occasion.
We put about 20 dets down leaving SAA - traditional railway work...
I hope they were in date.
ChiefPlanner
Established Member
They came from a drawer in the Watford Booking on point - marked "LMS" -
they were laid by the MOM , and a suitable PA announcement made before departure , in accordance with the risk assesment .....
Indeed, in fact IIRC there is only one service which links St Albans directly to Hertford via Hatfield and Welwyn Garden City which is the Greenline 724 service from Harlow to Heathrow, ideally though UNO ought to introduce a hourly/half hourly service on this route to allow the 724 to go over to being a limited stops coach service.
This is because the links between these stations are okay between Hatfield and St Albans but virtually non existent between Hatfield and Hertford which would help as a good service but also help in times of disruption with pax between Hertford and Stevenage being able to use trains from Hatfield and taxis for these wanting Watton At Stone - win win for all
To Hertford - yes, but between St Albans and Hatfield, there's virtually a 10 min service by the time you count 300 / 301 (15 min combined) 724 (hourly) and the myriad of UNO 6nn services and some others e.g. Sullivan's 330 - so there's no shortage of service along that corridor.
Hatfield / Welwyn - Hetford services have always been less frequent, even in the days of London Country - certainly since the mid 80s the 724 was the only regular service with others e.g. 324, 341, 388 providing fill in services.
I think the clue is that Hertford isn't a very big place nor does it have that much demand for travel into it.
Wikipedia has Hertford with a population of c 25,000 (in 2001) compared to Hatfield c 30,000 and Welwyn GC c 45,000 - and Hatfield has the University, industry and the Galleria for shopping. Welwyn has industry and a reasonably good shopping centre. Hertford doesn't actually have very much at all.
The usage stats for the stations also support this
Hertford Nth 1.26m
Hertford East 0.71m
Hatfield 1.9m
WGC 2.4m
So the two Hertford stations combined are as well used as Hatfield on its own.
Combine Welwyn and Hatfield and Hertford is massively overshadowed.
Additionally the buses between Hatfield and St Albans do then go onto other destinations which a Light Rail or reinstated heavy rail couldn't easily provide e.g. Hemel Hempstead, Heathrow.
I can't see the Hatfield - St Albans, or WGC - Hertford lines being reopened in my lifetime. Nor do I think WGC - Luton will ever return for similar reasons.
I don't so much want a bus to Hertford to go TO Hertford, but actually to be able to go on from Hertford, to places not well served from Hatfield. Plenty of buses west, north and south but not east from here, and buses north/south/east from Hertford!
My parents are in Cheshunt. Uno does run a bus that's very infrequent to Broxbourne, and from there you could change on to one of the buses from Hertford or Hoddesdon to Waltham Cross or Enfield - but the frequency is awful.
And buses to Hertford being poor also means that, coming back to Hertford could mean a lengthy wait. Frankly, it's just not viable and I might as well get a train to Finsbury Park, up to Tottenham Hale and up to Cheshunt that way. Not only is that more expensive, even if quicker, but it means another person crowding up London trains/tubes.
It's a chicken and egg situation. To get more usage, a bus operator would need to risk running a bus at least every 30 minutes from a good time in the morning until late (people won't take a bus somewhere if they can't get back). In this current climate, I can't see anyone doing it unless HCC paid for it/towards it. And HCC probably isn't interested, even if it does link up a lot of bus routes that are currently 'broken' by this void between WGC/Hatfield and Hertford.
I definitely think a bus is the only logical move though, at least at first. If the day came that the buses were packed, you'd now have more justification to reinstate the old railway line.
My parents are in Cheshunt. Uno does run a bus that's very infrequent to Broxbourne, and from there you could change on to one of the buses from Hertford or Hoddesdon to Waltham Cross or Enfield - but the frequency is awful.
And buses to Hertford being poor also means that, coming back to Hertford could mean a lengthy wait. Frankly, it's just not viable and I might as well get a train to Finsbury Park, up to Tottenham Hale and up to Cheshunt that way. Not only is that more expensive, even if quicker, but it means another person crowding up London trains/tubes.
It's a chicken and egg situation. To get more usage, a bus operator would need to risk running a bus at least every 30 minutes from a good time in the morning until late (people won't take a bus somewhere if they can't get back). In this current climate, I can't see anyone doing it unless HCC paid for it/towards it. And HCC probably isn't interested, even if it does link up a lot of bus routes that are currently 'broken' by this void between WGC/Hatfield and Hertford.
I definitely think a bus is the only logical move though, at least at first. If the day came that the buses were packed, you'd now have more justification to reinstate the old railway line.
benk1342
Member
An additional existing link between Hatfield/WGC and Hertford is the train via Stevenage. If the connection at Stevenage were timed better (which would no doubt be cheaper than creating a whole new line) this journey could be made in about half an hour. (As it is now it takes about 45 minutes including waiting around at Stevenage.) There is currently only an hourly service off-peak between Stevenage and Hertford North, but this could possibly be increased to half-hourly given that no other passenger services regularly use that line.
I'm not saying these changes would be viable or likely, only that they are more viable and more likely than reinstating the direct line from WGC to Hertford.
I'm not saying these changes would be viable or likely, only that they are more viable and more likely than reinstating the direct line from WGC to Hertford.
Or perhaps build LRT on an entirely new route, in which case with no likelihood of the old Hatfield route being ever reused, my Rickmansworth - St Albans tram-train metro would be better diverted or extended to the existing main line station at St Albans, to interchange with the local express orbital bus links as well as mainline rail services.
Perhaps because there aren't really many places people want to go to east of Welwyn / Hatfield? The next major town is Harlow and after that you're looking at places like Chelmsford or Colchester.
Many, many moons ago London Country ran the 324 / 334 to Cheshunt from WGC, equally the 750 Green Line used to run from Luton / Stevenage to Cheshunt. Both were curtailed to Hertford about 30 years ago due to lack of use.
The fact is there is a much more practical option for your particular journey - train to Potters Bar and Metroline's 242 - which runs hourly or bi-hourly even to quite late at night.
See my suggestion above - the last 242 leaves Cheshunt after 11pm.
It's more about whether Hertford and the other towns on the A10 corridor are attractive enough for people to want to go there. The evidence suggests that's not the case - hence the transport links have developed to other places which attract more visitors e.g. St Albans, Hemel Hempstead, Watford.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
The reason for timings is that the service north from Hertford runs to Letchworth (at least on weekdays) so it has to fit around the other suburban services which run south either from Royston / Cambridge through Letchworth or from Peterborough / Huntingdon which run between Stevenage & Hitchin.
Whether the Hitchin flyover will allow more slots and therefore the option to increase the number of Hertford services being extended to Letchworth, I don't know.
Again, a few years back one of the Huntingdon services used to run via Hertford - I assume that was canned due to capacity and the impact on journey time for Stevenage and beyond?
Aictos
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It takes between 15 and 20 mins between Hatfield Railway Station and Hertford North Railway Station by road, by train if you go via Alexandra Palace Railway Station you're looking at about 60 mins and if you go by train to Stevenage Railway Station you're looking at 50 mins providing connections work.
My point being if you just miss the hourly Stevenage service you've got a long wait to get to Hatfield - even if UNO just extended a service from Hatfield to Hertford, it would be a much viable option then the train especially if timetabled to depart Hertford on the opposite half hour to the northbound Stevenage train.
Besides you be quite surprised how many people especially foreign students turn up at Hertford North expecting the University to be in Hertford when it's at Hatfield especially as they ask for Hutfield at ticket offices and get sold a ticket to Hertford.
My point being if you just miss the hourly Stevenage service you've got a long wait to get to Hatfield - even if UNO just extended a service from Hatfield to Hertford, it would be a much viable option then the train especially if timetabled to depart Hertford on the opposite half hour to the northbound Stevenage train.
Besides you be quite surprised how many people especially foreign students turn up at Hertford North expecting the University to be in Hertford when it's at Hatfield especially as they ask for Hutfield at ticket offices and get sold a ticket to Hertford.
I think UNO did run a service between Hatfield and Hertford - I have a feeling they tried to run the 341 (numbered as 641) as a commercial concern. It didn't work out, so the 341 passed to Centrebus as an HCC contract and UNO still run a skeleton 641.
The Hatfield - Hertford section of the 341 (older members may recall the 341 also ran from Hatfield - St Albans and Hemel at one point) has always needed local authority funding - back in the mid 80s it was one of the first routes which London Country lost - it passed initially to Eastern National and then to Reg's.
The fact is there simply isn't the demand to warrant a more frequent service between Hatfield and Hertford.
It seems to be a regular cry on these boards that there 'ought to be a more frequent service to 'x'' - yet all too often the existing services are under-used to the extent of requiring local authority support - hardly a situation of untapped demand.
Hertfordshire has, in recent times, enjoyed a fairly competitive bus market - you've got Arriva, Uno and Centrebus all in the area together with no shortage of established independents such as Reg's - if all of them don't consider a more frequent Hatfield - Hertford service a viable commercial offering it does kind of suggest there isn't one?
As I said chicken and egg. We've used the 341 ONCE in ten years. Its route, including turning back and covering the same bit of road to serve Essendon, made it a nightmare journey.
Now, of course, that detour gives Essendon a bus service and was probably to maximise revenue but it made the route from Hatfield to Hertford take ages.
That wasn't all of it either. Going all around Hatfield town and south Hatfield (and I think also the University) meant spending about 30 minutes just in Hatfield, having started out from the Garden Village (and the depot) where it started.
We never used it again! I can't remember the fare, but it wasn't that cheap either. I also believe it was only every two hours, which obviously makes it tricky to plan around - especially with a baby that might not want to wait, or gets you to miss the bus.
A shuttle from WGC bus station to Hertford (via Hertford North and maybe even Hertford East) stations could potentially be part funded by FCC or GA. In the case of FCC, it could copy the Line2Line idea and give passengers a way to get to stations on the Hertford Loop (or the ECML) without going via Stevenage (slow) or Finsbury Park (expensive). It's not hard for someone in Hatfield to get to WGC, either by bus (14 minutes for me, every 30 minutes) or train (4 minutes every 15-20 minutes).
Now, of course, that detour gives Essendon a bus service and was probably to maximise revenue but it made the route from Hatfield to Hertford take ages.
That wasn't all of it either. Going all around Hatfield town and south Hatfield (and I think also the University) meant spending about 30 minutes just in Hatfield, having started out from the Garden Village (and the depot) where it started.
We never used it again! I can't remember the fare, but it wasn't that cheap either. I also believe it was only every two hours, which obviously makes it tricky to plan around - especially with a baby that might not want to wait, or gets you to miss the bus.
A shuttle from WGC bus station to Hertford (via Hertford North and maybe even Hertford East) stations could potentially be part funded by FCC or GA. In the case of FCC, it could copy the Line2Line idea and give passengers a way to get to stations on the Hertford Loop (or the ECML) without going via Stevenage (slow) or Finsbury Park (expensive). It's not hard for someone in Hatfield to get to WGC, either by bus (14 minutes for me, every 30 minutes) or train (4 minutes every 15-20 minutes).
benk1342
Member
Tesco runs a frequent corporate shuttle between its WGC and Cheshunt corporate campuses during business hours---perhaps you could stow away?
The 0325 from Peterborough still goes via Hertford North.
Gwenllian2001
Member
It isn't always the case. The bus service between Llantwit Major and Bridgend carried a reported average of three passengers. Since the line reopened to passengers, the train carries, on average, about thirty.
Aictos
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Indeed I've suggested in the past to extend the Line2Line services to Hertford to FCC but as its uneconomic :roll: it's not going to happen, if someone actually gave the idea a chance and promoted it well it might actually surprise people!
I grew up in N Herts and occasionally visited the Hatfield area for leisure and education purposes. I attended extracurricular lectures at Hatfield Polytechnic (as the U of H was then called) when I was at school and further education there might have been an option, but I moved to Devon for work instead. My father was also a member of the N London Model Engineers who have a club track at Colney Heath and we drove miniature steam locomotives there regularly at weekends in the summer. That was all twenty mumble years ago so I accept many things have changed, but its remarkable what can be gathered from Google, Bing, and their associated streetview images, also general image searches for particular buildings etc.
This is how I would cross the motorway and roundabout -
http://www.townend.me/files/hatfield3.pdf
Disruptive yes, but not insurmountably so. I've placed the Parkhouse station under the Cinema block, the road lanes currently passing through there for service and parking access being removed and relocated. The curve at the north end of the site would remove many parking spaces, but these might be relocated in a new multi-storey parking structure built over the tracks. At the South end the track would follow the access road (removed) to Cavendish Road and would cross the site of the purple windowless Highways Authority building that I believe contains fixed plant for ventilation and lighting of the the road tunnel beneath, so probably a large cost in relocating this, but an integrated project might benefit by linking to renewal of this equipment. Note my route always attempts to avoid demolition unless absolutely necessary, especially residential properties.
Agreed - the older units along Fiddlebridge Lane would have to go as the route curves round towards the St Albans Road W and Galleria, but the newer units actually on the old railway formation could probably remain. No residential demolition required here.
Around 250 straight line metres I think. If the precinct is ever redeveloped, perhaps a new entrance could be placed on the royal mail site in the north east corner facing towards the station site on the old route. Staying on the old route rather than diverting over streets results in improved speed and reliability.
Looks like there is room for a single track immediately alongside the down slow into the station, maybe with a little land take outside the existing railway fence. Road overbridges appear wide enough. At the old junction site 2 largish new residential blocks are accessed via a new road 'North Drive' parallel with and adjacent to the main line. The blocks themselves are not foul of a reinstated route (albeit with sharper curvature than the original), but the access and parking arrangements would need to be addressed. Where the old route crosses Ground Lane/Homestead Road there has been development on the trackbed and (perhaps) one residential unit may have to be removed to reinstate a single track alongside the Alban Way trail.
I am perfectly willing to accept this conclusion in current circumstances, but if no route is identified or safeguarded then tiny uncoordinated re-developments on or near the former trackbed could continue to render any future reinstatement of a largely segregated route more and more difficult, whether for trams or busses.
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ntg
Member
I am a bit disappointed about this.
The chance to rebuilt the line to Hatfield was lost in the early eighties for good, there's no way that can ever happen now (too many buildings, too much use as a cycle path, too much wildlife now growing on the path, etc.), but on street running would have been possible if HCC wanted to cough up the cash for a trans-Herts tram network which the region seriously needs (saying this as someone who has seen what happens when Thameslink or ECML or both goes down).
The bus network is just not up to the job. Maybe I'm just tired of Uno's racist, unfriendly, road ragey bus drivers who casually skip stops if they're running late, but if you want to go from St Albans to Hertford...well, good luck. It's not happen after 6pm and it'll take you 4 times longer than in the car. I don't know what the demand is but as said before, it's a bit of a catch-22. The corridor hasn't existed for many a decade so no one knows what the advantage would be. Too many a local administration has see the area as a London suburb but the disparity between the transport in London and Herts is immense.
But now that this has fallen through, which was the first step towards such a possibility, there's probably no hope. It's a shame the capacity into Euston can't accommodate through running.
The chance to rebuilt the line to Hatfield was lost in the early eighties for good, there's no way that can ever happen now (too many buildings, too much use as a cycle path, too much wildlife now growing on the path, etc.), but on street running would have been possible if HCC wanted to cough up the cash for a trans-Herts tram network which the region seriously needs (saying this as someone who has seen what happens when Thameslink or ECML or both goes down).
The bus network is just not up to the job. Maybe I'm just tired of Uno's racist, unfriendly, road ragey bus drivers who casually skip stops if they're running late, but if you want to go from St Albans to Hertford...well, good luck. It's not happen after 6pm and it'll take you 4 times longer than in the car. I don't know what the demand is but as said before, it's a bit of a catch-22. The corridor hasn't existed for many a decade so no one knows what the advantage would be. Too many a local administration has see the area as a London suburb but the disparity between the transport in London and Herts is immense.
But now that this has fallen through, which was the first step towards such a possibility, there's probably no hope. It's a shame the capacity into Euston can't accommodate through running.
No - the route was lost probably back in the 60s - whilst it didn't finally close to freight until 1967, the passenger service had been lost many years before that.
HCC have many priorities which cover the whole of Hertfordshire, spreading from Bishops Stortford and Royston in the North East of the county to Cheshunt in the South East to Tring in the North West and Rickmansworth in the South West.
Had this proceeded it would only have succeeded in linking Hatfield and St Albans - a corridor which is already very well served by many bus routes.
I fail to see how this would have helped if, to quote you "when Thameslink, ECML or both goes (sic) down"
For their many faults, this is one area I think FCC have handled far better than any previous operator on the GN and Thameslink routes (and I include NSE in this). Back in the days of BR, if a problem like this occurred on one route they'd simply lay on coaches between the affected stations not to / from the neighbouring line.
So - if there were OHL problems at Arlesey there would simply be buses from Biggleswade to Hitchin with trains either side. FCC, to their credit, usually start running buses from places like St Neots or Sandy to Bedford, giving people who live north of the affected area a couple of options for their journey.
However, given the proposal was for an E-W route, I fail to see how it would help if there were problems on the MML or ECML.
Sorry - but that statement is hyperbolic bollocks. The bus connections between Hatfield and St Albans are better than at any time in the last 35 years.
Have you complained directly to them or have you just decided to bitch about them on these boards? Additionally, you have a choice, Arriva run 4 buses an hour between Hatfield & St Albans, plus you've got the hourly 724. No need to use UNO if you don't want to.
I have to say, UNO usually get a pretty good press on these boards for their service, so I think you're probably being unreasonable.
For crying out loud - take a look at the existing loadings on the late buses which currently run. That's usually a pretty good start point. The fact is Hertford IS NOT a major destination from people who live in Hatfield / Welwyn / St Albans. It simply isn't. Stevenage is, St Albans is, London is - which is reflected in the public transport links that are in place.
Eh? I don't think for a minute HCC has ever viewed Herts as merely a "London suburb" - Commuter belt for London perhaps. And, as stated previously, Hertfordshire is a big county stretching from the rural to the suburban. HCC has to serve everybody, not a few people.
London has a 24 hour economy - London is the capital city. It is entirely right that London has a better transport system as it is trying to move more people to more destinations than any of the home counties do.
Again - I fail to see why. Changing at Watford is hardly a hardship, and the Abbey line isn't the main link to London for St Albans.
There are many more places - e.g. MK, Northampton - which will make far better use of any spare paths into Euston, rather than half a dozen people on a 321 travelling from Bricket Wood ever will
Wow. Just wow
Even though I've just posted on their Facebook page this morning, I must say that Uno is pretty good for the most part these days... thanks to HCC rolling out real time information and buses being fitted with machines that can track locations - and detect and record early running or short cutting (two BIG problems in the past).
I can perhaps imagine that one or two drivers I've had over the years might well be racist, as I've heard them ranting to some passengers and not others (usually African or Chinese students) and being nice to others - but I'd say they are definitely the minority and if you felt you were spoken to rudely, complain. Uno isn't great at responding (I'm pretty sure they'll remove my post in due course on their FB page) but you can always go to HCC otherwise.
I think there's a pretty good bus service between St Albans and Hatfield, and the provision of these buses - and FCC now selling a ticket that can be used on any operator - makes any reinstatement of the Alban Way extremely unlikely unless it became part of a much bigger project - i.e. linking up the WCML to the MML to the ECML and then the WAML - and becoming a means of connecting between services without going into London.
If that was to happen, and it won't, it would need to have the capacity to cope with huge numbers of people simply wanting to change lines - not visit the local towns the line would pass through. They'd also want a fast service, so suddenly the local stations would find themselves with a train only every 15 or 30 minutes and many trains skipping through.
Trams would be too slow, so we're back to the bus option again!
ntg
Member
The right of way existed for a good long time after that. It wasn't until the Hatfield tunnel was built in the mid 80s that the right of way was really destroyed.
East West connections to other lines would allow transfers to other services.
Obviously I'm not talking about just the Abbey line but if there was to be a true East West line across Herts.
Yes but not all bus journeys in Herts happen to be between these two towns.
Of course. I have. every time a colleague or friends relays a complain to be I tell them to contact them on Facebook. They never reply to complains on twitter, only compliments, and my last email didn't get a reply for 6 weeks. After 7 years of being a student at UH and having to rely on buses that sometimes just don't turn up I am very tired of complaining to them and feel perfectly entitled to bitch anywhere I want. Okay, there's probably only 15 or so complaints on their facebook page a month but it seems from those that do bother to complain there that there are some ongoing issues with this company.
Also, I am not travelling between those two towns. Again, there are actually other towns in Herts! I assure you, I have probably used their buses a lot more than most, and am certainly not being unduly unreasonable.
It's a catch 22 situation though. If certain locations are lack public transport links are are known to lack them why would they ever be taken? Sometimes improvements to transport networks precede growth in their use depending on the potential to do so. Maybe that potential doesn't exist, maybe it does.
I genuinely wonder why bus usage has been falling constantly in Herts over the past few years while the population grows.
Their reviews always seem London centric. Their latest rail and bus travel review contained three mentions of east-west corridors in total. In such a large county, I am surprised to see how unworthy of reletive consideration these are.
Not central London obviously, but the outer boroughs seem to have substantially better transport links through virtue of being within the boundary of greater London alone.
The route had been largely abandoned long before that though. And the A1 tunnel was an absolute necessity as anyone who can remember what the A1 through Hatfield was like before the tunnel will confirm.
But only at the point of the connection - so to restate my point, if there is a line problem at somewhere like Arlesey, Sandy or Harpenden then this would be pointless as the link would be south of the problem.
It seems to me that FCC actually handle such problems pretty well and do provide links to the neighbouring line when needed.
The other 2/3 lines which run north through Herts - the Great Eastern route to Cambridge, the WCML and the Chiltern line to Aylesbury are actually a bit far away to 'help' the neighbouring line - with the exception of Hertford - Hertford East.
From where to where? Bishops Stortford to Rickmansworth? Broxbourne to Tring? What are you actually suggesting?
Obviously, but since this thread was about the Abbey line - which is St Albans -Watford and had developed into whether it could ever be reinstated to Hatfield, I not unreasonably took the view that Hatfield - St Albans services were relevant, whereas services between Bishops Stortford and Royston probably weren't........
I hardly think 15 complaints a month given the extent of services UNO run is even getting close to significant. Even if you double it, you're looking at approx 1 complaint per day of which a good number won't be genuine.
So the relevance of you making other journeys is what then? Apart from your personal antipathy to UNO? And I can't think of too many journeys in Herts where UNO is the ONLY public transport option.
No - if you'd bothered to read what I said you would have noticed that I said "take a look at the existing loadings on the late buses which currently run" - so good example, the late 724 from Heathrow - the last one leaves Heathrow at 22.30 - it goes through Watford at about 23.00, St Albans about 23.45, Hatfield about 00.00 and Hertford 00.30.
How well used is that bus? When I used to live in Welwyn I'd regularly see it running with fewer than 5 passengers on - that, to me, means there isn't a demand for a better service.
Last time I was in Hitchin I saw one of the evening services being run by UNO coming down Cambridge Road at about 20.00 with about 2 passengers.
Yes - both of these are anecdotal, but go out and have a look.
Where I live now, in Northampton, most of the last buses leave the bus station at about 11pm - it is very rare for these to have more than a dozen people on.
Not sure where you're getting your figures from, but this report on the HCC website doesn't endorse your view - in fact bus usage has been INCREASING in Herts since 2006. http://www.hertsdirect.org/docs/pdf/t/ttdr11.pdf See figure 3.14.
What it also shows is Herts has a higher than average - against England overall and Eastern England - use of trains, which is probably because of the number of people commuting into London.
[Takes deep breath] I would have thought this was patently obvious why the focus is on London - because it's where the majority of people are commuting to. That can be demonstrated by simply going and looking at virtually any London bound train between the hours of 7am and 9am. The sheer volume of people trying to get into London means that will always be the focus of where improvements need to be.
There are relatively few people by comparison travelling from Rickmansworth to Stevenage - those that do are almost certainly doing so by car because with the best will in the world you will never justify a flexible public transport link between such destinations.
Well, they're within the tube network which gives good links to the centre I grant you - but try taking a bus from Barnet to Stratford or Edgware to Ealing and I don't think you'll find the picture quite so rosy.
Bus use would really increase if they could speed up the roll out of real time information and get smartcards working (they've got the equipment on buses now, and OAPs can swipe, but not anyone else).
Uno are terrible at dealing with complaints. I've waited some four months to get a reply to one letter - and the reply was laughable, given it claimed it was acceptable to leave up to 5 minutes early, and didn't address any of my other concerns. But, on other occasions they've been a little quicker. Answering the phone is even worse. You can call and say 'I'm standing outside the depot waiting for the 6xx' and get told 'it's just left, you must have missed it'. 'But I'm at the first bus stop and have been here for 15 minutes'... And still they deny that the bus wasn't there.
In my opinion, they don't have anyone to deal with complaints and issues - and the persons you get through to at the depot/control are not in any way customer service trained and just want to make sure not to admit anything. Look at their Facebook page. They only add to it because they have set their Twitter account to autopost to FB.
Anyway, by and large, Uno run a good service now - but that doesn't mean they don't have some major problems. I find it hard to consider them as a 'proper' operator, as they seem to have expanded at a tremendous speed but not improved their 'back end' operations. I get the feeling that they're out of their depth, so even with best intentions they can't sort out problems.
Recently I complained about buses with no numbers on the blinds (at best, just on the front, often just a bit of A4 paper stuck on the dash). They said that many drivers don't set the side or rear blinds (some buses have LEDs, so I guess drivers on the older buses can't be bothered) and asked me to help them by reporting any bus I saw out and about (they added numbers to each bus to identify it easier). I get the impression they know they have problems with many drivers, but can't do much about it as they don't have the manpower.
In effect, they've passed on some of the responsibility to me - a customer. And I am not sure I want to shoulder the blame for their poor operation because I'm not out there inspecting them, and running the risk of having one driver telling another to 'run me over' (dead seriously, I should add) because I'd complained about running early and leaving me stranded for 30 minutes.
One thing I would say about bus usage is that you can't measure how many people are on a bus at any given time of the day. Having a councillor as a neighbour, we were able to discuss this (and other residents) when HCC was considering cutting funding to our local bus that runs from 0630 to 2305. The bus is often near empty during most of the day, but it was clear that if you cut the service back too much - people would stop using it completely.
What you have are a lot of people using it in the morning peak to get to the station to work, and most coming back in the evening peak - but often many coming back later. When the bus was stopped at 1900 for a while, people feared that being delayed on the train home or working late/going out would mean no bus home. So they stopped going in the morning.
Any half-decent operator would know this and look at revenue as a whole. That's perhaps why the buses in the evening are still run, even if they don't have many passengers. That isn't a reason to cut it, but at the same time, does support the argument that you don't need anything more.
Uno are terrible at dealing with complaints. I've waited some four months to get a reply to one letter - and the reply was laughable, given it claimed it was acceptable to leave up to 5 minutes early, and didn't address any of my other concerns. But, on other occasions they've been a little quicker. Answering the phone is even worse. You can call and say 'I'm standing outside the depot waiting for the 6xx' and get told 'it's just left, you must have missed it'. 'But I'm at the first bus stop and have been here for 15 minutes'... And still they deny that the bus wasn't there.
In my opinion, they don't have anyone to deal with complaints and issues - and the persons you get through to at the depot/control are not in any way customer service trained and just want to make sure not to admit anything. Look at their Facebook page. They only add to it because they have set their Twitter account to autopost to FB.
Anyway, by and large, Uno run a good service now - but that doesn't mean they don't have some major problems. I find it hard to consider them as a 'proper' operator, as they seem to have expanded at a tremendous speed but not improved their 'back end' operations. I get the feeling that they're out of their depth, so even with best intentions they can't sort out problems.
Recently I complained about buses with no numbers on the blinds (at best, just on the front, often just a bit of A4 paper stuck on the dash). They said that many drivers don't set the side or rear blinds (some buses have LEDs, so I guess drivers on the older buses can't be bothered) and asked me to help them by reporting any bus I saw out and about (they added numbers to each bus to identify it easier). I get the impression they know they have problems with many drivers, but can't do much about it as they don't have the manpower.
In effect, they've passed on some of the responsibility to me - a customer. And I am not sure I want to shoulder the blame for their poor operation because I'm not out there inspecting them, and running the risk of having one driver telling another to 'run me over' (dead seriously, I should add) because I'd complained about running early and leaving me stranded for 30 minutes.
One thing I would say about bus usage is that you can't measure how many people are on a bus at any given time of the day. Having a councillor as a neighbour, we were able to discuss this (and other residents) when HCC was considering cutting funding to our local bus that runs from 0630 to 2305. The bus is often near empty during most of the day, but it was clear that if you cut the service back too much - people would stop using it completely.
What you have are a lot of people using it in the morning peak to get to the station to work, and most coming back in the evening peak - but often many coming back later. When the bus was stopped at 1900 for a while, people feared that being delayed on the train home or working late/going out would mean no bus home. So they stopped going in the morning.
Any half-decent operator would know this and look at revenue as a whole. That's perhaps why the buses in the evening are still run, even if they don't have many passengers. That isn't a reason to cut it, but at the same time, does support the argument that you don't need anything more.
Aictos
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- 28 Apr 2009
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The other thing to remember is okay Hertford might not as popular as Stevenage or St Albans for days out BUT it's a catch 22, what about these who live in the Hertford area who actually like to go out to Stevenage or St Albans for the day who have to rely on a hourly train, drive in or get a hourly bus - if you live in Hertford but wanted a night out in St Albans you either pay for a taxi or have to do a round trip into London on the trains.
Not everything is Hertfordcentric but people here ought to look at the bigger picture and realise that maybe just maybe there is a 2 way flow of passengers more in one direction then the other granted :roll:
Not everything is Hertfordcentric but people here ought to look at the bigger picture and realise that maybe just maybe there is a 2 way flow of passengers more in one direction then the other granted :roll:
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