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.
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.
East West connections to other lines would allow transfers to other services.
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.
Obviously I'm not talking about just the Abbey line but if there was to be a true East West line across Herts.
From where to where? Bishops Stortford to Rickmansworth? Broxbourne to Tring? What are you actually suggesting?
Yes but not all bus journeys in Herts happen to be between these two towns.
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........
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I genuinely wonder why bus usage has been falling constantly in Herts over the past few years while the population grows.
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.
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.
[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.
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.
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.