1. St Alban's : A Blog Failure!
fbb has already explained that the London Country Bus map is a graphics object and does not scale up very well. The above it the best the old bloke can do with his clockwork computer system. Maybe something geographical might help! The bus map is undated but roughty mid to late sixties.
The geographical map is today!.jpg)
Two other things to remember in this attempt at comparison from about 50 years distance.
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The bus map shows bus destinations in CAPITALS and these may not match geographical locations in importance. Similarly, the Green Bus map does not attempt to show the minutiae of town services.
And St Albans was a London Country town..
And in 1986.
Of course there is no such thing as London Country buses today and St Albans reflects that change. To add to the possible confusion, there are TWO main bus assembly points in St Albans.
There is the City Centre St Peters Street where a variety of companies ply their trade. Uno routes are numbered in the 600s ...
... so no direct comparison with LT.
Arriva 321 ...
... has an LT look to its route number.
Metroline 305 ...
... is another possibility.
Vale Travel, which nipped past without showing a route number ...
... was on route S8, a local service usually operated by Red Eagle.
This bus operator also appears ...
... on S1 another local route.
Meanwhile at City Station ...
... a further selection is evident, all of which also call at the city centre. There is one that looks like a London Country bus ...
... but that is Sullivan Buses off to Pottern Bar trying to look nostalgic!
So, obviously, there is no dominant operator and we must be utterly grateful that Hertfordshire County Council runs a very good on-line service under the brand "Intalink".
There is a good map of St Albans local buses ...
... which, for reasons stated above, is not within our purview. We need to use the County-wide map to compare then and now. Here is roughly the same area as on the Country Bus and the geographical maps above..jpg)
Well, there would appear to be loads more buses than under the noble leadership of London Transport. Of course this is (a) because very few town services appear on the LT map and (b) the towns were smaller and had far fewer bus services anyway.
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St Albams to Harpenden
Back in the good old days it was route 321; and, as glimpsed in St Peters Street ...
... it still is running every 30 between Luton and Watford.
The 721 is a recent government funded addition which increased the frequency to every 15.
fbb has struggled unsuccessfully with the next road clockwise round the spider that sits centrally on its web in St Albans, but the modern route is the 357 (in black) and the more occasional 305 to Sandridge and 304 further north,
The 304 and 357 are each every hour whilst the 305 is less frequent.
Although the map is a bit too fuzzy, it is clear that the pattern of operation remains at least similar to that in the 1960s. The fact that the route numbers are still in the 3xx series suggests that things still have a strong taste of LT Green Bus.
But now it gets complicated!
The fuzzy map shows a route out of St Albans via Coopers Green and Lemsford. It was clearly infrequent.
Not only is there no service to these two villages today, but they do not appear on the Intalink map.
Then Hatfield is a problem. What tends to be called "Old" Hatfield, a quiet and unassuming market town (seen below as Fore Street) ...
... is totally "blown away" by "New" Hatfield. Suffice it to say that there are numerous buses providing a frequent service between St Albans, Hatfield and Welwyn Garden City. Doubtless there were plenty doing much the same in the 1960s, at least between St Albans and Welwyn.
Fuzzy Hatfield ("Old") is at the bottom centre of this fuzzy map. This is what you get today, so no comparison is possible!
For the record, "Old" Hatfield is the bit near the railway station ...
... where Fore Street (as pictured above) remains to remind us of long lost days!
The closest that buses get to Fore Street is the railway station where the 300 and 301 appear on Streetview.
The 300 is no more but a 301 and 302 provide a 15 minute frequency between St Albans and Hatfield extended at both ends.
On the old map, the route between these two is shown at 341. But at least today's route retains something of London Country's numerology,
Did "old" Hatfield get a bus every 15 minutes from St Albans in the 1960s? fbb very much doubts it!
Did you ever wish you had not started something?
Diu to the poor Country Bus map, and fbb's inability to fettle the file to make the original any better, this blog has been something of a failure!
Maybe it has, however, shown that things have moved on, mostly for the better, under the avuncular gaze of Hertfordshire County Council.
Maybe fbb will find a better way to investigate North Cottages, Tyttenhanger, Harperbury Hospital and Hill End. Harperbury Hospital doesn't look its best on line!
Next Red Book blog : Tuesday 23td July
Your LT map is older than you think. The first edition in this style was in 1948 and the design lasted, I believe, for about ten years. If you look at the back cover when folded there should be in a small typeface details of the date and print run. If there is not a close examination of the routes to look for changes to the network should pin the date down.
ReplyDeleteAlan JS
As a former resident of St Albans (note no extraneous apostrophe) . . . perhaps I can help:
ReplyDeleteCurrent route 321 . . . former route 321.
Current route 357 . . . former route 355.
Current route 304 . . . former route 304. This is actually pretty much unchanged since (at least) 1934 !!
Current route 305 . . . this is (mainly) the south end of route 343, but all sorts of other routes as well; try route 391 for Tyttenhanger.
Former route 382 . . . closed in 1985? Never amounted to much.
I could go on, but honestly . . . I'd rather not spoil fbb's upcoming befuddlement !!