London Country Revisisted : Hitchin (1)

 A Reminder Of Failure

It only seems a day or two ago, such is the deceptiveness of old age, but it was on 22nd July that fbb began his abortive look at London's Country Buses (the green ones) aiming to compare frequencies and routes with today's network.

Inadequately resourced, the blogging project proved undeliverable and the old man cringed at his own poor efforts. There was some useful stuff ...

... notably on the general scene in St Albans. There were a few current maps 

... and timetables.

A proper comparison proved unacievable, leaving fbb with some general verbeage but nothing concrete,

Then correspondent Julian, often a white knight to fbb's dodgy jousting of bus knowledge, sent the old man a batch of London Country maps in far better condition than the copy he had bought and used to start the aborted blog series.

And A Second Attempt!

So herewith are extracts from Julian's five, each extract showing Hitchin and the surrounding area. fbb will ensure better photographic quality  in part 2. Readers were politely warned about preparation pressure for the forthcoming Fellowship meetings!

1948

1952

1954

1963

1969

Interesting change of colour scheme, is it not? And the 1960s do bring relatively minor detailed changes. In fact the limited network at Hitchin was relatively stable over the 21 years spanned by the naps.

Obviously our loyal blog readers, thirsting for exciting bus knowledge in the Home Counties, will now be busily comparing maps to identify changes of the 21 year span on Julian's map collection.

Unless you are a real London country bus geek (in which case you probably wouldn't need to look anyway), fbb doubts you would be interested enough to look at the detail.

We Pitch In With Hitchin

This is Hitchin in 1888!

And this is Hitchin in about 2020.

And this is modern Hitchin with 1888 Hitchin superimposed.

The match is not perfect but it does show that Hitchin has not splurged quite as much as, for example, Hatfield.

Hitchin is, of course, border territory with United Counites (as was) ...

... attacking from the north and the London Country buses approaching from the south.

And to whet our woderful readers'appetite, here is Hitchin today c/o Intalink, Hertfordshire's bus infromation service.

Intriguingly here is the London Country Hitchin bus garage in the 1950s ...

... which ceased to be a bus garage in 1959 when operaions were trnsferred to Stevenage.

And this is the same building (much rejigged) in the 1990s.

And a more recent picture!

So which of their routes were still running in 1973 ...

... and which can still be identified today?

Timorrow fbb will tell all - IF he can understand it!

Puzzle Picture

This item has been causing fbb grief over the last weekend. 

What is it? It is NOT public transport related, but is part of a domestic transport system.

 Next London Country Hitchin blog : Thurs 29 Aug