TrustyBus Route 505: Chingford - Harlow

[N230UD]

So at the end of this month, the long standing route 505 from Chingford to Harlow via Waltham Abbey will no longer operate on Mondays to Fridays, leaving just a pretty rubbish Saturday service.

Currently the Monday to Friday service (much reduced from its Arriva days) is operated commercially, while the identical Saturday service is operated under contract to Essex County Council. There are just 6 journeys from Chingford.

I have no idea what passenger numbers are like on the service now, but I went on the route quite a lot a few years ago and it had fairly good passenger loadings. I remember the Chingford-Waltham Abbey section being fairly good, and also the Waltham Abbey to Harlow section with every seat taken. This was before there was competition on the Waltham Abbey-Harlow section (currently EOS route 86 competes on this section). I wonder how many people would be using the service between Waltham Abbey and Chingford now if it was still an hourly service? I also wonder why there isn't demand from Waltham Abbey to Chingford?

Just having a Saturday service is rather pointless. I can imagine passenger numbers further decreasing, as existing passengers may just get used to travelling another way (i.e TfL 397 to Loughton, then EOS 66 to Waltham Abbey).

I do wonder if a bus service operating Chingford - Waltham Abbey - Waltham Cross could be popular (I believe the 242 operated like this way back when it was a London Buses service). But I'd imagine it would definitely be too much out of London for TfL to operate, or too much in London (with TfL bus stations at both ends) for a commercial operator.

[snoggle]

Dec 16, 2016 20:39:53 GMT N230UD said:

So at the end of this month, the long standing route 505 from Chingford to Harlow via Waltham Abbey will no longer operate on Mondays to Fridays, leaving just a pretty rubbish Saturday service.

Currently the Monday to Friday service (much reduced from its Arriva days) is operated commercially, while the identical Saturday service is operated under contract to Essex County Council. There are just 6 journeys from Chingford.

I have no idea what passenger numbers are like on the service now, but I went on the route quite a lot a few years ago and it had fairly good passenger loadings. I remember the Chingford-Waltham Abbey section being fairly good, and also the Waltham Abbey to Harlow section with every seat taken. This was before there was competition on the Waltham Abbey-Harlow section (currently EOS route 86 competes on this section). I wonder how many people would be using the service between Waltham Abbey and Chingford now if it was still an hourly service? I also wonder why there isn't demand from Waltham Abbey to Chingford?

Just having a Saturday service is rather pointless. I can imagine passenger numbers further decreasing, as existing passengers may just get used to travelling another way (i.e TfL 397 to Loughton, then EOS 66 to Waltham Abbey).

I do wonder if a bus service operating Chingford - Waltham Abbey - Waltham Cross could be popular (I believe the 242 operated like this way back when it was a London Buses service). But I'd imagine it would definitely be too much out of London for TfL to operate, or too much in London (with TfL bus stations at both ends) for a commercial operator.

We've debated this before. I suspect there isn't much of a market for a bus service between Chingford and Waltham Abbey. It's never been frequently served and with an unreliable service at times no one in their right mind would rely on it. Whatever market there might have been at some point was lost long ago. The fact there is substantial new housing and some industrial units on the ring road south of the M25 should provide a basis for at least a local bus link from Waltham Abbey and Waltham Cross but I suspect that's a forlorn hope as everyone living and working there will rely on cars because no service has ever run despite bays for stops having been constructed. I'm not surprised Trustybus are giving up on the 505. TfL won't back fill especially with the 215 running to / from the Campsite permanently from the new contract in March next year. I imagine some people in Sewardstone might walk to / from the Camp Site if they're desperate enough.

[N230UD]

Dec 16, 2016 22:31:56 GMT snoggle said:

Dec 16, 2016 20:39:53 GMT N230UD said:

We've debated this before. I suspect there isn't much of a market for a bus service between Chingford and Waltham Abbey. It's never been frequently served and with an unreliable service at times no one in their right mind would rely on it. Whatever market there might have been at some point was lost long ago. The fact there is substantial new housing and some industrial units on the ring road south of the M25 should provide a basis for at least a local bus link from Waltham Abbey and Waltham Cross but I suspect that's a forlorn hope as everyone living and working there will rely on cars because no service has ever run despite bays for stops having been constructed. I'm not surprised Trustybus are giving up on the 505. TfL won't back fill especially with the 215 running to / from the Campsite permanently from the new contract in March next year. I imagine some people in Sewardstone might walk to / from the Camp Site if they're desperate enough.

I think with more investment, the Waltham Abbey-Chingford link could become popular again. But, quite understandably, I doubt anyone would be willing to invest there. I also doubt Essex County Council will fund a Mon-Fri service, judging by all the cut backs throughout the country, and I predict the Saturday service will disappear at the end of the contract.

I think I know where you are talking about in Waltham Abbey with the new housing and industrial units - that's the A121 Meridian Way, and in fact there was a bus service along there but I think it only lasted a couple of years. I can't find anything online at the moment, but if memory serves me well, it was the 253 which operated between Waltham Cross and Waltham Abbey via Meridian Way, with Arriva Shires & Essex Mercedes Varios. I remember seeing a photo of a Vario with Sainsbury's branding as I think they funded it (theres a big Sainsbury's distribution centre there).

Its not just the 505 - bus services in that area of Essex seem pretty dismal compared to other parts of the country. I regularly travel on buses in London and East Kent, where passenger numbers are very strong in places, and its quite a contrast when I visit Essex.

[towerman]

LBL used to run a route from Loughton to Ongar the 201 in the 70s & 80s,was run from Loughton Garage.It was withdrawn due to lack of use.

[thesquirrels]

There is the 215 at the bottom. There is also the 121 if you walk down just over half a mile down the lane from Sewardstone Road onto Enfield Island Village - though that isn't much good if you want Waltham X/Abbey or Chingford, or are travelling at night without a strong torch.

There are three problems that I can see with any Chingford - Waltham Abbey/Cross service as things currently stand:

1) As above posters have stated, uptake of the service has collapsed in recent years. I too remember it being quite busy in years gone by, and no small amount of that was down to the Sewardstone section, long before the warehouse and new homes appeared at the M25 end. There are various nurseries, salvage and merchants yards, a hotel and bitty sections of residential property along the ribbon - once the clockface hourly service vanished then any prospect of workers at any of those places relying on the 505 getting them to work disappeared with it. I think the potential is there for a service to be viable along there, but it needs to be frequent enough, reliable enough, and go where the people with jobs there want to travel from. That itself is a problem because..

2) The positioning of the Sainsburys distribution centre in relation to the Sewardstone Road, Waltham Abbey and Waltham Cross makes serving all three in a single go virtually impossible - the 505 stops half a mile away from the staff door at the distro centre so the route would need to actually run down Meridian Way in order to stand a chance at attracting custom from there. i do think any service would need to be attractive to Sainsburys staff in order to stand a fighting chance of being sustainable. The residential area to the south has essentially grown having never known a bus service therefore doesn't "need" one per se, but if a decent half hourly service could be laid on along there I think patronage would begin to pick up fairly quickly. My instinct would be to run the service west to Waltham Cross to serve a larger population catchment and connect into the rail and bus services from Cheshunt and points north, and that this is more important than linking into Waltham Abbey, though both really need to be served.

3) As soon as the M25 falls over the roads around Waltham Abbey and Dowding/Meridian Way snarl up. This will hamper any effort to provide a reliable service in the area, so the routes need to be short and self-contained.

If I had a large sum of cash and access to aggressive local marketing my suggestion would be two baby* bus routes as follows:

505: Chingford to Upshire, running via the current route up to Meridian Way, then via the distribution centre, then right into Waltham Abbey town centre and onto Upshire via route 251. Hourly daily untll 2200.
551: Chingford to Waltham Cross, leaving Chingford via Bury Road to reach Sewardstone as route 505 used to, then via Meridian Way and Eleanor Cross Road. Hourly daily until 2200.

Objectives:
- gives a direct Chingford - Waltham Cross link
- gives a direct link to the front door of the distribution centre to the railheads and transport interchanges at Waltham Cross, Chingford and Waltham Abbey town centre, as well as the residential areas leading out to Upshire.
- provides an intensive service along the Sewardstone Road to try and drum up custom - the aim would be for the Sewardstone - Sainsburys section to run at even intervals.

Drawbacks:
- Would haemorrhage money for the first six months, and as soon as it started showing promise one of the local bandits would come in and steal the custom. Which is why nobody will try it.
- the M25 will ruin everything.

* small midibus of your own choosing.