www.unobus.info
It's been sold, apparently. For today's duties Uno are using 605 (C17 UNO), which was on TfL duty until a week ago.
www.bbc.com
I don't believe we're seeing the full picture yet ... 243 is numbered thusly because 242 (the ex-Metroline route) is involved in some way.
From what I've seen, the 242 is being extended to Hatfield and this new 243 also starts in Hatfield, so that could mean one route following the 610 routing and one fast via the Great North Road or maybe an increase to 2 buses/ hour through the villages instead. The route number must mean the timetables are co-ordinated in some way. The 610 is Hatfield to Luton only (just like term time only X10) from September, so no commercial Uno routes to Cockfosters, just the 298 they run on behalf of TFL.
I imagine the DDs are providing a lot more capacity than is needed! Certainly interesting to see them on the route.
I've lived in Cheshunt for nearly 8 years and had family connections in the town for 16 years, I don't remember seeing double deckers on the 242 ever until now, the school journeys need them, but not really at other times. Only seen old pictures of it from when it was London Transport. To me, the 242 should never have been separated from London's network ever, is a very useful and long established link between two of TFL's terminuses, and a pretty route when it reaches the countryside and not like out here is that separate from London anyway.
TfL chopping the 84 was a far worse cut, certainly the section between High Barnet and Potters Bar. It seems inconsistent when they've maintained the bus connections between Potters Bar and other parts of North London.
There are pictures of more recent decker operations on Flickr, by searching "Metroline 242" - e.g. https://www.flickr.com/photos/165727501@N07/51502805232/ or https://flickr.com/photos/localbusdriver/16011314544.
The route runs entirely in Hertfordshire?
Yes, but Potters Bar used to be in Middlesex before Greater London was established.
That was 60 years ago, times change. My Dad grew up in Middlesex and was a teenager when it vanished and has not referred to himself as coming from anywhere but West London to me. I've always been confused by this idea that the Greater London Authority should be subsidising bus services for residents of a neighbouring authority just because they are just over the border and some point in the distant past there was some connection. I do also wonder how many residents, based on views elsewhere around the edge of London (and in other major cityies where suburbs just over the city boundary have been suggested to join the big city), would actually want to become part of London even for the chance of a slight improvement in the local bus network and then you have the same question up the road where the new border is.
Because London is fairly underbounded (like all cities in Britain), significantly so in the South West/ Surrey blur. It's boundaries (built up area) in reality don't stop at a hard line on a map and even so, the GLA boundaries are no good for logical transport planning and connections. From Waltham Cross, a narrow but continuous spur of development carries on up the Lea Valley for 6 miles towards and beyond Hoddesdon. Far from the only place like it around London, Watford always comes up as one of 5 large towns always mentioned as barely separate for example.
I agree and it's especially criminal with the garage in Potters Bar running routes like the 263 out of service when they could easily have changed the route to cover that cut in the 84. School service 626 shows there is no barrier!
I share your frustration with this. I grew up in south west Essex on the London border. Buckhurst Hill / Loughton / Debden (in the Essex County Council area) has the luxury of 4 bus TfL routes, whereas Waltham Abbey has nothing, and not even a non-TfL service to Chingford. Even more of a contrast is having the frequent and comprehensive 215 bus route to the Lea Valley campsite, which is perhaps far more buses than it needs. Yet nothing continues north to Sewardstone and Waltham Abbey. It would probably never be a well used bus corridor, but it should at least have an hourly service IMO.
Yeah I know Waltham Abbey very well, everyone says the same thing when it comes to buses. Expensive and rubbish and it feels like the town is dying a slow death because of it! Like the 242, Waltham Abbey should never have been cut off from London Transport. The town is really isolated now when before it appeared to be thriving. The 215 terminus at the Camp Site is nonsense, I don't understand why TFL won't just extend, even as just as a trial run. Apparently it would cost £700,000 a year to extend the 215 but that's spare change to them, given the social benefits! Some TFL routes have 2 terminuses like the 166 Croydon to Banstead every 20 minutes with 1 an hour continuing to Epsom Hospital, no reason something like the 215 couldn't do the same.
Yes that's always been the issue. But people who need to get to north London or even further in really don't care about the politics. HCC should have a system of allowing TfL buses to run into Herts to connect with local Herts buses.
A very gradual entry into service from (implicitly late) 2024 to 2026 was the aim when Herts CC announced their revised ZEBRA scheme in December 2023. Uno's launch presser in March 2025 said the shuttle five would be "charging into service this month" before that was quietly withdrawn; infrastructure works (including a DNO grid upgrade) are the likely holdups, and as with previous Uno stock introductions it may be in September again.
Driver hearsay isn't the most reliable of sources. In last year's tender exercise for the twenty-two there were references to the 602 & 653, not the 601.
