100 British Bus Routes: Route 84
Potters Bar to St Albans
25 November 2023
ABOVE: Sullivan Buses E59 (LK08 DXW) calls into Potters Bar station en route for Potters Bar High Street on route 84. All photos in this article were taken on Wednesday 15th November 2023. I should know by now that one shouldn't attempt a photograph when the sun is immediately behind!
Runs: Daily
Operator: Sullivan Buses
Weekday daytime frequency: Every 30 minutes
Estimated Vehicle Requirement: Four buses
Off-peak journey time: 50-53 minutes
Estimated route length: 11-12 miles
Operator: Sullivan Buses
Weekday daytime frequency: Every 30 minutes
Estimated Vehicle Requirement: Four buses
Off-peak journey time: 50-53 minutes
Estimated route length: 11-12 miles
It's a lovely, bright autumn morning as I arrive at Potters Bar railway station (or, as it is described by its signage, "Potters Bar Train Station" - very American)!
ABOVE: Potters Bar "Train Station", with a Sullivan Buses Volvo B9TL Wright Eclipse Gemini picking up for anther run to St Albans. You may just pick out the discreet route branding between decks
It's also extremely busy. There are people milling about all over the place. Many are heading for a train; many others, like me, have just left a train. Many cars pull up and drop off passengers as couples part for the day to go to work - the so-called "kiss-and-ride" service. One of course causes a jam when the driver leaves the car for the station and the passenger moves around to take over for the drive back.
And the first bus I see is a Transport for London (TfL) school service - route 626 from Finchley Central to Dame Alice Owen's School in Potters Bar:
ABOVE: Metroline Travel VWH 2238 (LK66 EOG), a Volvo B5LH Wright Eclipse Gemini 3, calls in at Potters Bar station on its way to Dame Alice Owen's School
Route 626 is, briefly, one of the most frequent bus services in London, running every one minute. But only very briefly. There are four AM journeys on this route, leaving Finchley at 0733, 0734, 0735 and 0736. Miss the 0736 and the wait will be slightly longer - 23 hours and 57 minutes to be precise (hope it's not the weekend)!
It's a long run from Finchley - 51 minutes - so I wonder whether the route is serving more than one school during its travels. There are four return PM journeys, but these are spread out at mere three-minute intervals! I only see three of the buses - all very busy - but it's possible that the first one had already been through prior to my arrival.
There are lots of red TfL buses here, even though we're a mile or so over the border into Hertfordshire - there's even a TfL garage in the town, for goodness sake (Metroline Travel)!
The route I am here to sample was once a red London Transport service as well. Route 84 traditionally ran from St Albans into Greater London, to various destinations as far apart as Golders Green (until 1940), Walthamstow (1940-1969) and then New Barnet and/or Arnos Grove. (Thanks to the 'London Bus Routes website by Ian Armstrong' for the historical information.)
It ceased to be an LT route in 1982, when it was moved to London Country; at that time it reverted to just running from New Barnet to St Albans (a diversion via Potters Bar came later). Operators came and went, and it ended up as a commercial service with Metroline Travel.
Then, in 2022, Metroline cancelled the registration for the route. It looked briefly as though the route might disappear, but common-sense prevailed and Sullivan Buses stepped into the breach, covering the key section from Potters Bar to St Albans, but not picking up the cross-border section to Barnet (of which more later).
So when is the 84 coming today? Well I'm not going to learn anything from the real-time display:
Route 626 is, briefly, one of the most frequent bus services in London, running every one minute. But only very briefly. There are four AM journeys on this route, leaving Finchley at 0733, 0734, 0735 and 0736. Miss the 0736 and the wait will be slightly longer - 23 hours and 57 minutes to be precise (hope it's not the weekend)!
It's a long run from Finchley - 51 minutes - so I wonder whether the route is serving more than one school during its travels. There are four return PM journeys, but these are spread out at mere three-minute intervals! I only see three of the buses - all very busy - but it's possible that the first one had already been through prior to my arrival.
There are lots of red TfL buses here, even though we're a mile or so over the border into Hertfordshire - there's even a TfL garage in the town, for goodness sake (Metroline Travel)!
The route I am here to sample was once a red London Transport service as well. Route 84 traditionally ran from St Albans into Greater London, to various destinations as far apart as Golders Green (until 1940), Walthamstow (1940-1969) and then New Barnet and/or Arnos Grove. (Thanks to the 'London Bus Routes website by Ian Armstrong' for the historical information.)
It ceased to be an LT route in 1982, when it was moved to London Country; at that time it reverted to just running from New Barnet to St Albans (a diversion via Potters Bar came later). Operators came and went, and it ended up as a commercial service with Metroline Travel.
Then, in 2022, Metroline cancelled the registration for the route. It looked briefly as though the route might disappear, but common-sense prevailed and Sullivan Buses stepped into the breach, covering the key section from Potters Bar to St Albans, but not picking up the cross-border section to Barnet (of which more later).
So when is the 84 coming today? Well I'm not going to learn anything from the real-time display:
The stop timetable confirms that the bus is due at 0838, by which time half a dozen intending passengers have assembled. But 0838 comes and goes. With no sign of the bus, one person is getting uneasy. "Don't worry," says another intending passenger, "they're always late"!
Eventually, 15 minutes late, the 84 appears, having already run half a loop of the town centre from its starting point outside Potters Bar bus garage on the High Street. This one is an ADL Enviro400, dual-doored, and, by the time we're loaded and have navigated our way out of the bus station, a couple more minutes have passed.
But we're very quickly onto a fast road, Mutton Lane, heading out of town. Well it would be if the traffic allowed it to be...
ABOVE: Sullivan Buses WVL 4 (FJ57 CZE), a Volvo B9TL Wright Eclipse Gemini, heads along Mutton Lane, Potters Bar, towards the town centre
There's a brief delay due to single, alternate-line traffic; unusually the control of the traffic is being managed manually.
ABOVE: Metroline TE922 (LK58 KFY) is an ADL Enviro400 that has now been transferred to training duties. It passes a temporary blockage at the junction of Mutton Lane and Dugdale Hill Lane in Potters Bar. The aforementioned Dame Alice Owen's School is half a mile down Dugdale Hill Lane, on the left
At most points through this journey, the driver gives an impression of being in a hurry (as might be expected as we're about 17 minutes late). The horn is sounded repeatedly throughout and the braking is sharp. And yet, the driver completely misses his cue to pass this pinch-point. The worker controlling the traffic calls him forward several times but he doesn't move. After 15 seconds or so, the worker gives the traffic in the other direction another turn.
The remarkable thing about the 84 is that, roughly two miles from the Greater London border and about 12 minutes from the start of the journey, we have rolling hills and open countryside all around us.
ABOVE: The view looking north-west from Mutton Lane, near the Strafford Public House on the outskirts of Potters Bar
These open fields punctuate the next few miles - this is green belt territory after all - but there are also regular reminders that we're close to an urban area. We cross the A1(M) - if you turn right here and keep going, you'll end up in Edinburgh.
ABOVE: Sullivan Buses ELV 4 (PN02 XBY) in "London Red", is a Volvo B7TL East Lancs Myllennium Vyking. It is seen here working local, non-TfL, route 398 (Potters Bar to Borehamwood / Watford), crossing the A1(M) on Cecil Road near South Mimms
Once across the A1(M) we are into South Mimms. This village of just 855 people (in the 2011 Census), is the northernmost part of the historic county of Middlesex. The name is thought to derive from a tribe who once inhabited the area. We only skirt the northern side of the village, but that does take us past the White Hart public house, an 18th-Century Grade-II listed building.
ABOVE: The White Hart public house, South Mimms
I should have mentioned; because this was a London Transport route in the good old days, I rode it regularly as a child; a trip out to St Albans was as big a treat as going to Reading on the train instead of Slough! One thing that wasn't a feature of this route when I was (very) small was the M25 motorway.
In case there's anyone reading this who isn't familiar with the M25, it's a 117-mile long orbital motorway running all the way around London. The South Mimms to Potters Bar section was the very first section to be opened, in 1975.
The 84 starts 'outside' the M25 (by which I mean not within the enclosed circle that the motorway creates, which I call "London"). It also finishes outside, but it does briefly move inside the circle, when we pass underneath it on Blackhorse Lane, just to the north-west of South Mimms, and then run alongside it for a short distance.
It feels very odd - look away from the motorway and we're essentially on a country lane...
...but expand the view a bit, and one of the UK's most important roads is right alongside...
Incidentally, just to the south of the tiny village of South Mimms is a Service Area for the M25, which has taken its name, and looks to be spread over a land mass of at least half the size of the village itself!
We cross the M25 again, and leave the 'circle', near London Colney. This village, with a population more than ten times the size of that of South Mimms, represents the start of the City & District of St Albans. The name has been derived from "Colney on the road to London", which makes sense!
We take a brief detour from the village itself to serve the Colney Fields Shopping Park.
ABOVE: uno 307 (BV57 VHF), a Mercedes-Benz Citaro O530, leaves Colney Fields Shopping Park on route 602 (Hatfield to Watford)
A moment later and we're in the village itself. And how pretty it is.
ABOVE: A view of London Colney, looking north-west along the Barnet Road. The Bull pub on the left is a 17th-century coaching inn. Immediately beyond it, we cross the River Colne.
We cross the River Colne (which gives its name to London Colney, and other Colneys nearby). We use the Telfords Bridge, another Grade-II listed structure, built c. 1775, which is apparently nothing to do with Thomas Telford.
After London Colney, another major trunk road (this time the A414) reminds me that we're not in a remote country area.
We're on the approaches to St Albans now, but take a detour into a residential suburb known as Cell Barnes. Cell Barnes Hospital, once on this site, was built by Hertfordshire County Council to provide care for those with learning difficulties and learning disabilities.
The name may relate to Sopwell Priory, which was a 'cell' (meaning a dependency) of St Albans Abbey. The Priory was a Benedictine nunnery founded around 1140, in the centre of St Albans, and its ruins can still be seen today.
Meanwhile, Cell Barnes Lane is now a residential area. The routing of the 84 through this area seems to be a relatively recent change (2014), when half of the service was diverted away from the main road as the 84A. Sullivan picked up this routing as its core 84 service, from the off, in 2022.
ABOVE: Red Eagle 50113 (YX60 BZO), an ADL Enviro200, in Cell Barnes Lane on local route S1 to St Albans
Whilst Sullivan Buses made the conscious and sensible decision to run double-decker buses on route 84, the occasional single-decker does sneak out:
ABOVE: Sullivan Buses AE28 (YX09 HJN), an Enviro200, substitutes for a double-decker on route 84. It is liveried for Staines to Thorpe Park route 950, a service that Sullivan provides far from its Hertfordshire operating base. This is Cell Barnes Lane again.
We reach St Albans City station, with its bus station immediately outside:
ABOVE: The bus station outside St Albans City railway station
It's from here that my impatient bus driver takes what I think might be an unannounced short cut. I think he's supposed to turn right / right again and head via Victoria Street into the City Centre, but he actually turns left / left again and heads along the Hatfield Road.
I find a uno training vehicle here:
ABOVE: uno 207 (PN08 SWF) is a Scania N230UD Optare Olympus from the uno Driver Training School. It is seen here in Hatfield Road, St Albans, at the junction of Station Way
This detour brings us out at "The Cock Inn" on St Peter's Street, a 17th century pub with beamed ceilings, wooden floors, a log fire and a heated garden.
And St Peter's Street is journey's end in the centre of St Albans, apart from a couple of schoolday journeys on to High Oaks, to the north of the city. We have arrived at 9.35am, 10 minutes late.
ABOVE: Sullivan Buses E59 (LK08 DXW), the bus that has brought me from Potters Bar, stands in St Peter's Street, St Albans. St Peter's Church itself is visible behind it.
There was an Iron Age settlement known as Verlamion or Verlamio near the site of the present city of St Albans. Verlamion is Celtic, meaning "settlement over or by the marsh". The Roman city of Verulamium developed from this Iron Age settlement.
St Albans takes its name from the first British saint, Alban, who lived in Verulamium, sometime during the 3rd or 4th century, when Christians were suffering persecution. Wikipedia tells that Alban met a Christian priest fleeing from his persecutors and sheltered him in his house, where he became so impressed with the priest's piety that he converted to Christianity.
When the authorities searched Alban's house, he put on the priest's cloak and presented himself in place of his guest. Consequently, he was sentenced to endure the punishments that were to be inflicted upon the priest, unless he renounced Christianity. Alban refused and was taken for execution. In later legends, his head rolled downhill after execution, and a well sprang up where it stopped.
St Albans Cathedral, officially "the Cathedral and Abbey Church of St Alban", but often referred to locally as "the Abbey" (St Albans Abbey railway station is just down the road), stands near the supposed site of Alban's martyrdom. Its architecture dates from Norman times. It ceased to be an abbey following its dissolution in the 16th century and became a cathedral in 1877.
ABOVE: St Albans Cathedral
Wednesdays and Saturdays (plus the first Sunday of the month) are market days in St Albans, and the market is already busy at 9.35am.
ABOVE: Red Eagle 50117 (YX08 MDZ), an ADL Enviro200, is in St Peter's Street at the start of a journey on route 34 to Dunstable
Now I am heading back to Potters Bar. The driver of the dual-doored Volvo B9TL Wright Eclipse Gemini that has appeared for the 1005 departure does not acknowledge my "Good Morning" greeting in any way, and doesn't make eye contact with me either. He is a better driver than his predecessor, though, with a careful and thoughtful approach and gentle braking - a contrast to the frantic rush of the outward journey.
It transpires during this journey that the bell on the bus isn't working. Passengers have to request a stop by calling out to the driver; more than once we pass a stop before the driver realises someone wants to get off, leading to his performing some nifty work to get the bus to a safe drop-off point. Fortunately, the stop I want is a popular one anyway; otherwise I might have had a problem from the top deck. BusTimes.org suggests that the bus was off the road later that day - hopefully to have the bell fixed.
We're back at Potters Bar station, on time, at 1048. The bus heads off to the High Street, on the one-way loop that it will follow around the town.
Route 84 is certainly a route of contrasts - lovely scenery interspersed with the less-attractive views of the motorways and other main trunk roads. I've been riding it - on-and-off - for about 50 years, so it clearly must have something going for it!
Prior to this trip, my previous ride on the route was around five years before - I definitely shouldn't leave it so long next time.
ABOVE: Potters Bar local route PB1 runs on a loop around the town every 30 minutes. A regular performer on the route is OS68 (YJ06 YRP), an Optare Solo of Metroline Travel, here leaving Potters Bar station. Despite the London-style appearance of this bus, and operated by a London operator, the PB1 is not part of the TfL network. The origins of the PB1 can be traced back to London Transport route 284, which was once the home of FRM1, the unique rear-engined Routemaster (see https://routemaster.org.uk/pages/history-1-FRM) for more about that vehicle.
There's a footnote to this story. When Metroline axed its 84 service, the roads between Barnet and Potters Bar were initially left unserved by buses (apart from the schoolday 626). As a route that crosses the Greater London boundary, you would have thought that TfL would have stepped in and put on a service to ensure that this three-and-a-half mile link was covered. But it didn't.
Hertfordshire County Council has since stepped in and funded a service, 84B, from Barnet Hospital to St Albans via Hadley Highstone, to plug the gap. This began on Monday 4th September 2023 and is currently funded for one year.
It's worth reading Roger French's blog on the strange routing that the 84B takes in Barnet (which I understand has since been simplified). But one should applaud the fact that Hertfordshire CC has stepped in and restored a key link. I didn't have time on this visit to try it out, but I will go back and do so soon.
ABOVE: Route 84B is provided by Central Connect, part of the Vectare operation. 331 (YX22 OKA) is an ADL Enviro200 MMC. It's seen in Mutton Lane, near Potters Bar Tesco, at the start of the one-way loop around the town that it will do before heading back to Barnet. The 84A loops around Potters Bar the opposite way to the 84.