Retracing Green Line 715

Tuesday 13th June 2023

When London Transport’s network of Green Line coach routes was in its prime you could glide across London on a limited stop bus, often on the top deck of a souped up Routemaster linking such delightful Home Counties’ locations as Woking and Chertsey with Stevenage and Hitchin or Tunbridge Wells with Windsor.

One such route was the 715, formerly route M in the newly formed London Transport Board’s 1933 lettering of such routes but rechristened 715 after the war in 1946 when the network gained route numbers instead of route letters. It ran half hourly from Hertford and Ware to Guildford via Enfield, Marble Arch and Esher and for a time in the 1960s was supplemented by an hourly 715A between Hertford (but not Ware) and Oxford Circus via Edmonton on Saturdays and some journeys on Monday to Friday peak hours.

It had always intrigued me as a child to see smart green liveried RMC coaches pass through my north London home area of Winchmore Hill sporting far away destinations in Hertfordshire and Surrey.

With higher fares than standard red bus Central Area routes we never used the 715 for journeys to nearby Enfield, Palmers Green or Wood Green for shopping trips – the fewer and less conveniently sited bus stops were also a disincentive, but I do recall a trip, probably in the early 1960s soon after RMCs were introduced, when my Dad took my older brother and I all the way to Hammersmith to see Bertram Mills Circus and for me, the ride there and back was much more enjoyable and memorable than the circus performance which I have no recollection of at all; but 60 years on that Green Line treat is still with me.

To rekindle old memories, a group of us recently took a ride all the way from Hertford to Guildford exactly as we would have done in the 715’s heyday but using today’s bus route offerings, none of which are limited stop of course.

We decided to undertake the journey across two sessions. A seven or eight hour continual ride across ten separate bus routes and a walk across Hammersmith Bridge (which is what it takes these days) rather than just three hours RMCs managed back in the 1960s sounded like too arduous a trek instead of the enjoyable relaxing outing we desired.

Day one therefore saw us gather at Hertford’s bus station soon after 10:00 for the journey south as far as Oxford Circus and the very first segment was on Arriva’s route 310 which took us as far as Waltham Cross.

There’s extensive building work constructing flats taking place alongside Hertford’s bus station making it a rather desolate place to wait. After our trip in late March, from the beginning of last month, it was deemed unsafe to continue using the site as a bus station while the building work continued and bus departures have been dispersed to temporary bus stops including in nearby Fore Street, ironically the road where the original London Transport bus station was located adjacent to a car park.

Back in those days route 310 existed much the same as today but obviously operated by LT’s Country Bus department running alongside the 715 and extended beyond Waltham Cross as far south as Enfield.

In those days there was a half hourly service between Hertford and Enfield with another half hourly (310A) from Rye House to Enfield making for a 15 minute frequency between Hoddesdon and Enfield and the half hourly 715 sat on top of that.

Today’s 310 runs every 20 minutes and takes an hour to reach Waltham Cross whereas in the 1960s it took 42 minutes on the 310 and 33 minutes on the 715. However we did go off the old line of route after Ware to serve the St Margarets area rather than diligently following the old A10 (now the A1170) as the 310 and 715 used to do.

Hoddesdon has had a public realm makeover in recent years with through traffic banished to a by-pass making for a very pleasant place to shop compared to the old days when it was very much on the A10 trunk road.

Although Waltham Cross is just in Hertfordshire its bus station is a TfL run affair with layover spaces restricted to the four TfL routes which reach the town from Greater London.

Our bus on the 310 along with other routes operated by Arriva, Vectare and Epping Forest Community Bus have to hang around outside until their departure time.

Our next bus, route 317, taking us on to Enfield was standing in the layover area and soon drew up to the departure stop and we headed off to the A10 but before reaching that we crossed over the M25, which at that point is buried in a tunnel such you wouldn’t know it was there.

There then followed a spirited run down the A10 to the retail sheds near the junction with Southbury Road where having done a dog leg to serve the retailers spending an interminable time waiting at traffic lights to join Southbury Road and cross the A10, we headed west towards Enfield.

Metroline operate the 317 with five electric MetroDeckers from Potters Bar garage but our bus was a Volvo bodied MCV Evoseti diesel bus. The route runs every 20 minutes with a journey time of 37 minutes. The 310 did it in 18 minutes (half that time) and the 715 took just 12 minutes (a third of today’s journey time). We’re beginning to see a pattern already emerge here, 60 years on, of comparative journey times. No wonder it’s going to take us seven to eight hours instead of three – and we’ve got transfer times between buses to factor in, as well that walk across the closed Hammersmith Bridge.

We had a short lunch break in Enfield before continuing south to Turnpike Lane on route 329. We’re now in Bill Hiron (managing director of Stephensons and an Enfield lad) and my own home territory. Bill joined us on the trip so we both had a strong dose of nostalgia remembering former routes on this part of the retracing, including the 29 and 123 and for me, the 269 that used to join the 715 in the 1960s between Enfield and Turnpike Lane (along with the 275 in peak times) – I can also remember trolleybus route 629 which along with its successor 269 continued all the way south to Tottenham Court Road.

Arriva operate route 329 from Palmers Green bus garage with 15 Wrightbus bodied Volvos taking 44 minutes to reach Turnpike Lane every 7-8 minutes. Journey time to Wood Green is 38 minutes whereas the 715 did it in just 17 minutes and the 629 Trolleybus took 23 minutes running every 3-5 minutes.

In Wood Green High Road just north of Turnpike Lane station we changed from a 329 to a 29 for the next stage of our journey as far as Camden Town. Route 29 is a very long standing route and we could have caught an RT between the same points back in the 1960s (buses went from Cockfosters, Southgate and Wood Green to Victoria) running every 8-10 minutes and taking 23 minutes to reach Camden Town. The 715 did it in 14 minutes whereas the 29 is now scheduled to take 37 minutes but does run every 6 minutes although other routes which used to parallel sections of the route (eg the 221 and 127 have long been cut back or withdrawn).

Arriva run 31 Volvo/Wrightbus Gemini bodied buses from its bus garage in Wood Green on the route. From Camden Town it was time for our fifth and final route for part 1 of this retracing project, and that was route 88 to take us to Oxford Circus as the 715 would have done.

The only problem was southbound buses were on diversion due to long term water and electrical works along the route in Parkway towards Regents Park so instead we continued down Hampstead Road getting caught up in more roadworks south of Mornington Crescent and through the HS2 works for Euston station, including two-way temporary traffic lights, (which I sincerely hope are not going to be around until 2040) so it was slow progress until we reached Euston Road where we turned right to reach the normal line of route at Great Portland Street station.

That diversion and delays cost us an additional five minutes over the scheduled time of 21 minutes. Route 715 would have done it in just 9 minutes while back in the 1960s we could also have taken parallel red bus routes 3, 39 or 53.

Today Go-Ahead London operates route 88 from its Stockwell bus garage with 22 ADL Enviro400s providing a ten minute frequency.

And that was it for part 1. It was getting on for 15:00 so we had a coffee to celebrate and headed home.

Now we’re at the halfway stage, it’s time for one of Ray Stenning’s brilliant maps depicting where we’ve been and where we’re heading in part 2. (Ray was also part of the retracing party)

We meet up at Oxford Circus again a few weeks later for part 2 kicking off at the slightly later time of 11:00.

The 715 was one of around half a dozen cross London Green Line routes that didn’t serve Victoria and the Green Line hub on Eccleston Bridge (others were the 709, 711, 714 and 716). One of our group recalled London Transport also had a Green Line office on the second floor of offices above Oxford Circus Underground station where you could visit and ask for a map and buy a Green Line timetable book for a shilling.

Sadly that’s long gone so we decided to head off on our first bus of the day.

This was on route 94. Buses begin their westbound journey to Acton Green at the bottom of Regent Street at Piccadilly Circus. Nine buses per hour are operated with 17 electric ADL Enviro 400 buses by RATP Group from its bus garage in Shepherds Bush which is where we were heading as the 715 would have done.

The 715 took just 19 minutes from Oxford Circus to reach Hammersmith (Shepherds Bush isn’t listed as a timing point in my old timetable) so, let’s say 14 minutes to Shepherds Bush, whereas the 94 today is scheduled to take 30 minutes, but we took longer than that, being held up by a Just Stop Oil demonstration along Bayswater Road.

The police were soon on the scene so the delay was only about six or seven minutes and after passing through Notting Hill we soon arrived into Shepherds Bush where we did a slick change of buses on the south side of the Green to a 72 to take us to the north side of Hammersmith Bridge.

This itself took 17 minutes whereas as noted above the 715 got from Oxford Circus to the bus station at Hammersmith in 19!

If route 715 ran today, buses would face a lengthy diversion over either Putney Bridge or more likely Chiswick Bridge but for us it was a case of sticking to the original route by walking over the currently closed Hammersmith Bridge which took us barely 10 minutes.

From the south side we caught route 419 which took us through Barnes to Roehampton. This took us 24 minutes on the 12 minute frequency route operated with ADL Enviro200 single deck buses by RATP from its Hounslow bus garage.

Continuing south from Roehampton we faced something of a dilemma as oddly, for most of its existence, the 715 avoided Kingston and instead was routed via Malden and Tolworth before continuing along the Kingston by-pass and Hinchley Wood to reach the old A3 to Esher at what’s know as The Scilly Isles roundabout.

We could have retraced most of that route using route 265 as far as Hook but then we’d have faced a walk along the rest of the Kingston by-pass which didn’t particularly appeal so instead we headed into Kingston on a route 85 consoling ourselves that in its final years before withdrawal south of Oxford Circus in the 1970s London Country did change the route of the 715 to operate via Kingston.

We didn’t have long to wait for an RATP operated 85 – it runs every eight minutes with 15 Wrightbus Gemini bodied Volvos from Fulwell garage – and after a 29 minute journey we took a short break for some sustenance in Kingston before catching our fifth and final bus for part two, which was of course the Stagecoach operated route 715 from Kingston to Guildford – another reason to head into Kingston.

Today’s 715 operates hourly and is unique in seeing a Stagecoach liveried bus enter Greater London from the company’s Guildford base. It takes three buses to operate the service with an end to end journey time of 74 minutes – from Esher it takes 51 minutes. Green Line 715 did that journey in 37 minutes.

Today’s 715 does a small detour to serve the centre of Cobham before rejoining the A3 and crossing the M25 once again, and this time not only is it not in a tunnel but there are extensive roadworks taking place to widen the slip roads at Junction 10.

After that we took the old A3 (now the B2215) through Ripley from where, back in the day, London Transport Country Bus route 415 also ran along the same route into Guildford. It wasn’t long before we were entering Guildford through Burpham just as Green Line 715 would have done arriving at the town’s Friary bus station just before 15:00, four hours after we’d set off from Oxford Circus (albeit with a short lunch break in Kingston) and eight hours after we’d left Hertford (with a short break in Enfield) counting in part one as well.

In the 1960s London Transport’s routes terminated at the long demolished bus station in Onslow Street.

As already explained the Green Line 715 was timetabled to achieve an end to end run in just three hours which sounds quite remarkable but in its later years it seldom did as, along with all Green Line routes, it was plagued with traffic delays.

Limited stop routes are seemingly coming back into fashion in London with recently announced plans for an orbital Superloop, so could there be a place for reintroducing routes like the 715? The answer is almost certainly a resounding no. The train offers a very competitive journey time and there’d need to be extensive bus priority measures which in some cases would just not be possible – for example the London Borough of Enfield has installed cycle lanes from Enfield through to Palmers Green reducing the carriageway to a single width either way. Our biggest hold up on the route was queuing on the A111 Green Lanes to reach the traffic lights at the junction with the A406 North Circular Road on route 329. It took us over ten minutes to travel a few hundred yards. You can’t be doing that if you’re on the way from Hertford to Guildford.

And, of course, since the 1960s, we now have the M25 which if travelling between the two towns is the way motorists would now go taking not much more than an hour, assuming a clear run. Which is a big assumption, of course.

It cost 5s 6d to travel from Hertford to Oxford Circus in the summer of 1967 and 11s 11d all the way through to Guildford. That’s 27.5p and 60p in decimalised terminology. Not bad for a premium fare. Mind you, if fares had gone up just by inflation in the intervening 56 years that’s £6.38 and £13.93 in today’s money. Good job the Government’s current £2 cap would kick in then.

Roger French

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