Where Red Eagles Dare

Thursday 24th April 2025

I took a ride on Red Eagle’s newly introduced route 500 on Tuesday to see how it was settling in.

Readers may recall this competitive service against Arriva’s troubled route X5 between Hemel Hempstead and Aylesbury was announced a few weeks ago before Arriva publicly admitted it was throwing in the towel on the corridor.

With Red Eagle starting up on Monday last week and Arriva pulling out on 17th May, there’s a five week overlap with both operators on the road.

Red Eagle’s new timetable comprises an hourly frequency with a 50 minute (westbound)/54 minute (eastbound) end-to-end journey time and extra journeys in the morning and evening peak probably associated with movements of school children.

I arrived at Hemel Hempstead railway station in time to catch the eastbound journey into the town centre due at 11:02.

I noticed the well out of date, October 2019, ‘Where to board your bus’ poster at the front of the station is still there…

… but on the upside, passengers wanting Aylesbury will be reassured as the poster still advises to catch a route 500 from the time before Arriva renumbered the route from 500 to X5 in January 2024.

Down at the bus stops there was no mention of the 500 on either the printed departure listings or the electronic next scheduled departure time display.

And rather worryingly there was no tracking of buses on the 500 on either Red Eagle’s ‘My Trip’ app or bustimes.org which made me wonder whether it had actually been introduced.

In the event the Hemel bound bus came into view eight minutes late at 11:10 with two passenegrs alighting and 10 still on board.

It was a smart looking bus in a new livery style and comfortable seats.

We made it into Hemel’s Marlowes for 11:20 with everyone having alighted and one passenger boarding bound for Aylesbury. The current timetable gives only one minute layover time in Hemel Hempstead (arrive 11:09/depart 11:10) so no chance of recovering our lateness.

As we arrived into Hemel, I noticed an Arriva Aylesbury bound X5 leaving the Riverside bus stop 13 minutes late leading me to think some delays due to roadworks or something were inevitable on the journey ahead.

We caught up and overtook that late running Arriva bus in Berkamsted by when we’d clawed back some lateness, being now just six minutes down, but on the other hand the Arriva bus was now 16 minutes late.

With the road ahead having been ‘bus less’ for a while I was expecting there might be some more custom for us (no-one else had boarded since leaving Hemel) and sure enough one passenger boarded as we left Berkhamsted at Durrants Road and three more joined in Tring (still six minutes down).

As we approached Tring the second of the two buses on the 500 passed us towards Hemel Hempstead also running late (nine minutes) with around eight or nine on board.

After Tring, the 500 bypasses Aston Clinton by taking the A41 dual carriageway giving the driver a chance to put his foot down for three and a half miles.

It took just five minutes, but interestingly on my return journey I caught an X5 which goes via Aston Clinton on the old A41 (now a declassified road) and covered the three miles in eight minutes (although admittedly not stopping at all) so there’s not a lot in it even if the perception on board is one of actually getting somewhere fast after the slow moving traffic in Berkhamsted and Tring.

The current 500 timetable then gives buses nine minutes from the Holiday Inn, just after the end of the bypass, to reach the bus station in Aylesbury.

It took us 16 minutes due to painfully slow moving traffic on the approach into Aylesbury meaning we didn’t arrive into the bus station until 12:18 – 18 minutes late and three minutes after the next Hemel Hempstead bound journey is due to depart (at 12:15).

However I’d noticed Red Eagle commendably had stepped up the vehicle workings as we’d passed a fresh bus which left the bus station on time at 12.15 with about half a dozen on board.

Arriva’s half hourly X5 also departs Aylesbury at 12:15 but was running late so I caught that (instead of my planned return on the 500). We left at 12:25 with six on board, picking no one up until two boarded in Northchurch with two having alighted in Tring.

This snapshot shows there obviously isn’t enough business for two bus operators and it doesn’t surprise me Arriva are withdrawing giving Red Eagle the opportunity to increase the frequency of its 500 – perhaps to half-hourly (?) – and possibly include Aston Clinton on at least some journeys, bearing in mind there’s only around a three minute time penalty. Red Eagle’s current commitment is two daytime buses plus some extra school commitments whereas Arriva has been utilising five buses. My guess is Red Eagle will try and provide a decent service with four buses, perhaps increasing to five when linked to school journeys.

The challenge of running this service both reliably and on a sustainable financial basis bearing in mind delays at the many hotspots along the way is not going to be easy.

I look forward to seeing what Red Eagle has planned. It’s website states “a revised enhanced service will commence on 19th May so please keep an eye out for an updated timetable”. I will.

Roger French

Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS

30 thoughts on “Where Red Eagles Dare”

  1. Arriva have now started introducing the reduced services on non schooldays in Hemel Hempstead, and these now seem to be spreading throughout Arriva South.

    The timetable presentation is awful, on the Arriva site on the 20 you end up with a table showing 5 journeys per hour, 3 schooldays and 2 non schooldays with a 1 or a 2 indicating which days they run. They could not even get one journey per hour to run every Monday to Friday. On the Intalink site there is a plethora of Sch and NSch. All that really going to boost passenger numbers.

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  2. The Herts CC service changes list says new routes 560 and X500 will operate between Hemel and Berkhamsted, combining with the 500 to provide two off peak journeys an hour. Also promised are better services to Tring School. So the plan looks like two BPH between Hemel and Berkhamsted with one continuing to Aylesbury (and maybe half hourly throughout in peaks). The actual timetables aren’t loaded yet.

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  3. I think the downturn in the X5’s fortunes have partly been due to Red Eagle introducing in recent times two buses an hour on their 61/62, thus wiping up a lot of local traffic on the busier Tring-Aston Clinton-Aylesbury section. They would have no need to divert their 500 through Aston Clinton as it is adequately served already, apart from a minority who need a direct bus to Hemel.

    Terence Uden

    Liked by 1 person

    1. That would also be consistent with my post above that the enhanced frequency will only be between Hemel Hempstead and Berkhamsted.

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  4. Looking at the last lot of Arriva accounts the ultimate UK parent company made a loss

    ~What can broadly be described as Arriva Southern Counties consisted of 4 subsidiary companies

    1. Arrive East Herts & Essex(Now no longer trading)
    2. Arriva Kent and Surrey (Made a loss)
    3. Arriva Kent and Thameside (Made a loss)
    4. Arriva The Shires (Made a small profit)

    Ro enable the above companies to continue to trade most are receiving funding from he ultimate parent ISquared

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    1. Arriva The Shires Ltd is the Milton Keynes and Luton depots of Arriva Midlands.

      Nothing to do with Southern Counties.

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  5. Just a thought, from a frustrated would-be passenger who’d love to use buses (and trains) more – is there not an inconsistency here? Not enough custom to support two bus operators – but the roads are packed with cars … Surely competitive, enterprising, innovative commercial operators should see this as an opportunity and a challenge, not as an excuse for cuts!

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    1. Most car users wouldn’t look at the bus. Not because of frequency or cost. But because of a perception that bus users are poor. It’s the elephant in the room, but sadly it’s true.

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      1. To a great extent that due to standard being so low, Look at the average state of bus stop or bus shelter if there is one. Usually no route of timetable information neither, Factor in poor reliability of services and there is the answer. If the bus does not turn up they will not be using the service again

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      2. Would be good to test if this is really true. Pick a route somewhere and offer a parallel first-class only service. Luxury seats, lots of legroom, timetable with substantial slack so it always starts the route bang on time, cheerful drivers. Not in the three pound scheme. See what happens. Same bus company, so a first class return could be used second class back if needed. If you bought a monthly second class pass, you’d be allowed a couple of days of upgrade as a taster. (CH, Oxford)

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        1. Pick a route somewhere and offer a parallel first-class only service. Luxury seats, lots of legroom, timetable with substantial slack so it always starts the route bang on time, cheerful drivers. Not in the three pound scheme.

          You can provide that quality of service 24/7/365, offer it entirely free of charge and it still wouldn’t get more than a handful of people out of their cars.

          There’s always another excuse why people “have to” use their cars instead of public transport. Cars are basically an addiction and if governments want car use to be cut then they’ll have to force it. The carrot simply isn’t working, so it’ll have to be the stick – and an extremely heavy handed use of the stick at that.

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        2. I believe this was already tried on the London Tramways network, specifically the LCC Tramways, which before the 1933 formation of the LPTB, had introduced a network of ‘Premium’ trams, with a more lush interior, but unfortunately the LPTB (London Transport) ended class segregation on London Trams, which ended up being withdrawn by 1952 anyway!

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    2. I think this issue is too big for a commercial operator to take on. All those cars are going somewhere that has parking and often where buses don’t go (I.e. anywhere other than a town centre).

      It needs a coordinated approach by a local authority and Operators. One party provides the infrastructure, and, importantly, measures to deter motorists. The Operators provide the buses and run them professionally providing a service connecting people to opportunities (employment, education, healthcare, retail, hospitality, entertainment, wider regional/national destinations via rail). A lot of these opportunities occur outside normal shopping hours, so no packing up for early nights!

      Often we see politician wanting “London style” public transport. We see the big metro Mayors introducing franchising in their cities, but what about the Shires? Well finally the penny has dropped with the government looking to Jersey as a model. I’ve always thought this was a more appropriate approach for a county council, or unitary authority to consider.

      https://www.route-one.net/bus/jersey-model-held-up-as-blueprint-for-reform-in-bus-services-bill/

      Peter Brown

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  6. May I offer one small suggestion about layout?

    At present, the caption for the next picture appears right under the last, and the line breaks are after the picture. The text for the next is actually attached to the last.

    This makes it look as though picture A comes first and that caption A applies to it, whereas in fact the text immediately under and attached to picture A in fact relates to picture B.

    I find that although I’m used to the layout I am constantly having to look at picture B and then go back up the email to find out what it’s about.

    Keep up the good work. Always enjoyed.

    Steve Wedd
    Sent from my iPad

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Thanks for the feedback, Steve. I only occasionally put a caption immediately below the photograph, typed in italics, to clarify something in the photograph or image.
      More generally I use photos to break up the narrative and illustrate something I’ve just written.
      Sometimes if I’ve got more than one photo to illustrate points being made in a paragraph I’ll split the paragraph up by adding ….
      …. and then continuing the narrative…
      …with a final point. (The photos appearing between the … and …)
      It’s kind of become my house style but I always like to keep such things under review so thanks again for your comments and feedback.

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    2. I totally agree with you Steve. I thought it was me reading it wrong when I first scrolled through. In fairness to Roger I don’t know how he manages to put it all together so well & regularly given the travelling involved & no doubt the odd evening away. Excellent planning & management abilities par excellence!

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    3. Talking about presentation and layout, that E200 pictured passing in the opposite direction above looks tatty to say the least, so tatty I’m surprised Roger didn’t hire some of his mates to come down and paint it into something more attractive to the camera lol. Even if it was fully painted up, the livery still looks hideous to say the least, makes an already bad looking E200 look like something ugly lol, surprised kids in prams don’t scream each time they see it.

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  7. How long does it usually take for BODS tracking of Ticketer machines to update after a route’s registration / variation takes effect?

    It’s day 10 of the REDE 500 (two days after Roger’s journeys) and there’s still nothing.

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      1. For the system I work within our data processing contractor requires ten working days (that’s two Mon – Fri weeks) notice of service updates, preferably in electronic format. Mind you, at quiet times they’ve managed to turn things around in twelve hours.

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  9. When I got my ENCTS Pass in November 2017 the 461 Route between Chertsey Hospital and Kingston upon Thames was a cut and thrust rivalry between Abellio (Surrey) and Hallmark. It still beggars me with disbelief that in the high car ownership county of Surrey, when I went out for a bus to Kingston upon Thames one could see running south along Ambleside Avenue, Abellio’s short white AD single deck buses competing with Hallmark’s much longer Scanias or Volvos. Hallmark was the worse of the two operators and farcically put out the occasional double decker on the Sunday Surrey CC contract workings. It was sheer chaos over a route which in the wider context of the English bus industry was an inconsequential backwater. Hallmark ticket machines printed Zero Tickets for ENCTS Pass holders. Three Hallmark driver numbers still haut me to this day as exemplars of appalling service to the public but decency prohibits me from disclosing them.

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  10. with respect the question of car use is to a large extent encouraged by some bus operators. Early buses are provided to stations at times which suit many commuters but, often, the last buses back from the station can be around 18.00 which is too early for many commuters. Also, while there may be a good service on the main corridors, there is often nothing to the communities off the main routes thus making car use for the whole journey inevitable fir those needing to reach these isolated communities.

    John Crowhurst

    Liked by 1 person

    1. It’s the same with DRT services, if you look at the Saturday operating times it’s quite obvious that no one involved has ever worked in retail or hospitality. So an entire potential market is lost.

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  11. Jersey’s franchised bus system, delivered by operator LibertyBus in partnership with the Jersey government, is being touted as a potential template for bus reform across England’s rural regions.

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  12. This use of the word’reform’ as in bus reform is bizarre. Why do buses need reforming?
    Buses run under a structure introduced in 1986 and amended by legislation on numerous occasions since. The latest change, not reform, is the introduction of franchising, which is driving up costs to no obvious benefit. Latest figures from Manchester show a subsidy across the entire conurbation of £1.44 per passenger journey, roughly equivalent to the unsubsided commercial fare in a city like Leicester.

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  13. Further cuts to Arriva’s Hemel Services, This time the 322 is being cut back to ever 30 minutes

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