Uno buses route S4

Uno bus route S4 is a local bus service in St Albans, linking Cottonmill (Maynard Drive) to St Albans city centre (and at business hours St Albans railway station). It operates together with route S5.

History

S4 was one of six new local routes introduced in St Albans by London Country Bus Services in October 1976 ["London Country" Laurie Akehurst and David Stewart August 2001] . They replaced a variety of earlier routes and were unusual for the time in being numbered with a lettered prefix (S) to designate the town or city they operated in rather than in the 3xx or 8xx series normally used for services in the area.
Upon the privatisation of London Country Bus Services in September 1986, the St Albans area network passed to successor company London Country North East. London Country North East was in turn divided into two companies, with Sovereign Bus & Coach aquiring the St Albans, Welwyn Hatfield and Stevenage local networks and various rural services connecting these towns.Bus deregulation a month later largely left the network unchanged with the daytime services being registered commerically and the evening services being tendered.
Soveriegn itself was aquired by Blazefield Holdings and significant investment in the St Albans network was undertaken with a new fleet of Dennis Dart buses. During this period the services underwent frequent changes until the current pattern of the S4 (and its sister route S5) only serving the area to the south west of the City Centre (in place of providing cross-City links) was established. However, Brazefield could not make an adequate financial return on its Hertfordshire opperations and began to dispose of them in favour of concentrating on its core Leeds and Yorkshire businesses in late 2003/2004.
The St Albans local network, along with various services connecting St Albans to other Hertforshire towns, was sold to Liecestershire firm Centrebus who already had a small presence in the town on rural services run from from its Luton base. Services largely remained unchanged and Centrebus kept all of the S4's designated vehicles (KC03 PGK and KC03 PGU), albeit repainting them a few times.
However, the City network remained problematic both operationally and financially and Uno took over all services operated from Centrebus' St Albans depot on 4th March 2008. Intitally the fleet retained Centrebus livery, but during summer 2008 they were repainted into the Best Impressions designed livery to match the rest of the Uno buses.

Route (one direction only)

S4 operates every 30 minutes on Monday to Saturday daytimes and is jointly timetabled with Uno buses route S5 to provide a combined 15 minute frequency.

*St Albans railway station (business hours only)
*St Albans "St Peters Street"
*St Albans 'London Road', "The Peahen PH"
*Cottonmill Lane (for Sopwell House, Sopwell Priory, The River Ver and The Alban Way)
*Trumpington Drive Shops (SPAR, Londis)
*Maynard Drive
*Doggetts Way
*Abbey View Retail Park (for Premier Foods Offices, Sainsbury's and McDonald's)
*St Albans Abbey railway station
*Holywell Hill
*St Albans AbbeyBack to "St Peters Street".
On evenings and Sundays, a half hourly service operates but operates across St Albans linking with route sections served by routes S2 and S3 during daytimes. The evening and Sunday services are financially subsidised by Hertfordshire County Council.

ee also

*Uno (bus company)
*St Albans

References

External links

*http://www.unobus.info
*http://www.intalink.org.uk