Bus Shite

[EyesWeldedShut]

4 minutes ago, Yoss said:

That's way off route! Yes I know it's a publicity shot, I was just being pedantic. The 285 still serves Hatton Cross though (Kingston to Heathrow) so they got that bit right.

These were trundling around Staines 25(ish) years ago when I was working there - so they're what now? Getting on for 40-50 years old and still in service? 
I'm impressed

[Yoss]

Oh no, not been in service for a long long time. Sorry to get your hopes up.

I just meant the route hasn't changed. The buses have many times over.

[martc]

3 hours ago, gm said:

just a nice photo of a national

!!!!

[Remspoor]

On 6/9/2023 at 9:28 PM, cms206 said:

It's split working but likely either Barking or West Ham? Won't know until I'm allocated.

It's a £22k a year increase in wages so planning to stick it out for a while 😂

My dad started working for LT at Upton Park, a garages that has long gone. He soon managed to get a transfer to Barking. Now I see two Barking garages. One for Arriva the other for Stagecoach  with a depot at RiverSide.

[martc]

The ultimate Ikarus. This 250SL from 1986 has luxury appointments and was used to ferry members of the 'Staatsrats der DDR' (the State Council of the DDR) about.

[martc]

Victoria Coach Station 1982 and the same spot in 2023 ....

[Yoss]

3 hours ago, martc said:

Victoria Coach Station 1982 

More to the point there can't have been many VRs doing National Express work even on relatively short routes like that. Or was the X7 a normal Alder Valley route? Seems unlikely as there were, and still are, severe restrictions on operating normal bus routes within London. Looking at the upstairs front it appears to have dual purpose seating (headrests) so it would have been a decent ride.

[Leyland Worldmaster]

14 hours ago, martc said:

Victoria Coach Station 1982 and the same spot in 2023 ....

The absence of a white stripe above the windscreen appears to suggest it is the lowest version of the ECW body. 

That's what I read somewhere, anyway... 

🤓

[martc]

Royal Courts of Justice, Strand, 1987, and...

2023. They've tidied the building on the corner up nicely.

[busmansholiday]

On 21/06/2023 at 06:47, martc said:

Victoria Coach Station 1982 and the same spot in 2023 ....

Had to look closely at that top pic to make sure it wasn't me driving the coach, then realised it was a Leopard and could count on the fingers of one hand how many times I had to take one of Leyland's * finest pieces of shite there.  I think one of the last times they sent me there was driving a Scammell wrecking truck to drag a Neoplan decker back to Sheffield, don't ask.....

 

As for @Yossand @Leyland Worldmaster, trust me, some of the things that got sent on Nasty Excess to the smoke when you ran out of "decent" vehicles would make you cringe. Nobody would send a bus seated National, from up north, would they??????.

 

Says the man who had a National on a National Holidays trip.

[Yoss]

9 minutes ago, busmansholiday said:

Had to look closely at that top pic to make sure it wasn't me driving the coach, then realised it was a Leopard and could count on the fingers of one hand how many times I had to take one of Leyland's * finest pieces of shite there.  I think one of the last times they sent me there was driving a Scammell wrecking truck to drag a Neoplan decker back to Sheffield, don't ask.....

 

As for @Yossand @Leyland Worldmaster, trust me, some of the things that got sent on Nasty Excess to the smoke when you ran out of "decent" vehicles would make you cringe. Nobody would send a bus seated National, from up north, would they??????.

 

Says the man who had a National on a National Holidays trip.

I won't ask where you put the luggage. 

[busmansholiday]

5 minutes ago, Yoss said:

I won't ask where you put the luggage. 

Across the back seat, just like you do when the boot handle on a Duple built pile of shit falls off in you hand, after the fitters at the nearest depot have fucked the lock up retrieving the cases you've already put in their.

[Eyersey1234]

3 hours ago, busmansholiday said:

Across the back seat, just like you do when the boot handle on a Duple built pile of shit falls off in you hand, after the fitters at the nearest depot have fucked the lock up retrieving the cases you've already put in their.

Was Duple build quality really that bad?

[busmansholiday]

7 hours ago, Eyersey1234 said:

Was Duple build quality really that bad?

Yes.

Knowing they would get a shit load of orders for their bodies from the NBC they built the basic steel frames in advance then stored them outside at the back of the factory, in Blackpool. Obviously the slightly salty sea air did wonders for the unprotected body frames.

[cms206]

13 hours ago, busmansholiday said:

As for @Yossand @Leyland Worldmaster, trust me, some of the things that got sent on Nasty Excess to the smoke when you ran out of "decent" vehicles would make you cringe. Nobody would send a bus seated National, from up north, would they??????.

 

Says the man who had a National on a National Holidays trip.

The London services were hallowed territory for Eastern & Western Scottish, long service men on well appointed kit.

 

Summer Blackpools? You'd be lucky to get a panoramic Y-type Leopard with bus seats and forced air. At least they had boots 😂

[MiniMinorMk3]

Tilting Tests.

 

[busmansholiday]

The Crossley trolleybus and the Deutz engined Provincial decker (I remember them), are the best of the pictures (ignoring RM1 and CRL4).

[Yoss]

22 minutes ago, busmansholiday said:

The Crossley trolleybus and the Deutz engined Provincial decker (I remember them), are the best of the pictures (ignoring RM1 and CRL4).

It's not CRL 4 it's RTC 1. Also note the RM goes to 40° where everything else only goes to 30°. Because a Routemaster is ten percent better than everything else obviously.

 

Edit: RTC 1

 

[busmansholiday]

1 minute ago, Yoss said:

It's not CRL 4 it's RTC 1.

Knew it was something special, couldn't remember just which it was. 10% better ??

[Yoss]

9 minutes ago, busmansholiday said:

Knew it was something special, couldn't remember just which it was. 10% better ??

Actually now I think of it, it's 33% better what with 40 being a third more than 30. That's man maths in action. 

But slightly more seriously out of all the pics above this was my favourite simply because of the means of tilting. 

I've used that method a few times to get under a bus, though obviously not to that extent. 

[cms206]

Started a new job last week but yesterday was my first day on the road... lets compare June 27th 2022, versus June 27th 2023 (library picture for yesterday, it was shitting it down all day)...

[High Jetter]

Am I right in thinking that change is going to take some getting used to?

[cms206]

1 hour ago, High Jetter said:

Am I right in thinking that change is going to take some getting used to?

It's not been too bad truth be told but I've always been a bus driver, not a coach driver; I ended up on coaches but I've always been ambidextrous 😂

[Eyersey1234]

Good luck in the new job @cms206

[jon.k]

And give us some updates on what being a London bus driver is like!

[High Jetter]

1 hour ago, jon.k said:

And give us some updates on what being a London bus driver is like!

There was a TV series about that, doubt it's changed much 🤣'Yack yack yack'

[cms206]

3 hours ago, jon.k said:

And give us some updates on what being a London bus driver is like!

I'm still being mentored up here! Expected to sign off on Friday, then on holiday for two weeks then the likelyhood is I'll do a week on my own at Cumbernauld before heading south.

I shall keep updating.

[Leyland Worldmaster]

Well I never... 

https://www.route-one.net/news/brighton-and-hove-to-drop-red-and-cream-in-rebrand/

[artdjones]

2 hours ago, Leyland Worldmaster said:

Well I never... 

https://www.route-one.net/news/brighton-and-hove-to-drop-red-and-cream-in-rebrand/

🤮 What is this fascination with teal and aqua?

The only bright spot in Cardiff changing to an orange livery in 1972 was that they didn't pick the aquamarine alternative.

[DLR]

I've made a return to coach driving for the summer. Only this time rather than doing day work, I'm tour driving. 

Started with 3 days in the Forest of Dean on a school trip, followed by 5 days in Somerset on a garden tour, with a cheeky day trip added on to Weston-super-Mare, then a couple of days off to wash my pants and I'm now away for a total of 20 days on a cricket tour. 

As I type this, I'm sat in the bar of my hotel in Croydon. There's light jazz playing, I'm working on a writing project for my MA dissertation and I'm 7 days into my 20 day stint. Tomorrow we transfer to a hotel in Cardiff for 9 days where I will be driving everywhere but cardiff - Devon twice, the Midlands and Wiltshire. The handy aspect of this part of the tour is I can nip home to Barry to break up the constant hotels and sleep in my own bed. 

I've always considered tour drivers to be an odd bunch. How do you know a coach driver is a tour driver? Don't worry, if the waistcoat doesn't give it away they'll soon tell you! But this small foray into tour driving has given me a new respect for them. It's draining being away from home so much and I can't wait to find some day work again. Considering a return to trucks, but I really want to try my hand at something new and be on the road less. 

But! This is the Bus Shite thread. So what of the vehicles? For the first two tours I had a little Plaxton Panther Cub, which is essentially a shortened Panther. Powered by Volvo and drove rather well. Full of quirks, like a loo that flushed when it wanted to and a drivers door that would only shut off the switch on the dash before killing the power. This made every exit at the end of the day something akin to that scene in Indiana Jones when he slides through the closing door, only less graceful and I occasionally got stuck. 

My vehicle for the 20 day tour is a Jonckheere something-or-other. Again, Volvo underneath. Has had a retrofitted wheelchair conversion, which means that one of the lockers is half-full of wheelchair lift and takes up valuable luggage space. Handy, when every passenger has a suitcase and a cricket kit bag! 

My only complaint of this coach is it still has haunting reminders of the previous allocated driver. These coaches have a nice window above the windscreen, only this one is a bit too "live laugh love" for my liking... 

Of course, this jump into tours followed a very chequered few months of jumping around, including Chinese coaches for Welsh operators, a shift on a Megabus in a coach I'd driven for an old employer, service runs round the Cotswolds in Evoras and a small spell on the Open Tops in Cardiff - happy to share if there's any interest?