Bus Shite

[myglaren]

[The Old Bloke Next Door]

Copied from the Facebook post.

If Carlsberg made Atlanteans… Some love it, many loathe it, but it is unique. ARC666T was once NCT’s best known vehicle. It was named “Andrew Pickering” after a young lad from the Bullwell area who had a life-limiting affliction and loved the vehicle, going out to see it and waving at the driver as often as possible. It was also nicknamed ”Damien” due to its fleet number 666. It is preserved with Nottingham Area Bus Society at Ruddington Fields!!

[myglaren]

While that is obviously for amusement, I was on a bus a while back, the driver very friendly and effusively welcomed everyone onboard.  Half way through the journey he was asking people which way to go as he hadn't driven that route for thirty years and there are three different busses, the 82, 81 and 81a that have slightly different routes at different times of the day and on weekends.

On one particular road he shouted out "Must be on the right road as there is a bus stop there".

Very cheerful bloke.

Last time I was on the same bus it crashed into a Sainsburys wagon the pulled out in front of it on a roundabout.  Get out and walk time.

[artdjones]

Sounds like a well run company.

[83C]

9 minutes ago, artdjones said:

Sounds like a well run company.

Sounds normal to me. The better ones might be really generous and give the driver a hastily scribbled and largely useless map on a bit of paper fished out of the bin.

[busmansholiday]

 

11 hours ago, 83C said:

Sounds normal to me. The better ones might be really generous and give the driver a hastily scribbled and largely useless map on a bit of paper fished out of the bin.

Arrhh, the days when you asked where the route went before leaving the depot and the answer was always "you'll know when you get back".

[danthecapriman]

I was watching a video on YouTube about Routemaster’s, archive footage, and one of the drivers accidentally missed a junction. Went straight on instead of a left turn. He realised pretty quick but he had to reverse the bus against traffic to get back enough for the turn. Fortunately the Routemaster has a conductor who acted as a banksman to help reverse. 
Would that be a bollocking for doing that? 
Obviously doing it back in the 80’s was bad enough but I wonder what would happen now. Full license suspension and go home without pay until we’ve investigated I expect!

[Snipes]

Hope the conductor has done his banksman course and has the correct PPE!

[Remspoor]

23 hours ago, danthecapriman said:

I was watching a video on YouTube about Routemaster’s, archive footage, and one of the drivers accidentally missed a junction. Went straight on instead of a left turn. He realised pretty quick but he had to reverse the bus against traffic to get back enough for the turn. Fortunately the Routemaster has a conductor who acted as a banksman to help reverse. 
Would that be a bollocking for doing that? 
Obviously doing it back in the 80’s was bad enough but I wonder what would happen now. Full license suspension and go home without pay until we’ve investigated I expect!

I seem to remember my dad saying that it was illegal to reverse a bus (London Transport) with passengers on board. Other than that I cannot help.

[High Jetter]

1 hour ago, Remspoor said:

I seem to remember my dad saying that it was illegal to reverse a bus (London Transport) with passengers on board. Other than that I cannot help.

Something in the basement of my (reducing) memory suggests that applied to open platforms, RM's etc? 

[danthecapriman]

1 hour ago, Remspoor said:

I seem to remember my dad saying that it was illegal to reverse a bus (London Transport) with passengers on board. Other than that I cannot help.

 

2 minutes ago, High Jetter said:

Something in the basement of my (reducing) memory suggests that applied to open platforms, RM's etc? 

No idea if it was legal or not. The bus definitely had passengers onboard though. 
It was a funny road, like a multi lane one way in London with a two way normal road joining and the Routemaster just drove past it. Stopped and reversed back against the traffic then turned into the road it overshot. It looked quite strange seeing it. 
I bet the driver didn’t count on someone standing there filming though!

[Inspector Morose]

One of those urban myths, I'm afraid although it might have been against certain companies policies, it has never been illegal to reverse a bus with passengers on board.

Then again, seeing the state of how most drivers reverse a bus or coach...

Slightly bus related news, I've just been validated today to MOT buses and coaches now as well as HGVs (none of your modern LGV rubbish at the DVSA dontyaknow). Your heavy vehicle safety is my concern...

[mk2_craig]

18 minutes ago, Inspector Morose said:

it might have been against certain companies policies trade union agreements?

 

[High Jetter]

4 hours ago, Inspector Morose said:

Then again, seeing the state of how most drivers reverse a bus or coach...

I can remember a tremendous ruckus back in 2006, when a bus reversed and crushed another driver to death. In the depot. I'm sure Eastbourne Buses have a policy on it now.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/southern_counties/5315200.stm

[The Old Bloke Next Door]

[The Old Bloke Next Door]

[The Old Bloke Next Door]

[The Old Bloke Next Door]

[The Old Bloke Next Door]

[The Old Bloke Next Door]

[The Old Bloke Next Door]

[The Old Bloke Next Door]

[Eyersey1234]

Regarding buses reversing in service, we have had a few routes where the bus turns round somewhere meaning a reversing manoeuvre is needed.

[Eyersey1234]

East Yorkshire's new deliveries, 4 ADL Enviro 200MMC bought from stock. 3 are 11.8m and 1 is 10.8m. They are in a temporary livery until they can be got through paint shop

[quicksilver]

Pleasantly surprised to see this in Aylesbury yesterday. It doesn't seem very long ago these ex Dublin Olympians were everywhere after Ensign imported several large batches, but they're all over 25 years old now and must be an endangered species.

[Inspector Morose]

20 hours ago, The Old Bloke Next Door said:

VWD451H was the very first Metro-Scania and this, with with it's sistership 452H differed from the rest in having the complete body built at Scania with only the interior finished by MCW. Many differences including the typical Scania curved rear windows in these opposed to the flat glass rears of the MCW production. 

Anyway,in the very early 90s, this ended up at a used truck dealer in Oldbury, of all places and was parked up without seats with the intention that it would be converted into an office. I wandered in and enquired about it. Apparently, it had had a fresh engine and box (two speed Scania auto) before being parked up. I asked the price as is.

£600. I said yes, and I'd bring the money over on the Saturday morning. Come the Saturday, and there I was, £600 in my hand and the possibility of owning one of the more historically important modern day buses was in my sights. It didn't matter if I could do anything with it, it was safe and could be passed on to folk who could, the important things was that it was safe.

Nobody there. I hung around, eyeing my prize from the wrong side of the chain link fence. No mobiles of course so no way of getting hold of someone. In fact, I heard the phone ring in the portakabin that masqueraded as their office a number of times while I was waiting on the offchance of someone turning up.

After a fruitless hour or two, I went home. Work took my time up for the next few days and it was Thursday afternoon before I could get back there. I rocked up to find a Metro-Scania sized gap where there should have been one.

"Yeah mate, sent it for scrap. Didn't think you were serious so we fucked it off". And that was the end of the very first Metro-Scania. I don't often wallow on the ones that got away. Most were just not to be but to be that close to saving the very first of  something very interesting (and now very rare) still niggles 35 years on. The yard where it counted out it's final days is now under an Arnold Clark. Maybe there's some justice in the world after all.

[UltraWomble]

[kirton]

On 22/05/2025 at 14:37, Inspector Morose said:

 

Slightly bus related news, I've just been validated today to MOT buses and coaches now as well as HGVs (none of your modern LGV rubbish at the DVSA dontyaknow). Your heavy vehicle safety is my concern...

Onward and upward, may your life betterment continue

[High Jetter]

2 hours ago, Inspector Morose said:

Yeah mate, sent it for scrap

I'm guessing they wouldn't have got £600 for it as scrap, so they lost out too.

[Snipes]

Are you boys familiar with Mayne of Manchester? A small, family owned bus operator covering a few niche routes East out of Manchester city centre, usually out to Ashton under Lyne but a few others too. They ran from 1920 all the way to 2008, being the last such independent operator and sold to Stagecoach when the owner retired and his sons didn't wish to continue running the business. Save for a few book listings and a wikipedia footnote, there's little left to show for their long history, and I dare say the Metrolink extension  would have consumed their routes eventually regardless. They ran their buses in a distinctive burgundy, initially with blue stripes later cream.

I have many memories of them, as they were the best service for my home journey (230-235 services) but were less frequent than the Stagecoach services (216, 236,237) that ran parallel then diverged before hitting Droylsden - I was often faced the dilemma of jumping on the 216 or waiting for the "better" Mayne service to show up, often if having to jump off the Stagecoach and hoping to flag down the Mayne in time to switch when they passed one another. Also the driver changes mid-service, when the bus passed the depot in Clayton (now an Aldi) or the infrequent trip to Glossop on a Sunday/Bank Holiday (237) and having to give the driver directions through the scenic High Peak route. Don't know why I'm posting this now, just feeling nostalgic I guess.

Ashton Under Lyne bus station, in classic colours for the anniversary.

Heading toward the main bus station, Piccadilly Gardens Manchester. My brother was a big fan of Vinyl Exchange back in the day, who are still going strong, amazingly. Also these Scanias had the best seats - well stuffed benches!

My stop at Piccadilly gardens. These "modern" Dennis things had the worst seats - horrible individually moulded plastic things. Disgrace! 

Nothing worse for me than ignoring the 216 and sprinting for the Mayne only to round the front and see it was the useless 217! Same place - I used this stop outside the Natwest for many years.

One of the few single deckers they operated. This is Clayton, now thoroughly dominated by the Manchester City FC presence. Also left is the "B of the Bang" art piece for the 2002 Commonwealth games - what a disaster that thing was. If you google street view this junction and flip back through time you can see it being cut up after bits of it fell off into the road. Asda and bits of the Velodrome in the background on the right.

Not sure where this is as I never used this service. If I had to guess I'd say Deansgate and that Weatherspoons is The Moon under The Water but really not sure. They ran a few of these models for years. I'm not really a bus guy so don't know what it is? Atlantean? The quintessential Mayne before more modern busses arrived in the late 90s.

When Stagecoach bought them out many of the staff and vehicles transferred over. Quite bizarre seeing distinctive vehicles in new colours (full disclosure I'm not sure if this is an ex-Mayne bus but it's close enough for illustration).