Bus Shite

[Leyland Worldmaster]

21 minutes ago, warch said:

Pay and conditions for people like truckers or bus/coach drivers is pretty poor really especially given the training, responsibility and hours worked. It doesn't help that people who do these jobs are regarded as low status, probably why professional drivers are usually such miserable bastards. 

It really is a holdover from British class attitudes, note the amount of opprobrium about pay rises for train drivers who are well paid but also poorly regarded because they are perceived as doing an easy job by other working folk or disdained by the white collar mob. 

You've absolutely fucking nailed it. Right there. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. 👌

[busmansholiday]

On 23/07/2025 at 14:28, SunnySouth said:

And the absolute star of the show, the ultimate “Do not paint” hero, barn find ex Portsmouth PD2. Mechanically restored (probably!) but otherwise left as-is; an absolutely beautiful thing:

/end of self-gratutitous photo-splurging!

 

I'd guess it now needs a repaint as I've just been looking at a picture I took of that at Sandtoft back in either 1972 or 1973 and it's got the same front adverts.

[SunnySouth]

21 minutes ago, busmansholiday said:

I'd guess it now needs a repaint as I've just been looking at a picture I took of that at Sandtoft back in either 1972 or 1973 and it's got the same front adverts.

I think the aspiration is very much to keep it as it is for as long as they can; there is a decent fleet of preserved Portsmouth PD2s etc all immaculately well kept, so having one kept in this condition makes a rather pleasant change!

[SunnySouth]

2 hours ago, warch said:

Sorry for butchering your post but I do tend to agree.

Pay and conditions for people like truckers or bus/coach drivers is pretty poor really especially given the training, responsibility and hours worked. It doesn't help that people who do these jobs are regarded as low status, probably why professional drivers are usually such miserable bastards. 

It really is a holdover from British class attitudes, note the amount of opprobrium about pay rises for train drivers who are well paid but also poorly regarded because they are perceived as doing an easy job by other working folk or disdained by the white collar mob. 

That last point about Socially Necessary occupations is so true it makes me quite sad, we've never really valued those who actually do essential works in this country, and I see little prospect of that ever changing.  

Well said. I’d add however that rates for HGV (sorry; LGV!) have gone up substantially in recent years, widely reported as being due to a general shortage of drivers. Whatever the cause, that has forced an increase in migration from bus/coach driving to trucking, which has made an already grim situation even worse for bus operators. Plenty of bus drivers always aspired to be truckers, but any ‘superiority’ was usually only because of those peoples’ personal preferences; now of course truckers actually are being paid significantly more than bus drivers. Still one up from Amazon delivery driving, maybe, just… Sad times!

[Zelandeth]

7 hours ago, Leyland Worldmaster said:

Well what the fuck is it then?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ceq7qld10rjo

It's a bloody bendy bus.  A fancy one, but a bendy bus.  I imagine it will go about as well as First's "Road Train" thing they tried in York(?) about 15 years ago.  It looked cool in the publicity shots, but at the end of the day was still just a bendy bus with a central driving position (sure that was great for visibility) and some fancy wheel covers to make it look more tram like (the front ones of which I seem to remember were almost immediately binned by the maintenance guys).

[Yoss]

8 hours ago, Leyland Worldmaster said:

Well what the fuck is it then?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ceq7qld10rjo

Not only is it a bendy bus, it's a left hand drive bendy bus. Very useful in Liverpool. 

What they really need is a double bendy trolleybus. 

[danthecapriman]

6 hours ago, warch said:

 

That last point about Socially Necessary occupations is so true it makes me quite sad, we've never really valued those who actually do essential works in this country, and I see little prospect of that ever changing.  

When I was at SSE as a maintenance fitter it was exactly the same.

To do my job I had to do 3 years of training. Complete a qualification in it. Pass numerous tests and a trade test. Obtain various qualifications in things like street works, gas handling etc. Pass tests in low voltage live working and high voltage switching. Then go out there and not only do the core job of maintaining the electricity equipment and supply but also hands on working with live electric. There’s an insane amount of responsibility involved and the repercussions when it goes wrong are very serious.
And then you find out some completely unqualified suit wearing cunt with absolutely no experience of working with electricity is earning considerably more than you are!?! For what!? Sending emails and moving bits of paper around an office. 
It’s absolutely typical of this shit country nowadays though. You are nothing and nobody unless you have a management job title. Anything involving manual work, driving etc etc is seen as beneath most people and not worth anything. And payed as such. Yet if you didn’t do it the country would quickly grind to a halt. 
Attitudes to jobs like these need to change. They need to have the respect they deserve and be payed more appropriately imho.

[busmansholiday]

On 25/07/2025 at 08:16, Leyland Worldmaster said:

Well what the fuck is it then?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ceq7qld10rjo

It's an Irizar Tram Bus, available in various flavours and lengths.

[cms206]

On 25/07/2025 at 10:29, 83C said:

I used to do it on purpose. It’s the same licence, same tests. Coach drivers getting prickly because they see themselves as somehow superior to service bus drivers is something that should have the piss taken out of at every opportunity. 

"Tour drivers" likewise. Generally folk that by their own admission say they can't do stage carriage and moan about Thank You jobs, but have a black belt in waistcoats, a degree in selling shortbread and bottled water and think having a trisexual license puts them above the rest of us.

[cms206]

On 25/07/2025 at 10:33, N19 said:

I remember that, some years ago at least, LRT Lothian paid drivers of double-deckers more than single-deckers which apparently caused quite a bit of upset.

Most operators did at various times but the phasing out of minibuses tended to see off most of the split payscales; plenty operators still have "starter rates" which are much the same thing.

 

If memory serves the Lothian thing was a union agreement, but it was related to seating capacity rather than number of decks - Lothian's own Leyland National 2s were dual door 42 seaters from memory, and they downseated all the single door 11.3m Mk1s they acquired to 42 as well to keep them under the midibus threshold.

[Inspector Morose]

Remember this?

Well, the original intention was that the converted Fleetlines would be able to be classed as minibuses and so they could get away with paying minibus rate for their drivers. The abolition of the minibus rate sort of put paid to this hairbrained scheme, well that and the utter tonne of money it took to rebuild the thing.

Who'd have thought that it would cost a lot if you cut away the unrotten bit and binned it and left the horrendously rotten bit to make back into a bus just so you could pay your drivers a quid or so less an hour?

[davidfowler2000]

Even as a new start, I found the concept of a different rate for smaller buses disgusting. The only thing worse was that drivers were specifically choosing it. The buses were smaller, passenger loadings were mildly less but the shifts were horrendous. When I started at Kilmarnock in 2009 there was one guy trying to extol the virtues of picking a minibus shift because it was a regular shift with a regular wage and was taking home (after tax) a whopping 240 quid a week for doing about 60 hours including unpaid breaks. It was absurd.

At the time he was doing 12 hour shifts with about 20 full laps of one of the local services, I was doing a 10 hour shift with two full laps of the Glasgow to Ayr service and taking home more money.

[mat777]

A weekend two for 1! 

Some classic shite spotted firstly at the Oulton Park Gold Cup, and some vintage (or even veteran!) shite at the Audlem Festival of Transport 

[martc]

Misc pics -

Paradise Street Bus Station, Liverpool.

Albert Street, Nottingham.

Duke Street, Lower Broughton. 

Victoria bus station, looking towards Victoria Street, September 1941.

[danthecapriman]

I wonder why they named the streets things like ‘paradise street’? It’s not exactly very much like paradise is it!?😄

Theres a paradise street in Portsmouth city centre, which I remember doing a horrible job on. But, again, it’s about the exact opposite of paradise. Dirty run down stinking shit hole street would have been much more appropriate.

[Yoss]

3 hours ago, danthecapriman said:

I wonder why they named the streets things like ‘paradise street’? It’s not exactly very much like paradise is it!?😄

Theres a paradise street in Portsmouth city centre, which I remember doing a horrible job on. But, again, it’s about the exact opposite of paradise. Dirty run down stinking shit hole street would have been much more appropriate.

There is an estate in Southampton called Golden Grove. Sounds lovely doesn't it. 

It consists of several blocks like this surrounding one big block, Albion Towers, which looks like this. 

I used to deliver there about thirty years ago. When I started it the older posties were saying how rough it was. When I got there on my first day there was a policeman on each door. I assumed this was normal from what I'd been led to believe but they weren't there every day. The bailiffs were roaming most days though and you could tell which floor you were on by the different smells. 

Just what the name Golden Grove would have you imagine. 

3 hours ago, danthecapriman said:

😄

 

[High Jetter]

55 minutes ago, Yoss said:

There is an estate in Southampton called Golden Grove. Sounds lovely doesn't it. 

It consists of several blocks like this surrounding one big block, Albion Towers, which looks like this. 

I used to deliver there about thirty years ago. When I started it the older posties were saying how rough it was. When I got there on my first day there was a policeman on each door. I assumed this was normal from what I'd been led to believe but they weren't there every day. The bailiffs were roaming most days though and you could tell which floor you were on by the different smells. 

Just what the name Golden Grove would have you imagine. 

 

I can smell it.

[danthecapriman]

59 minutes ago, Yoss said:

There is an estate in Southampton called Golden Grove. Sounds lovely doesn't it. 

It consists of several blocks like this surrounding one big block, Albion Towers, which looks like this. 

I used to deliver there about thirty years ago. When I started it the older posties were saying how rough it was. When I got there on my first day there was a policeman on each door. I assumed this was normal from what I'd been led to believe but they weren't there every day. The bailiffs were roaming most days though and you could tell which floor you were on by the different smells. 

Just what the name Golden Grove would have you imagine. 

 

Sounds very much like how Rowner used to be in Gosport. Although that name sounds as horrible as the place actually was. 
In the middle of it was a big tower block similar to the one in your pic, filled with the most delightful* people you could wish to meet. It was so bad the building had its own security bureau! 
I remember hearing one day at work that one of the night time standby ‘rapid response’ guys was sent there as one of the flats had no electricity. He’d pulled up in the car park in his van to be confronted by two guys who told him to give them his PSU (a handheld device that could program electricity meter keys to add credit or remove debts etc etc). He said ‘no’ to them and ended up getting a beating and being robbed anyway.

Most of it has been cleared and redeveloped now and it’s improved quite a bit. Although it probably couldn’t get much worse. 
Another funny place name I found while working was ‘Billy Lawn’ in Leigh Park near Havant. It was not at all a nice place!
 

[High Jetter]

6 minutes ago, danthecapriman said:

Gosport

Not a pleasant memory.

[danthecapriman]

2 minutes ago, High Jetter said:

Not a pleasant memory.

It’s an awful place. 
For a long time it was one of my areas for work. Both me and the guy I worked with utterly hated the place so every year in April when our new maintenance lists came out we went straight over to Gosport first and just blitzed it. The idea was to just get it done and over with ASAFP and get the hell out of there.

Its one of the places I’m glad I’ll never have to go to ever again😆

[High Jetter]

2 minutes ago, danthecapriman said:

It’s an awful place. 
For a long time it was one of my areas for work. Both me and the guy I worked with utterly hated the place so every year in April when our new maintenance lists came out we went straight over to Gosport first and just blitzed it. The idea was to just get it done and over with ASAFP and get the hell out of there.

Its one of the places I’m glad I’ll never have to go to ever again😆

I did time at the branch of Longlife Accessories there. No trace now tho

[willswitchengage]

Is the Mayor talking bollocks here?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/clyjgg211lpo

It's a bus with a fancy bodykit... it will use roads, bus lanes and bus stops.  Does my head in when this is spun as something revolutionary or different. Even Irizar calls it a tram https://irizar.co.uk/model-range/irizar-ie-tram/ (made in Spain!)

FML Councillors are morons

[lisbon_road]

3 hours ago, willswitchengage said:

Is the Mayor talking bollocks here?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/clyjgg211lpo

It's a bus with a fancy bodykit... it will use roads, bus lanes and bus stops.  Does my head in when this is spun as something revolutionary or different. Even Irizar calls it a tram https://irizar.co.uk/model-range/irizar-ie-tram/ (made in Spain!)

FML Councillors are morons

 

That's like a comedy sketch.  'Bollocks' is too kind.  Didn't First do something like this years ago, and was quickly forgotten.  

[martc]

Bus action on The Mound, Edinburgh...

22/7/1974 - I like the rounded looks of this.

1992.

Somewhere else in Edinburgh...

19/9/95

[martc]

A miserable looking Eccles in 1975.