Bus Shite

[busmansholiday]

Had to endure four trips with this recently.

 

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Parked behind one of Rotala's finest.

 

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Also igo has gone.

 

 

https://igobuses.org/

Is the 'not in service' on that So-slow because he was waiting time or because it was fucked (my bet).

[NorthernMonkey]

From our local Nuneaton forum, the Mercedes minibuses that stagecoach brought on to replace the former midland redd South iveco daily things FB_IMG_1554832737058.jpg

Spent many a happy* hour driving around Stockingford and Whitestones in those feckers...

[Felly Magic]

I need to find that clip of the Stephensons Enviro going dwimming in Essex. Must have thought he was driving a Dukw

[Sir Snipes]

Spent many a happy* hour driving around Stockingford and Whitestones in those feckers...

I remember those things. Could have sworn they use to run around in GMPTE "Little Gem" colours in Manchester but all I can find are earlier Ivecos and later Metroriders so maybe not.

[Felly Magic]

GMPTE had Northern Counties bodied Dodges in Little Gem livery, as at the time they owned NC in Wigan, they also had a small batch of Dennis Dominos again with NCME bodywork.

 

Anyhow, watch an Enviro go for a swim in Essex. Unrelated, but same named operator in York did the same with an Enviro Dart, and that driver got banged up for a year!

 

 

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-essex-47697159/bus-driver-misjudges-wallasea-island-flood-water

[The Old Bloke Next Door]

Is the 'not in service' on that So-slow because he was waiting time or because it was fucked (my bet).

 

Don't know it was gone when I returned an hour later, although from my observations they do seem to break down more frequently than other operators.

 

https://www.expressandstar.com/news/local-hubs/walsall/2017/12/08/school-evacuated-as-bus-bursts-into-flames-in-walsall---watch/

[busmansholiday]

Don't know it was gone when I returned an hour later, although from my observations they do seem to break down more frequently than other operators.

 

https://www.expressandstar.com/news/local-hubs/walsall/2017/12/08/school-evacuated-as-bus-bursts-into-flames-in-walsall---watch/

Always amuses us anoraks up here when we see one of Diamonds heaps being towed out of a Barnsley scrap yard and back home after it's had a replacement engine / box etc by one of our finest local engineers.

[The Old Bloke Next Door]

Had my license renewal back from dvla, with a note they have upgraded my automatic vocational entitlement to manual.

[Sir Snipes]

GMPTE had Northern Counties bodied Dodges in Little Gem livery, as at the time they owned NC in Wigan, they also had a small batch of Dennis Dominos again with NCME bodywork.

 

Anyhow, watch an Enviro go for a swim in Essex. Unrelated, but same named operator in York did the same with an Enviro Dart, and that driver got banged up for a year!

 

 

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-essex-47697159/bus-driver-misjudges-wallasea-island-flood-water

I definitely remember those miniture Mercedes running around Ashton Under Lyne bus station (before the refurb and reorientation) but I guess I can't recall what colours. I never got to try one on the Manchester bound services I was using.

[martc]

Has anyone done donuts with a double decker?

 

Chiswick Depot 'skid patch'.

 

[LightBulbFun]

I was thinking about that but HC did say a doughnut rather then just a skid

 

 

there was a great youtube video of an RMC and and RT going sideways on the skid pan during a 1983 open day

 

but sadly it looks like the video has gone walkies...

[martc]

I was thinking about that but HC did say a doughnut rather then just a skid

 

OK then...

 

Bus (pedant = coach) doing doughnuts...

 

 

Doing doughnuts in a bus....

 

[busmansholiday]

Never had the space or time to try that.

 

Did once get a Chesterfield Corp Neepsend bodied Reliance to drive sideways in snow (whilst in service). Scared the shite out of my conductor who obviously didn't understand "way hay, no punters on board, let's see what happens when you turn this bend quickly".

 

Probably get strung up for such frivolry these days.

[LightBulbFun]

That Tanks-A-Lot site is pure gold;

 

https://tanks-alot.co.uk/product/margret-thatchers-armoured-bus/

 

 

 

has this been featured here?

 

if not its about time!

 

would love to know who the coach builder was...

[Inspector Morose]

Two poles on the roof of your bus just isn’t cutting it anymore?

What you need is this:

 

 

What you are looking at is a gyrobus. Developed in Switzerland, it uses the energy stored in a large flywheel to drive the bus (via an electric motor/generator) some distance before stopping at “charging stations” along the route to speed up the flywheel again. It was said to be capable of distances of around 3-6km between charges in traffic and braking energy was captured and used to help the (over one tonne) flywheel spin a little longer.

 

 

Three systems were constructed in Switzerland, Belgium and, weirdly, the Congo and surprisingly none survive to this day. The last surviving gyrobus in the world is preserved at the transport museum in Antwerp.

 

Touted as the “future of transport” ( back in the time when every such crackpot scheme was touted as such) this incarnation of the technology had major flaws; the buses were very heavy, rode badly and the system actually used more power than a conventional bus or tram at the time. A dead end then? Well no, not quite. Development of the idea continues to this day and there are some systems very similar in concept in use in motor racing (KERS anyone?) and has broken surface in some hybrid drivelines for commercial vehicles. GKN had a low cost hybrid system using this same technology ready for production and was actually trialled in some buses until the plug was pulled suddenly a few years back.

 

So flywheel powered public transport is dead? Nope. If you take yourself to Stourbridge in the West Midlands, you can see it in action in the form of the class 139 that shuttles between the town and junction stations. Will it make a further comeback? Who knows but I wouldn’t count it as a total dead end just yet.

[Sir Snipes]

I seem to remember Porsche having a flywheel based energy storage hybrid system. May have been on the LeMans cars but I can't remember.

[quicksilver]

 

 

 

 

has this been featured here?

 

if not its about time!

 

would love to know who the coach builder was...

 

It's a Foden with bodywork by Glover Webb, best known for armoured cars I believe. Tanks-a-lot have been trying to sell it for years and it keeps popping up on eBay at inflated prices as an important historical artefact. I'd love someone to buy it as a school bus, it'd certainly keep unruly kids at bay.

[martc]

It's a Foden with bodywork by Glover Webb, best known for armoured cars I believe. Tanks-a-lot have been trying to sell it for years and it keeps popping up on eBay at inflated prices as an important historical artefact. I'd love someone to buy it as a school bus, it'd certainly keep unruly kids at bay.

 

This was Maggie's armoured Battle Bus used for her tours of Northern Ireland; it was built in 1983. You would have thought someone so universally loved and admired as Thatch wouldn't need an armoured bus for touring in; they're the sort of thing deranged despots need for protection. Oh, hang on a sec....

 

More details and photos here -

 

https://jomomag.blogspot.com/2015/04/maggie-thatchers-northern-ireland.html?_sm_au_=iDVVW1vfkJfvFQnM

[martc]

Talking of armoured buses, this one was used across the water by Obama. I'm not sure if the orange faced loon uses it (it's probably too small to get his ego in). It'll be languishing in a rednecks scrapyard somewhere.

 

[willswitchengage]

So flywheel powered public transport is dead? Nope. If you take yourself to Stourbridge in the West Midlands, you can see it in action in the form of the class 139 that shuttles between the town and junction stations. Will it make a further comeback? Who knows but I wouldn’t count it as a total dead end just yet.

 

The problem is the engineering of the flywheels themselves. Let's say you want to get a 10 tonne bus to 30 mph. You will need the kinetic energy of a 1 tonne object travelling at 300 mph. Depending on its diameter a one-tonne flywheel will therefore need to spin at several thousand rpm to store that KE. Think how hard it is to balance a tyre in a workshop - now think balancing a one tonne mass that's being constantly bumped around on the road etc. Fancy bearings and ultra strong materials are a must (spin it too fast and it'll tear itself apart). Mechanically very simple and robust, but a horrendously low energy density.

[Redfred]

F1 used KERS in I think 2009 and 2011, at least some teams did. I seem to recall Williams developing a flywheel based system but don’t know if they ever raced it.

 

I seem to remember Porsche having a flywheel based energy storage hybrid system. May have been on the LeMans cars but I can't remember.

[Zelandeth]

Didn't Volvo play around with something like that in the late 70s/early 80s...sure I remember reading something about something like that in Route One, sure the test bed had started life as an Ailsa...will have a look after dinner to see if it's one of the copies I digitised.

[Inspector Morose]

Yes Volvo did play with flywheels, in fact they had a separate company Volvo Flygmotor. I have a suspicion it still exists.

The Williams technology was used in conjunction with the GKN project but that seems to have died a death now

[busmansholiday]

Think one of the three Ailsas London originally bought (before the ex Sheffield and West Mids ones) had a fly wheel.

[LightBulbFun]

 

http://www.countrybus.org/Ailsa/C1.htm#top

[Inspector Morose]

That’s the one but it used hydraulic accumulators and a pump/motor instead of a flywheel.

[Inspector Morose]

The problem is the engineering of the flywheels themselves. Let's say you want to get a 10 tonne bus to 30 mph. You will need the kinetic energy of a 1 tonne object travelling at 300 mph. Depending on its diameter a one-tonne flywheel will therefore need to spin at several thousand rpm to store that KE. Think how hard it is to balance a tyre in a workshop - now think balancing a one tonne mass that's being constantly bumped around on the road etc. Fancy bearings and ultra strong materials are a must (spin it too fast and it'll tear itself apart). Mechanically very simple and robust, but a horrendously low energy density.

I think the Williams/GKN set up was to be used as a helper more than a true hybrid. It certainly didn’t use a large flywheel but they did spin it to truly frightening speeds. The flywheel itself was housed in a vacuum and had magnetic couplings to the outside world to transmit the drive. The whole set-up had a very small footprint considering and was capable of being retrofitted to existing diesel buses. Quite impressive but, as you say it had a low energy density and it’s benefits in fuel and emissions reduction were somewhat limited.

 

I do believe Optare were playing with a flywheel hybrid system at one point too. Whether it was the GKN set up or someone else's, I’m not too sure but that died a death too.

[Six-cylinder]

Mrs6C lived in Oxford in the later 1980s and remembers Oxford buses that used fly wheel technology. 

[martc]

Yes Volvo did play with flywheels, in fact they had a separate company Volvo Flygmotor. I have a suspicion it still exists.

The Williams technology was used in conjunction with the GKN project but that seems to have died a death now

 

Volvo Flygmotor, now Volvo Aero, was the aerospace division of Volvo making licence built jet engines, rocket motors etc. it is now owned by GKN.

 

Volvo did experiment, in the 80's, with a gyroscope 'charged' by a small diesel engine - can't find out if this was made by 'Flygmotor' but it seems likely as they would be more geared up for this sort of thing. In the case of this bus the gyroscope was replaced by a hydraulic motor - this was definitely made (and are still made) by Flygmotor; nowadays hydraulic motors are more likely to be found driving compressors in aeroplanes etc.

 

Here's Wikipedia's page on Gyrobuses - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrobus

[Felly Magic]

I seem to remember Porsche having a flywheel based energy storage hybrid system. May have been on the LeMans cars but I can't remember.

 

Volvo tried a similar system on a Citybus, reg'd C101CUL, the bus was converted to standard B10M running gear and ended up with Black Prince