Bus Shite

[busmansholiday]

Personally I think the world has gone soft.

There's nothing wrong with a class of screaming little bastards swinging around the pole on a rear entrance double deck whilst their friends slide sideways on the top deck because it's a lowbridge body with four seats abreast, on the trip back from Hillsborough baths (now a Wetherspoon's) to their school at Malin Bridge.

In those days if you fell off it was your own fucking fault for being at total arsehole!!!

 

[Zelandeth]

When I was looking into this a few years ago it was insurance that was the biggest headache.  Driving the bus on the car licence wasn't a problem (used to keep a printout from the DVLA website on me when driving a friend's one), however all of the insurers I spoke to wanted me to have a full cat D licence before they'd give me insurance.  Given I was having issues arranging storage back then as well as the owner of the shed I'd been planning to use had gone incommunicado it was one thing too many and I abandoned the idea.

Will come back to it one day... especially as with a bit of reconfiguration I've room for one at home now.  It's a few years away at least though given how precious a commodity time is these days...and from what I've seen the biggest resource you need looking after an old bus or coach it's TIME.  Something I have in short supply nowadays.

[busmansholiday]

No it's money, no matter what people tell you. It really is cash that's the deciding issue.

Trust me, if money wasn't an issue I'd still have a fleet of Reliances. Cars can be fitted in your or friends drives, buses are different. Despite sis having a stately mansion in Suffolk, storing a bus there is definitely a no no 

[Mrcento]

6 minutes ago, busmansholiday said:

Cars can be fitted in your or friends drives, buses are different. Despite sis having a stately mansion in Suffolk, storing a bus there is definitely a no no 

After years of taking shite from my neighbours for parking a Cinquecento in the allotted spaces (apparently too small a car and they should be reserved for larger cars), if i ever got an Ailsa, i'd say fuck it and park it in the bay outside, show them what an actual problem looks like, ?

My local bus group offers storage of any buses in their warehouse for £50 a month, which is frankly phenomenal value considering that works out less than a council lock up.

RE insurance, can definitely imagine that being a problem on a B license, but like all things with vehicle insurance, there'll always be someone, somewhere who'll cover it. It's always just finding who will. Normally after about 3 weeks of online searching, contacting every broker and company you can find and spending 4-5 hours a day on the phone and being turned down by every last one, you finally find someone who'll insure something nobody else would touch as simply as a 50 year old female doctor insuring a diesel astra. It's sods law, always pretty much the last one on the list ?

[Yoss]

30 minutes ago, busmansholiday said:

Personally I think the world has gone soft.

There's nothing wrong with a class of screaming little bastards swinging around the pole on a rear entrance double deck whilst their friends slide sideways on the top deck because it's a lowbridge body with four seats abreast, on the trip back from Hillsborough baths (now a Wetherspoon's) to their school at Malin Bridge.

In those days if you fell off it was your own fucking fault for being at total arsehole!!!

 

I used to do part time conducting work for a friend in Watford who had a small private hire business with two RMs (1571 and 1959 if anyone's interested) and we started getting school work from some of the local coach companies. It suited them because they could hire a coach out for the whole day and not have it tied up for a couple of hours in the morning and afternoon and it suited my friend because most of his work was at weekends - weddings and rail replacements generally. 

I loved the school buses and after a while got to know the kids after which they gave me less hassle. We picked up at three schools, Bushey Meads first, and they were the best school and they would just pay me as they got on as we would be parked outside the school they came out in dribs and drabs. The next two, Bushey Hall and Queens would be waiting for us when we arrived. The first couple of times I treated it as a normal crew operated bus, let them all get on then try and get fares. They gave me the runaround. Firstly by passing tickets down the bus so by the time I got to the ones at the front they already had tickets even though I knew they hadn't paid. Then they started swapping school ties to confuse me. 

I actually admired their ingenuity but by the third time I did it I treated it as a pay as you enter bus and got the money off them before they got on and after a while we all got along. They actually seemed pleased to see me, though this was probably because there were a couple of conductors they really didn't like. 

As to last the paragraph in the quote above , I gave up trying to stop them getting off before the bus stopped and showed them how to do it properly - ie, always jump off going forwards even if you want to go the other way. Jump off forwards then turn round, if you try jumping off facing the other way you WILL fall over. 

This was 1992 and 1993. After that Hertfordshire County Council wanted all buses to be less than 15 years old unless it was an emergency. If it meant a bus being cancelled then they'd make an exception. I thought that was the end of it until I got a phone call one day saying what are you doing tomorrow? I won't say the name of the operator we were subcontracting from (don't actually know if they still exist) but they suddenly started having a lot of emergencies*. They were also using another local RM operator but it all came to end when a council hobnob turned up outside Bushey Meads one afternoon to find to two RMs and an RF sitting there! 

[reb]

1 hour ago, Zelandeth said:

When I was looking into this a few years ago it was insurance that was the biggest headache.  Driving the bus on the car licence wasn't a problem (used to keep a printout from the DVLA website on me when driving a friend's one), however all of the insurers I spoke to wanted me to have a full cat D licence before they'd give me insurance.  Given I was having issues arranging storage back then as well as the owner of the shed I'd been planning to use had gone incommunicado it was one thing too many and I abandoned the idea.

Will come back to it one day... especially as with a bit of reconfiguration I've room for one at home now.  It's a few years away at least though given how precious a commodity time is these days...and from what I've seen the biggest resource you need looking after an old bus or coach it's TIME.  Something I have in short supply nowadays.

If tomorrow goes to plan, the need for a cat D license won't be an issue, it'll just be the remaining problems of money and time!

[Six-cylinder]

This is our local bus yard 5 miles away with all the school run buses, I often meet them and the road to their village is unclassified.

The question is what am I looking at, highs, lows or are the whole lot the biggest pot of grey porridge you have seen in a long time? 

[Inspector Morose]

25 minutes ago, Six-cylinder said:

This is our local bus yard 5 miles away with all the school run buses, I often meet them and the road to their village is unclassified.

The question is what am I looking at, highs, lows or are the whole lot the biggest pot of grey porridge you have seen in a long time? 

 

The bus in front of you is a Toyota.

[Eyersey1234]

1 hour ago, Six-cylinder said:

This is our local bus yard 5 miles away with all the school run buses, I often meet them and the road to their village is unclassified.

The question is what am I looking at, highs, lows or are the whole lot the biggest pot of grey porridge you have seen in a long time? 

The bottom picture left to right is a Jonckheere bodied Volvo, Plaxton President, East Lancs bodied something, Plaxton coach probably Volvo chassis and an ADL Enviro200. 

[busmansholiday]

Apart from the Toyota and the ADL, the rest are all ovloV.

[quicksilver]

22 hours ago, Inspector Morose said:

The bus in front of you is a Toyota.

I'm amazed that old Toyota Optimo is still going, they've had it about 15 years now and there can't be many left. It still seems wrong to see Langston & Tasker running fairly decent coaches as I remember that yard being full of Fords and Bedfords, the archetypal village school bus operator. 

[Eyersey1234]

32 minutes ago, quicksilver said:

I'm amazed that old Toyota Optimo is still going, they've had it about 15 years now and there can't be many left. It still seems wrong to see Langston & Tasker running fairly decent coaches as I remember that yard being full of Fords and Bedfords, the archetypal village school bus operator. 

A couple of independent operators near me have had to update their fleets over the last few years after getting into trouble over the average age of fleet, in one case they were given about 4 months to replace pretty much the entire fleet if they wanted to keep school contracts. TBF maintenance was fine but a fleet of 30+ year old Bedfords and Fords was too old. 

[willswitchengage]

Why is it that on some buses it sounds like an air horn is being sounded when the parking brake is released?

[busmansholiday]

When you release the parking brake, you quickly have to dump a lot of air into the parking brake system to overcome the springs that hold the brakes on (safety features, run out of air, brakes come on automatically). Depending on the design of the pipes and valves, you get different noises.

[lanciamatt]

Drove up from barnsley to Northumberland today, nearly crashed on a1 near Newcastle, saw a Leyland atlantean come past, people on it too, wonder if it's still in service 

[busmansholiday]

7 minutes ago, lanciamatt said:

Drove up from barnsley to Northumberland today, nearly crashed on a1 near Newcastle, saw a Leyland atlantean come past, people on it too, wonder if it's still in service 

Be on their way to a rally, been there, done it, got the T shirt and broken down more than once ( I used to know the head bolt sequence and torques for an AEC 470 off by heart!).

[willswitchengage]

Just in case you missed it in the news, Wrightbus entered administration today.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-49818156

[Eyersey1234]

4 hours ago, willswitchengage said:

Just in case you missed it in the news, Wrightbus entered administration today.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-49818156

It's a shame, I hope a buyer can be found. 

[Crackers]

Went to Laandan and took some photos of old buses.

Please don't be a cock and steal my precious pictures.

Several more where these came from, if anyone cares.

 

  

[LightBulbFun]

some lovely photos! I would not mind in the slightest to see some more  

I really must find out where these running days? are announced so I can try and actually make it to one! (I say Try, because sadly my back has scarpered several attempts in the past)

(I know the RMOOA announce them sometimes on their facebook page etc sometimes, one of these days I need to renew my membership with them!)

 

I think I mentioned it before, but I must be the only person who looks forward to tube strikes as it means all the Routemasters and RTs come out to save the day once more

[Crackers]

10 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

some lovely photos! I would not mind in the slightest to see some more  

I really must find out where these running days? are announced so I can try and actually make it to one! (I say Try, because sadly my back has scarpered several attempts in the past)

(I know the RMOOA announce them sometimes on their facebook page etc sometimes, one of these days I need to renew my membership with them!)

 

I think I mentioned it before, but I must be the only person who looks forward to tube strikes as it means all the Routemasters and RTs come out to save the day once more

If I remember I'll put some more up before work tomorrow, I'm too knackered at the moment.

 

This wasn't a running day as such, it was a photographic charter organised by Neil Cave of timelineevents.org who do all manner of interesting photography days. They do a few bus events during the year but generally only one a year in London. We had 5 buses at our disposal, departing Brooklands bus museum at 1845 and not returning until 0400 the next day! 

[gm]

excellent photos, do you mind if I 'steal' the third one to use as a desktop wallpaper ? I won't do anything else with it

[paulplom]

I've stopped giving way to buses. I got a parking ticket for stopping in a bus stop to run into my favourite butchers to buy some steak pies. I was well out of the way and wasn't causing an obstruction. The camera on the but must have taken a photo and I got the fine in the post.

Buses can all get in the sea from now on as far as I'm concerned.

[Eyersey1234]

1 hour ago, 83C said:

Eh? You parked illegally, got caught doing so by an automated system, but you’re going to take out your frustration with being caught by not giving way to bus drivers?

I don't understand the logic either, I wasn't sure if it was a wind up post or not. 

[willswitchengage]

Quote

Rule 223

Buses, coaches and trams. Give priority to these vehicles when you can do so safely, especially when they signal to pull away from stops. Look out for people getting off a bus or tram and crossing the road.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/road-users-requiring-extra-care-204-to-225

[Crackers]

13 hours ago, gm said:

excellent photos, do you mind if I 'steal' the third one to use as a desktop wallpaper ? I won't do anything else with it

Please be my guest. I'm not sure if they're uploaded in full resolution so they may not look great as a wallpaper, but let me know if not and I'll put the full resolution one up.

[LightBulbFun]

15 minutes ago, Crackers said:

Please be my guest. I'm not sure if they're uploaded in full resolution so they may not look great as a wallpaper, but let me know if not and I'll put the full resolution one up.

the Autoshite image uploader does tend to shrink images a bit, but depending on rez of his monitor it might be fine still, checking info on my side, the image comes back as 2000x1333

[gm]

Looks great on my iMac, even with the dodgy graphics card (doesn’t do video very well these days  )

[LightBulbFun]

15 minutes ago, gm said:

Looks great on my iMac, even with the dodgy graphics card (doesn’t do video very well these days  )

ah your iMac is 2560x1440, so might be worth getting the full rez version from @Crackers assuming it is higher rez

[Crackers]

10 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

ah your iMac is 2560x1440, so might be worth getting the full rez version from @Crackers assuming it is higher rez

The full res is 24Mp, 6000x4000, and does look extremely sharp on a 4k monitor. Will send it tomorrow morning, other teenage escapades have taken priority tonight.