Bloody Buses.

[brammy777]

Right i dont know what its like for the rest of you, considering im probably the only one who constantly uses the buses, but the ones we get round here are doing my head in.

Stagecoach insist on using the knackered ones round here, and we either get this:

or

The alexander bodied darts are so bad, theres one with severe driveshaft whine, and another one which sounds like the brakes are releasing air even when its moving. That one also makes a hideous grinding/juddering noise when braking hard. The B10s arent that bad, i prefer them, as they are always going superfast, but recently they were reseated with the most uncomfy seats i have ever sat in. The only time we ever got anything relatively new was an SLF dart, but it sounded like a robot about to explode.

The prices are silly too, a single to hook (8 minutes) is £1.80.

And Stagecoach monopolies the area, so train prices are priced accordingly.

Its probably a sign that i should start driving, but the prices are ridiculous

I simply cannot afford lessons which are now going over £20 per hour, times 30, plus a test. And the whole scrappage thing is getting rid of the small cars i could have got as my first, everything is getting over the top!

Rant over.

(Note. Pictures stolen of da interwebz as taking pictures of buses makes you a pedophile apparently)

[ashmicro]

Translink use 20+ year old buses on the route between central Belfast and where I live, yet see fit to allocate brand new machines on the routes to places where the locals routinely set fire to them.

[Pete-M]

Buses.I don't use them very often, but I'm considering buying one to take on a trip across Europe. An old double decker. I keep seeing them on ebay and thinking "Oooh, that might just do the job" and then realising I don't have a licence to drive one.Hmm. This is gonna get expensive.

[Richard]

I'm sure there are ways to drive a bus on a car licence. You would probably have to take all but 16 of the seats out though.

[Father Ted]

I have a friend who is into his busses and is rebuiding a 1994 Plaxton boddied Dart... The amount of rust and non existant bits undernath is seriously worrying for a bus that was still in daily service untill recently..

Non existat suspension mountings...

[Mr Lobster]

Is a 1994 bus old enough to be considered a classic bus then and one that should be preserved or is he rebuilding it for further service?

[Pillock]

Buses.I don't use them very often, but I'm considering buying one to take on a trip across Europe. An old double decker. I keep seeing them on ebay and thinking "Oooh, that might just do the job" and then realising I don't have a licence to drive one.Hmm. This is gonna get expensive.

A bus with 15 seats or less (I think it's 15) can be driven on a car licence - effectively it's like driving a Transit minibus. Except a lot longer and cooler.For added cool, drive around the Italian mountains pushing classic Minis out the back on every corner.

[mattblack]

I have a friend who is into his busses and is rebuiding a 1994 Plaxton boddied Dart... The amount of rust and non existant bits undernath is seriously worrying for a bus that was still in daily service untill recently..

Non existat suspension mountings...

Strange... my O/H works for a bus and coach hire company. She tells me that due to the cost and the way the booking system works the idea is you take a bus for MOT with a veiw to it passing, not 'to see what needs doing', if that makes sense. They have a fleet of about 30 buses and coaches, oldest is a Routemaster (although that's not in 'frontline' service anymore, just used for weddings ect). They have some early 80's stuff in regular use, and she's worked there nearly 2 years and they've had 1 MOT failiure in that time...

[r.welfare]

I'm sure there are ways to drive a bus on a car licence. You would probably have to take all but 16 of the seats out though.

I think if the bus is pre-72 or something, and you don't carry any passengers, you can drive it on a car licence. This is all from memory based on a Peter Simpson column in Practical Classics years ago, you might want to PM Dollywobbler and get him to ask him direct.

[Station]

I couldn't believe how much the bus costs. I recently got the bus to a job interview, requested the destination, and handed over £2. He then said 'You don't use these often do you?', and it was 3.40 to travel a matter of 5 miles.That's a fifth of what I had to pay to travel 200+ miles to Newcastle, so I can't imagine they have a problem with diesel costs (the old complaint that goes on no matter how high they rise the fare).I've used public transport less than 10 times in the past 6 years, I started driving as it was cheaper and was more reliable (buses used to drive past your stop if they were a couple of minutes late - on which they were fined 60k for).I have to admit, the job interview journey was pleasant enough, and we have buses that are a couple of years old.

[Guest]

Doesn't matter how nice they make the buses around here, they're an absolute last resort due to the majority of passengers being filthy, smelly, ugly-looking people who in an ideal world would be kicked down a hole before being filled over with concrete. Might be alright somewhere more cosmopolitan, but pretty much every bus around here will stop off in a sink estate to pick up some rat-faced job-dodgers and their tins of "Spesh". This in turn makes me angry to the point where I could easily commit some sort of atrocity.Therefore it's better/safer for everyone if I drive around in a car instead.

[Mr Lobster]

^ Thats exactly why I will not use buses - or indeed local trains. The vacant looking, brain donated great unwashed who are found on them. However nice buses become and however expensive petrol might get, I will not be using buses.

[brammy777]

I suppose im somewhat lucky in the fact that people hirst described are somewhat rarer here, Hook being the only place for that.

Speaking of nice buses, stagecoach has in farnborough/camberley have invested what i can only imagine a shitload into these

 

 

Leather seats in derrrr.

But these go through the old dean, somewhere noted for being notoriously

rough. Fair play to stagecoach for buying british products though.

 

interestingly newnham coaches now has Metrobuses, with a couple of them still showing the livery of the ex owner ( whiite yellow green). Oh and theres a VR now doing school rounds here too.

[dollywobbler]

Right, Peter's not 'ere at the moment but my understanding is that anyone can drive any bus but not with more than six people aboard or something like that. May involve changing the tax class of the bus or something but I'm not too certain. It's definitely nothing to do with the 1972 cut off, though it seems that non-working buses build before 1973 also get free road tax!

[pogweasel]

Right, Peter's not 'ere at the moment but my understanding is that anyone can drive any bus but not with more than six people aboard or something like that.

And only if they have the pre-theory-test driving licensce I think...

[wuvvum]

We have quite a variety of buses round here - still quite a lot of Darts and Alexander-bodied B10s around. I like the B10s - go like hell (I once lost a traffic light GP to an out-of-service B10 in my Ducato van) and make a wonderful roar on full throttle. We still have the odd Leyland Lynx and Olympian around too - they also seem to go quite well for what they are. And until recently there was a Leyland (?) Greenway growling and smoking its way between Norwich and Wroxham, although I haven't seen that for several months now. I much prefer these relative dinosaurs to the modern buses with their Euro-strangled wheezing hairdryer engines and moulded plastic interiors. I suppose I'm spoilt in a way as, living out in the sticks, when I get the bus home it's usually full of old biddies who've been into Norwich for the weekly shop, rather than slack-jawed inbreeds from the local sink estates, but I don't mind using the bus - and a single from mine to Norwich city centre is about £3, which isn't too bad really for an 18-mile journey.

[Guest]

I'm sure there are ways to drive a bus on a car licence. You would probably have to take all but 16 of the seats out though.

I think if the bus is pre-72 or something, and you don't carry any passengers, you can drive it on a car licence. This is all from memory based on a Peter Simpson column in Practical Classics years ago, you might want to PM Dollywobbler and get him to ask him direct.

If I remember correctly, the relevant clause is worded: bus over 30 years old, no more than 8 passengers on board, not for hire or reward. Some friends regularly do this with a small fleet of preserved buses.You can drive a more modern big bus with a car licence if it has been recertified with less than 9 seats, or with a D1 minibus licence if it has been recertified with less than 16 seats. This is what people tend to do when converting coaches to motorhomes or race car transporters, but I dont know whether the vehicle weight then becomes an issue, i.e. would a double-decker with a kerb weight of 10,000kg then require a C category HGV licence to drive. Possibly not if it the vehicle cant carry a payload of any description.Whatever, I wouldnt recommend driving a bus-sized vehicle without some form of tuition first!

[pogweasel]

Urgh, I am with Hirst on the bus front. Hideous way to travel, I'd rather walk. The local buses for bringing old dears from the villages into town so they can draw their pensions & buy cat food are fine, a random selection of ancient smokey old Transit & Mercedes 814 conversions interspersed with snazzy brand-new 'Optare' things. The ones that go to out other conurbations are grim though, stagecoach white boxes full of mouth-breathing hopeless idiots, usually with a combination of bingo-winged fishwives, shreiking, potty-mouthed children & tattoo'd thugs drinking cider from the can at 9am. I long for the day when the local rag carries 'Council Estate Carnage in Bus Horror Smash' as a headline when one goes out of control and smashes into the Jobcentre in a massive fireball.

[brammy777]

Im not sure if its still used, but Arriva in Luton/Dustable were using a 1981 Olympian. Anyone familiar with that area will also be familiar with centrebus. Also i dont know what their currently using, but when i used to go to Dunstable last year they had mega knackered Darts and Paladins. Cheap as well, i remember on centrebus it cost like 30% less than arriva.

[Twiggy]

Information about licences can be found here:

 

http://www.dvla.gov.uk/drivers.aspx

[dollywobbler]

Stuff here is more relevant.

 

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/Dr ... DG_4022619

 

As I though, it isn't tied to 1972 but I wasn't aware that the bus had to be 30 years old. I'll have to wait a bit before getting my MCW Metrobus (with assymetrical split windscreen, single door - Birmingham City Transport colours).

[GrumpyOldMan]

I could rant for hours about how awful buses are over here... But a picture is worth a thousand words :

 

 

Admittedly, there is a definitive Autoshite appeal to them, but once the novelty has worn off and you find yourself having to use them for commuting they really become intolerable

[brammy777]

amen to that, i used to like getting the older buses, but now find myself slightly scared when getting on them, for example the last dart i got on felt like it was going to tip over. When it snowed back in february, i went to college in one of the B10s, which slid abut 2 metres at my stop and it got stuck 5 times, the driver simply put his foot down until it weaved and hit the kerb and freed itself. Bus took an hour and a half to do 9 miles, and college ended up being cancelled.

[Guest]

I liked travelling on Lothian buses in Edinburgh – the operator is well known for providing a decent fleet kept in good condition, the company is still in public ownership so its lower profit margins mean that the network remains comprehensive and frequent, so partly due to the above reasons usage is high, therefore a reasonable cross-section of society are regular passengers and not just the dregs of humanity mentioned above. So therefore when office work had pissed me off enough sufficiently I got my licence and drove for the company for 30 months, and am pleased I did while still young enough for it not to completely wreck any career aspirations. I probably tend to look back on it with rose-tinted specs though, and the freedoms are reduced seeing as everything is covered with GPS and CCTV nowadays. But still, the experience was worth it just to boast that I drove a B-reg Leyland National in passenger service

[brammy777]

Having traveled on Lothian on the past, i can safely say it is one of the best operators. The whole system works so much better. I heard they got fined if they are late as well? Keeps waiting to a minmum.I have to say, driving buses appeals to me for some reason, but hey ho, i might give it a shot.

[Dukestar25]

Sorry, but you're all wrong on this The worst bus in the world ever ( and the one I had to ride on to get to school) was THIS...

 

 

It was noisy, had no suspension and when it was warm, the plastic seats used to smell, making me throw up .

[dollywobbler]

I could rant for hours about how awful buses are over here... But a picture is worth a thousand words :

 

 

Admittedly, there is a definitive Autoshite appeal to them, but once the novelty has worn off and you find yourself having to use them for commuting they really become intolerable

I think I've been on that one...

 

Horrible suspension, poor ventilation and what looked like plate glass sliding windows...

 

But more interesting than the facsimile fleets we've got here at the moment!

 

(and for the record, I love Nationals - even though they started the "same buses everywhere" thing for single deckers!)

[Volksy]

Sorry, but you're all wrong on this The worst bus in the world ever ( and the one I had to ride on to get to school) was THIS...

 

 

It was noisy, had no suspension and when it was warm, the plastic seats used to smell, making me throw up .

National II, phoar!

 

Best looking bus IMHO.

[dollywobbler]

Sorry, but you're all wrong on this The worst bus in the world ever ( and the one I had to ride on to get to school) was THIS...

 

 

It was noisy, had no suspension and when it was warm, the plastic seats used to smell, making me throw up .

National II, phoar!

 

Best looking bus IMHO.

Nope - THIS is a National 2! (and I drove it...)

[MrRegieRitmo]

Sorry, but you're all wrong on this The worst bus in the world ever ( and the one I had to ride on to get to school) was THIS...

 

 

It was noisy, had no suspension and when it was warm, the plastic seats used to smell, making me throw up .

LUSH