We haven’t taken cash for some years in London. Some tricks used by scrotes to steal cash from the cash tray include:
At a bus stand or stop, the little cunts would open the engine bay door and stop the engine. When driver gets out, another little cunt steals the box and the money.
Again at a bus stand, when the driver ia checking the upper deck, the little cunts will board quietly and dip the box for money…
I was told about straightforward assaults and robbery to get hold of cash, but I didn’t experience this.
Policy didn’t always help either. I recall a Meal Relief Facility which was locked up at 21:30.
This meant a number of us with a certain duty had to sit outside foe around 30 minutes with up to £300 in cash (20 years ago) in a less than salubrious area of London…
Actually, that was my first battle. A few Transport for London Officials threatened to call the police and report me to my Depot…
Some years ago (in mainland Europe before buses and coaches in the UK were permitted in lengths over 12 metres) I had a look around a 15 metre four axle Neoplan Megaliner.
Apparently it was taken to the UK and quite far inland before being reported and escorted out for being oversized!
I sat in the driver’s seat and 15 metres is a fucking long way back when looking in the mirrors.
I’d love to have a go in one. Fuck driving the articulated version though.
There has always been ‘encouragement’ to ‘make progress’ and I’ve always resisted being rushed.
Had my first stand up row with a colleague who had a go at me for “fucking around”…
The routes I’m taking about go past and near to Charles Darwin’s old gaff. Check it out. Fucking tight and my colleagues would drive quite quickly down those lanes.
They don’t give two fucks about Fatigue either. The Torygraph article mentioned “tiredness” but really they should refer to it as fatigue.
The sneaky fuckers will say that drivers work a 38 hour week but in practice a seven day ‘spread’ over two pay weeks (Saturday to Friday in most cases) will see a driver work 70 hours plus…
I remember a Bus Station Controller suggesting I wasn’t allowed to take a TU sanctioned Hot Weather Comfort Break at ‘his’ Bus Station a couple of years ago…
Oh, and an IBus Controller that suggested that there was an agreement that stated these Hot Weather Comfort Breaks were limited to 5 minutes.
I took longer because I read poster that clearly stated there was no time limit!
I also remember another BSC refusing bus drivers cold water from their water cooler.
Cheeky fuckers…
Still, oddly enough, since writing an email to TfL (with thanks to @BobC ) our lot have been quick to repair defective HVAC systems…
Modern day trolly bus with the overhead pickup option. Question though is will the cab have sensible cooling, and will the heating work in the winter and not automatically go on in August. However despite its faults I will miss the rear stairs and doors on the new bus for London when they do get replaced.
These two are brilliant presenters; highly knowledgeable.
For me, this is an interesting video as it shows how much more advanced buses are in Mainland Europe.
This may seem unpalatable; UK buses are built down to a price. For UK manufacturers, there simply isn’t the economy of scale to invest in the kind of features- and build quality- seen in the following video:
My instant recollection of that exact generation of buses was the unbearable stench of leaked diesel fumes, and leaked exhaust fumes. And noise. They were unpleasant enough that we used to walk half a mile to use the corporation buses (older but better, can’t recall what breed they were).
Ha! Yes, that’ll be the smokey and rattly Leyland 500 Series engine!
It was an 8.2 litre six cylinder overhead cam cross flow fixed head diesel engine.
Originally designed with a capacity of 11.6 litres- and with some prototypes running reliably- it was decided late in the day to make it as light and compact as possible.
The reason why they chose the fixed head design is that the older existing O.680 engine kept shitting head gaskets at higher power ratings. Wasn’t just Leyland having this problem either.
Trouble is, changing the design at such a late stage meant customers did the development work. A fucktonne of money was spent on getting the unit reliable. Which it was in bus applications.
Think big Central Works and regular maintenance. Not so successful with lorries. The unit was discontinued in 1978…
It was ultimately replaced with the L11 and TL11 family. Based on the venerable O.680- which incidentally remained in production under license in Poland until the late '90’s…
