Ask The Driver (17)

lizzzardbits: How much is a bus? As we only pay a few £ to ride, cheap transport, and seats are plastic & cloth, we tend to think whole bus is cheap.

After much searching for this answer I am still getting nowhere. Now I do remember a poster in our garage with a picture of the Wright Gemini on it and I think it was comparing them to the Aston Martin DB9 and saying that they were about the same price. Since I am not sure I am going to send this one in to NXWM itself as I am very curious to see what the answer actually is. I will keep you all posted on this.

Regengirl: So you’re given control of the TV screens on your bus for the day - what would you put on them?

I had never thought about this before and I did initially think of the obvious things like TV shows etc. I then realized that most people probably don’t have the same tastes as me and would probably not like the shows. So I came up with something that may seem mundane but when thought about is very useful. How about a constantly updating information screen on the status of the bus? Things like: This bus is currently running x mins late/early. The next stop is x change for services to x,y and z. Sorry for the delay this bus is waiting for its relief driver. I think that it would be useful for passengers who are unsure about where they are and what bus they need.

 

strix_aluco: May have had this one before but… Are there some routes which drivers really like driving? Scenic, quiet, challenging etc.?

I don’t think that anyone has asked this before. The route that are enjoyed driving are mainly nothing to do with those things and more to do with the amount of time that the journey is allowed compared to how far it has to go. I, however, love a challenge and enjoy the routes that other drivers may not. A lot of the time I am very happy when I manage to keep the bus on time especially during rush hour. The reverse is also true in that one bad passenger can make a good day go bad.

5000 Hits

A very very big thank you to all my readers. I have made a little goal that I set myself a while ago. At somepoint today I reached 5000 hits. To all of you that read this blog I want to say a very heartfelt thank you. I really enjoy writing it and I hope that you will continue to read it.

Thank you once again and keep reading

Ask The Readers

Ok I’ve been doing the Ask The Driver section for a while now and I think its about time I asked you, my readers, a question.

The situation:

its 4:30pm and several passengers are attempting to board my bus using off-peak travel cards and/or daysavers. What should I do?

Now TWM describes off peak hours as 09:30 to 15:29 (3:29pm) and then after 18:00 (6pm). The tickets are clearly marked as off-peak hours only with those hours clearly marked somewhere on the ticket. They are also very clearly different colours to every other travel card that I see so there is no mistaking them. I am only asking this as a few days ago I had this same situation. Let me know what you would do in the comments section and i will put what I did and what happened as a result up later on.

A Typical Morning

 

This will be the first of three posts that make up a typical day in my bus driving life. It’s not about any one day in particular. The others will be A Typical Afternoon and A Typical Night. Hope you enjoy them.

 

03:00 Alarm goes off. I struggle to reach it and finally shut it off and crawl out of bed. Grabbing uniform I stumble into the bathroom to start getting ready.

Finally walk out to the staff bus and exchange grunts as we both are still half asleep.

Walk into the traffic office and head for the coffee machine. Broken again. Ah well better get going. Grab my running board and find my bus number. Find that my bus is parked at the back behind four others and I will have to reverse it out. Flick the start switch and nothing happens. Great another flat battery. Time to go and wake the engineers up. Right, pre drive inspection done let’s get out there.

First trip. Man its quiet no one is awake yet and I have to dawdle to keep the schedule.

Second trip. Rush hour. Here we go. Lots of running for the bus. I try to smile and stay happy but everyone seems grumpy today. Oops almost missed that stop, sorry sir. Try pressing the bell a bit earlier.

08:30 “Am I too early” I wonder if they realize how early they are.

Yikes full bus already and more want to get on.

Final run of the day.

Buggy war. Already got three on and a fourth was waiting. “You can come on if you fold it down”

“I don’t want to”

“Sorry but I already have the maximum number of buggies on”

“All the other drivers do”

Sorry but I’m not the other drivers.”

My god I can’t believe the number of people that use that line and think that it works.

09:29 “Am I too early?” this time said with a smile. Hmm am I in a good mood or bad mood. “Come on then.” Even bigger smile. The day got better with that.

Finally the end of the shift arrives and I am ready to go home and head back to bed. Small problem though, my relief driver hasn’t turned up. Finally five mins later he turns up and blames the bus for making him late. I bite back the “You’re a bloody bus driver you should know better” reply and leave him to it

Ask The Driver (16)

Time for more of your questions.

 

strix_aluco: I get the Number 1 quite a lot, and before they got the new fleet they used to use the really old (A/B/C-reg) buses on that route.  They looked like they must have been a pig to drive, so I wanted to ask: did you ever have to drive one, what were they like to drive, and what was the best/worst thing about them?

The older fleet (metros) are wonderful to drive. The can be a bit of a pain when you first start them on a cold morning and the heaters are not the best in the world. When you compare them to the newer buses that we have (tridents etc) they break down less often and I prefer the older ones. There is less to go wrong with them. Everything including the wipers is powered by the air tanks. The only problem that there is with them is that it is getting harder and harder to find spares for them so when they go wrong they are out of service for a very long time. Having said that though, when they do go wrong it is usually in a big way and they end up being scrapped anyway. The fleet has to be fully low floor at sometime in the future (I think its 2011 but I could be wrong) so the Metros are being slowly replaced. I for one will miss them.

 

Pete Ashton Not sure if you can answer this one if you don’t drive the route, or even if you do, but why is the Number 50 route so frequent compared to other routes? Is it because there are no city-bound train stations around? Or is it just a historical quirk? Obviously I like it this way but when I have to get another bus on a similar route, like a 61/2/3 or 33/4, I do wonder as I stand there for what seems like hours.

Honestly Pete I have no idea. What you are saying sounds about right though and I am sure that something like that would happen. I think that I am going to have to look into this one a little deeper and get back to you if that’s ok.

Regengirl If you were going to do a soundtrack for your favorite bus route what would you put on it?

Radar love by Golden Earring – Lots of speed cameras and places for the boys in blue to hide

Born To Be Wild by Steppenwolf – Rush Hour! Need I say more?

Crazy Train by Ozzy – Gotta have a Brummy in there somewhere and his insane laugh says it all

And for sitting in a traffic jam – Stranglehold by Ted Nugent (if you have never heard of him go find him)

If I’m feeling love towards the passengers – Money by Pink Floyd

And finally just to get the blood pumping on dull days a quick dose of the Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin

The Lost Drunk

This is a bit of a sad tale of the last bus

 

I had picked the man concerned up about half way along the route and I knew straight away that he was drunk. You could smell it a mile away. He leaned on the cab door to fumble in his pocket and I found myself leaning away from the smell. After what seemed like an age he produced, to my great surprise, an in date and valid daysaver!

He sat down, fell asleep and started to snore.

 

When I reached the outer terminus he was still there and still asleep. I was just about to go and wake him when he shook himself awake and looked around. He was obviously very confused and looked a little worried.

“Driv, where are we?” he asked, I told him.

“Oh No,” He sank to a seat with his head in his hands “I was supposed to get to the station”

“But my bus doesn’t even go to that station”

“So how do I get there?”

“At this time of night you may just be able to get a bus over there and then change to the number xx and that will get you to the station but I don’t think you would make it in time”

“Oh” He thought for a minute “But I need to get to the station”

“You could get a taxi” I suggested

“Oh” Again he was lost in thought for a moment “How do I get back to where I got on then?”

“This time of night you are better off getting a taxi” By this point I was really hoping that he would get off the bus as there was a taxi rank just down the road.

“So where am I?” he asked

I told him again where he was

“And what number bus are you?”

Again I told him

“But I thought you went to the station”

“Sorry sir but this bus has never gone to the station” I then ask a question that I probably shouldn’t have “Where do you think you are?”

“Cardiff”

Oh god… Not only was he lost but he had no idea where he was. I needed to sort this guy out. I guess it’s the nice guy in me I could have just left him at the side of the road lost and confused but that is not at all like me. So I had to help him out.

It took a while but I eventually found out that he did know that he was in Birmingham and he needed to be at the station the following morning. He had been out with mates and they had gotten him very drunk. He was very upset with himself for getting so drunk that he didn’t even remember where he was. I did remember where I picked him up from and I was able to figure out how he could get back there but it would take him a lot longer and three buses. After another long and repetitive discussion much like the first I got the message through and even wrote the information down on a spare ticket for him. He seemed fairly confident with the route and where he had to change and even remembered to thank me for the help and apologised for falling asleep!

I dont get people like that very often. I hope he made it back ok and got his train the following day.

My Afternoon at Radio WM

So today I went to BBC WM to do an interview with the great Les Ross. I was understandably worried and a little scared. I was worried mainly about how it would go and if I would say something bad. Thank you to everyone that sent me good wishes via twitter they really helped calm me down some.

Naturally I went on the bus to the mailbox, the home of BBC Birmingham. I had never been there before and had no idea how to get there but fortunately for me the instructions were very clear although the final one took me by surprise, follow the coloured lines on the pavement, and I made it in plenty of time for my slot. I signed in and waited for the produced, a very nice lady called Bernadette Shortt to collect me. I didn’t have to wait long and was soon shown into the studio and was introduced to Les. They both made me feel very welcome and manage to calm at least some of my nerves. Les and I talked for a few minutes while a record was playing. Although we didn’t talk much, he said it was so that we didn’t think that we had already talked, I got a friendly vibe from him and it really helped.

The record approached its ending and suddenly the red light (yes there is one) went on and this was it I was live on air talking about my life driving my bus.

Listen to it here (thanks @bounder)

or you can listen to it via the BBC Iplayer. My interview starts at about 1hr 38 ish.

The interview lasted about 20ish minutes but I didn’t notice the time despite there being a clock on the wall in my eye line after a short time I relaxed and it felt like I was just chatting over a pint in our local pub. I really felt welcome and involved.

Sadly shortly after the news it was time for me to go. I said my goodbyes and walked out with Bernadette. We talked for a little while and she mentioned that it was a shame that Phil Huxley, my first interview, wasn’t in the building that day as she was sure that he would have liked to meet me. I thanked her for everything and headed home.

Once again I would like to thank Les Ross and Bernadette Shortt for asking me to come in and everyone that listened and sent messages of support.

Radio Interview

I have been approached by the wonderful people at BBC Radio WM to do an interview. Of course I said yes and as a result I will be on their afternoon show at about 2:40pm Today 05/08/08.

 

Many thanks to @bounder and @podnosh for their helpful words. I am still a little worried about it as I have never done anything this big before. Tune in if you can. I will try to get a mp3 of it onto here if at all possible

Ask The Driver (15)

First a question that I missed last week. Many apologies.

Regengirl: What tips do you have for getting up very early all the time?

Its hard work getting up at 3am for 7 days straight. It took me ages to work out the best way to do it but I finally figured out that many alarms were the first step forward. I also make sure that they are set 5 mins apart and are just out of arms reach. That way I always have to stretch to switch it off and that wakes me up. They are usually set a minimum of 45 mins before I have to leave the house just so that I am not rushing around to get myself ready. Finally, and the most important thing, A good strong cup of tea to start me going. It’s a strain to survive some weeks but I manage to get through and my reward is the long weekend at the end of it.

 

And now onto the questions for this week.

Star_one: Why are the driver changeovers annoyingly a few stops before the route terminus? E.g. the Bristol / Pershore road

Usually the changeover points are put at the point on the route that is nearest the garage the service is from. Sometimes this can be very close to the end of the route. Other times it may be situated near to another route that goes past the garage. Sometimes I think that it is just picked at random.

Regengirl: If you could choose a smell to mask the nastiness on buses that need cleaning what would you go for?

After giving it much thought I think that “new car” smell and that wonderful smell you get from the earth just after it has rained would be wonderful. And it cannot be that fake smell that you get. That never smells right I want the genuine article please.

 

Alexhughes: Why do all the new buses not have opening windows upstairs? It’s like moving around in a mobile greenhouse - Yuk!

Every once in a while I will come across something that I can’t answer. This is one of those. Perhaps they just didn’t want open windows there, perhaps they forgot, or maybe they just couldn’t be bothered. If anyone can think of a better answer please let me know.

Ask The Driver (14)

A bumper crop of questions for me this week. Here I go with the answers.

 

Rachelcreative Where do bus drivers go on holiday? And how do they get there? ;o)

Well this is a question that I have been waiting for someone to ask. Most of the garages that I know of usually organize some sort of summer trip over the weekend. We take over a hotel. The best bit is that the preferred mode of transport is a bus. Sometimes it’s a rented one and I have heard of one garage just borrowing one for the weekend with the drivers rotating who drives.

 

Bounder do busses have speed-limiters? If so how fast, if not how fast do you think you could get up to?

Some of them do and they are set anywhere from 42mph to 55mph. During part of my training I had to drive a Lynx on the motorway and I managed to get it all the way up to 65mph and it felt like it was going to fly apart.

 

Peteashton Does a bus handle differently when it’s empty to when it’s full?

Oh yeah it sure does. The whole bus gets lower and the steering is a lot heavier. The ride does get a little softer but it takes a lot longer to pull away from the stop. It also takes a lot longer to stop. Once you are used to it though you hardly notice the difference.

What’s the official policy on pulling away b4 everyone seated?

The official word is to make sure that everyone is seated but it is accepted to pull away before everyone has their seats as if we were to wait for everyone to sit down the bus would always be late. If someone asks me to wait then I will wait. I always take great care when I pull away from a stop to make sure that no one loses their footing.

 

Podnosh is their a sick cleaning squad who will come and sluice out your bus half way round the inner circle?

I have never heard of one but that’s a great idea. The last time someone was sick on my bus I had to drive it all the way to the end of my run and then back to the garage. Ill have to mention that to someone.

Littlelaura If you could choose or add to your bus’s features for benefit of passengers - what would they be?

Now this is great. There are a lot of things that I would like to add to the bus to make life for the passenger easier and safer. How about seatbelts for a start. I bet you didn’t know that even the driver doesn’t have one! Next what about a heating/air-con system that is well maintained and actually works. Headphones for the music players that don’t have them. Ejector seats for those that still don’t use them. Comfortable seats for the passengers and driver. A trap door for those that won’t pay so they can just be deposited off the bus. A better gearbox would be wonderful as would smoother engines. Wipers that don’t squeak and heated windscreens. Those are just a few things that I would like. Oh and quicker doors.

 

Watfordgap would you swap driving in the urban west midlands for driving in a rural place?

I thought about this for a long while and actually I would like to swap for a rural area. Here in the city the pace of life always seems to be very fast and that makes for short tempers when things go wrong. My experience in the country is that it is a little easier going. It could also provide a great challenge to drive a bus down some of those little country lanes to get to some of the more remote places but I do love a challenge.