extra Long Buses?

[BLAKEY]

raveydavey wrote: BLAKEY wrote: If anyone would like a live demonstration of this viewpoint, I would recommend a trip on the Leeds service 56 from Whinmoor to Moor Grange during term time - it has to be seen to be believed, and it is nothing short of a miracle that any vehicle completes a journey the same day. Sad but very true - I am one of the regular victims of this mobile farce - "The Turquoise Line" - I rest my case Mi' Lud !! I know what you mean Blakey - I live near the other end of the 56 route and it's not uncommon to come down the stairs from a near empty upper deck to try and get off at Crossgates and find the platform rammed with two or more prams and halfwits stood up and refusing to "move down the bus".Back to the ftr's though - did you know that when fully loaded, more than half the passengers on board are actually standing? This is in part due to the appallingly poor use of space in the layout of the seating. They carry no more passengers than a double decker, but in less comfort and using twice the roadspace. Very much a case of the "Emperors New Buses" I think. I sympathise Davey, but at least you live at the least lunatic end of the route - the performance between the City and Headingley in particular beggars belief !! This may sound petulant, but I openly admit that I have never travelled on an "ftr" and have no intention of ever doing so. Its my own personal protest against "First"s condescending insult to the intelligence of the passengers - do they really think that they can fool anyone into thinking that an articulated bus with tin covers on the wheels is a "streetcar" - I don't know if it was "First" who named the infernal things thus, or the makers Wrights of Ballymena. Then you have to travel behind a "pilot" in his "flight deck" and be attended to by a "customer service host" - I find all this bilge really offensive, and they are only playing for time - the nonsensical things are a hideously expensive failure and will fade away 'ere long. The name "ftr" is supposed to be computer speak for "future" and, at £330,000 per aircraft I feel sure they will soon be renamed "pst" for "past." In York they are already put in their hangars now evenings and Sundays to save paying "customer service hosts."I must go and take a powder now before I have a bad "do."     

[chameleon]

Davey, Blakey - what beggars belief surely is that it is even permitted, let alone condoned and even (seemingly) designed-in, that people should stand on any such vehicle.What a mockery this makes of the need, ney requirement, that before moving at all in a car, we must be strapped to our seats to prevent injury in an accident! We are regularly treated to images and stories of the results of not doing so but then, who in their right mind would drive or be driven along without the seat belt in place? Bus passengers seems to be the answer!I wonder in the event of injury from partaking in this practise, how many people would simply accept their injuries - or how many would try to hold somone culpable for not providing a restraint.No doubt the argument will be that accidents involving busses are rare and the risk low - I've not been involved in an accident of any kind in my car for many, many years but I still (without the need for compulsion) wear the seat belt - the risk is not what has not happened, it is what could happen.

[BLAKEY]

Chameleon I agree with every word you say - who could do any other on this topic ?? - but for some reason crush loading and wholesale standing are an accepted part of bus and rail travel - there was a popular song many years ago "Money is the root of all evil", and that's it in a nutshell I'm afraid. The same largely applies all over The World it seems. Without looking at actual material, I believe the standing passengers on the "Beeston Bendies" is somwhere around 90 in addition to 55 seats or so. On the basis that you can "get used to 'owt" its difficult to believe that the "Beeston Bendies" are approaching ten years old - I have to confess to being one of the early noisy cynics who said that they couldn't possibly work on the tortuous number 1 service - well they have - in feasibility terms at least, although their mechanical reliability is now terrible and many are frequently off the road.    

[chameleon]

I may have related this tale before:In days past when bus travel was possible for me, my regular daily journey was on the No 38 single decker.Returning home one evening, I stood at the centre door ready to alight at Oakwood Lane/Dib Lane. Waiting also was a Mum with a baby and a toddler - holding the centre pole myself, I took his hand leaving Mum free to deal with her younger one. Shortly before the junction, the bus, already slowing, made an emergency stop to avoid some idiotic brat who ran accross Oakward Lane. The bus stopped - credit to the driver; the young child I was holding was at the end of my extended arm, feet off the ground; I lost my hand grip and we both ended up in the well next to the driver.I can only imagine tha fate of this young lad had I not been holding on to him - a rather traumatic vission of the remains of the windscreen rests in my minds eye.I'd rather not imagine the carnageof a similar incident involving a large number of adult passengers - then sadly, perhaps that is what will be needed to bring about change and sanity.

[BLAKEY]

chameleon wrote: I may have related this tale beforeI'd rather not imagine the carnageof a similar incident involving a large number of adult passengers - then sadly, perhaps that is what will be needed to bring about change and sanity. I quite agree and as I've written many times before, although not to do with the actual length of the vehicle, the emergency exit arrangements - or rather lack of them - in most modern large vehicles is nothing short of criminal. I fear that passengers don't realise that, in the event of a serious collision or an engine compartment fire (by no means unknown these days), there is no feasible way out for nigh on a hundred souls. When fully loaded within the law, modern double decker lower saloon gangways are blocked to claustrophobia pitch with standing passengers, oversize buggies, staircase effectively blocked at the bottom etc etc. the only downstairs emergency exit is a tiny narrow offside door adjacent to the engine - and the door is narrowed even further at its lower half by a rigid armrest for the long back seat. In any serious incident the panic would definitely be horrifying and folks would perish. Scenes similar to recent football ground and hotel fire tragedies are sadly just waiting to happen. I honestly don't know what the designers and the Traffic Commissioners Certifying Officers are thinking about.Interesting to note that, on the very latest single deckers, the offside emergency exit is now sensibly half way along the vehicle rather than at the back - so perhaps someone somewhere in authority is waking up, but I doubt it.    

[rangieowner]

Optare have taken some sense medicine! Arrivas new single deck buses (built by Optare) have 'breakable windows' at midway along the bus with a hammer for doing such! These are full sized windows with no opening 'flaps' at the top so even a great fatty like myself would be able to exit via this route! As for how effective they actually are, and how long it will be before the scrotes of Yorkshire nick the hammers, remains to be seen, but i have no intention of testing them first hand!!!!

[BLAKEY]

rangieowner wrote: Optare have taken some sense medicine! Arrivas new single deck buses (built by Optare) have 'breakable windows' at midway along the bus with a hammer for doing such! These are full sized windows with no opening 'flaps' at the top so even a great fatty like myself would be able to exit via this route! As for how effective they actually are, and how long it will be before the scrotes of Yorkshire nick the hammers, remains to be seen, but i have no intention of testing them first hand!!!! You've just reminded me rangieowner of a scandal we had to endure at Pontefract depot intermittently for a long while. At the time we had a fleet of wonderful Volvo/Alexander single deckers and they were fitted with the hammers in an easily opened plastic housing. Frequently vandals would sneak into the yard at nights and steal a large number of the hammers - either for sheer badness or, more likely we thought, for car and house breaking. The trouble is that the bus is not allowed out of the depot by law without the hammer being present. It was not unknown for anything up to threequarters of the hammers to be missing on a morning - can you imagine telling hundreds of angry passengers that they were stranded because of such an issue ??This of course brings to mind another scandalous aspect of "profit above all else" bus operation - the vehicles should ideally be housed indoors overnight, especially in Winter when they are thick with ice inside and out on bad nights.    

[Brunel]

If modern buses are not suitable how about this one.Had a trip in it tonight, Leeds to the tram museum in Heaton ParkManchester.

[BIG N]

Firstly allow me to shed a little light on the subject of this thread, the appearence of the extended bus stops in and around Leeds and indeed West Yorkshire.These are not to make ready for extra long bendy buses but are in fact as a result of a long consultation period between Metro, West Yorkshire Highways, assorted local councils and Unite.They are simply to allow buses the ability to actually pull into a stop and park along side the curb to allow access for the infirm, disabled, buggies etc etc. The old bays were fine as long as you didn't have cars parked right up to the edge of them which prevented you getting the step up to the curb, the extra length is room to swing in and out of the bus stop - nothing more.Someone also commented on the apperance of more and more raised curbs at bus stops, well by 2015 every bus stop in the country and indeed, every Public service vehicle operating in the country must be disabled friendly - that is also the reason why Wrights are building the latest Eclipse and Eclipse Gemini vehicles with the emergency exit in the centre, it removes the need to go up a step internally to reach the exit and also brings it much lower and hopefully makes exiting in an emergency much easier. BLAKEY wrote: Now, a very sad but classic illustration of the farsical and widespread official view of this question. Not too long ago, a modern FirstBus double decker with single front entrance and exit pulled into Leeds Bus Station and unloaded. A poor old chap fell under the bus as it reversed off the stand and was fatally crushed beneath the wheels. Bear in mind that this was the "ideal" type of bus with only ONE "safe" doorway. !!     Blakey, I often enjoy reading your thoughts on the bus systems in and around Leeds, both modern day and you reminicences of days gone by.I have to say that I agree almost one hundred percent with the things you have to say and I can understand your passion for the days gone by and your enjoyment of the job.That said, I feel I must pick you up on your comment above.On the day in question I was parked up in the lay-over bays in Leeds bus station, the gent in question had indeed just arrived on the bus in question but in fact was hit by the rear of the bus as it reversed off the stand, he was knocked to the floor and then run over by the vehicle in question.This happened because he was attempting to exit the bus station, as many people still do, via the enterance gate for incoming buses and had in fact walked behind the bus and dissapeared completely from the drivers view.On this occasion no matter how many doors the bus had or where they were positioned would have had any effect on the outcome that day.

[BLAKEY]

BIG N wrote: Blakey, I often enjoy reading your thoughts on the bus systems in and around Leeds, both modern day and you reminicences of days gone by.I have to say that I agree almost one hundred percent with the things you have to say and I can understand your passion for the days gone by and your enjoyment of the job.That said, I feel I must pick you up on your comment above.On the day in question I was parked up in the lay-over bays in Leeds bus station, the gent in question had indeed just arrived on the bus in question but in fact was hit by the rear of the bus as it reversed off the stand, he was knocked to the floor and then run over by the vehicle in question.This happened because he was attempting to exit the bus station, as many people still do, via the enterance gate for incoming buses and had in fact walked behind the bus and dissapeared completely from the drivers view.On this occasion no matter how many doors the bus had or where they were positioned would have had any effect on the outcome that day. Yes I'm with you all the way there, and I did know of the awful sad circumstances - in fact one of my lifelong pals had just brought the bus in from, I believe, Tinshill 96, and had come off for his meal. He had just been relieved by the poor lad who had to suffer being involved in the tragedy. No, my point was not so much about the accident itself but about the lunatic resulting decision by Metro/First that dual doorway buses must not enter the bus station in future - and in fact some services are still re-routed, totally illogically and inconveniently as all the dual doorway buses have been "modified", away from Eastgate and along Vicar Lane and York Street. As you rightly say, the number of vehicle doors had no bearing whatsoever on this tragedy. Thanks for highlighting this confusion, and for the opportunity for me to clarify what I actually meant.