You Wait Ages For A Bus

dogduke · Post by **dogduke** » Sun 12 Feb, 2012 5:47 pm

[quotenick="Phill_dvsn"Am I right in think there was once a fire in that building too? Was there a fire involving Benns furniture shop ?The seemed to operate from a few premises around Kirkgateover the years.

raveydavey · Post by **raveydavey** » Sun 12 Feb, 2012 8:38 pm

Phill_dvsn wrote: Just looked at the aerial image, after the fire the roofs lower down were damaged, but our part with the tower on looks ok. I think the tower is still visible on this 1975 shot too? I do seem to recall a fire in one of those buildings though, can anyone else recall anything? It's ironic that looking at this almost 40 year old image, the Union Street area is still a "bomb site" carpark. In fact it could be said that the area has deteriorated even more as the buildings that were there along George Street in 1975 have also gone now!

BIG N · Post by **BIG N** » Mon 13 Feb, 2012 3:00 am

liits wrote: My local bus route has used Alexander Dennis Enviro 400's for a while. When new, they were very smooth and very, very quick off the mark. The Enviro 400, in my humble opinion, is a terrible bus. having spent two years driving them I have to honestly say its one of the worst "newer" buses I have ever driven.Driver visability is terrible with a massive amount of blind spots on the off side, several times I have come extreamly close to wiping a car out on roundabouts etc due to being totally unsited.The wipers have a terrible interrmitent pattern to them - one sweep, pause one second, two sweeps, pause one second then repeat - if its not throwing it down so hard you need them on constantly then you soon start to be irritated by the fact that they are dragging across the virtually dry screen because theres no proper pause time between swipes. One good thing I can say at this point about most volvo chassied buses is the dwell time can be set to absolutley any length the driver requires.After dark feel free to get on an enviro and show the driver anything you want - he cant read it because the lighting in and around the cab area is so poor its impossible, most of our drivers dont bother even trying anymore.The saloon heating on these buses is worse than useless, apparently this is down to the fact we live in a cold country and need to use anti-freeze in the coolant system. the heating system is, as is normal, fed from the vehicle cooling system but the thermostat has some very small and delicate valves in it and once the buses have been stood for any length of time (overnight) the anti-freeze in the system sticks the valves up and stops them working.The biggest problem though (in my opinion) is with the gearing and engine management systems when your in heavy traffic, your edging up to a junction or roundabout in traffic, nicely crawling along in second gear, you come slowly up to the line and see a suitable gap in the traffic so hit the gas to get yourself out and away - what happens ?The revs pick up for a moment, then the management system thinks hang on ! we need to select first here, kills the throttle and drops you down the box, the only way to regain power is to lift your foot off then re-apply, now theres two options - either allow the bus to stop, lose your opening and wait another minute or so for a suitable gap and start again from a complete stand or, the more favoured option, lift off and get straight back on the gas before you come to a complete stand and the effectivly barge your way out. the result of this is the sudden jerk followed by a violent lurch forward - probably the phenomenom you find yourself experiencing Nick.The decker fetured in Blakey's pics is the same Wrights body that we have just recieved although ours are on the VDL chassis as opposed to Volvo, got to say though, apart from a couple of very minor niggles they are a nice bus to drive - so far

BLAKEY · Post by **BLAKEY** » Mon 13 Feb, 2012 10:06 am

BIG N wrote: The decker fetured in Blakey's pics is the same Wrights body that we have just recieved although ours are on the VDL chassis as opposed to Volvo, got to say though, apart from a couple of very minor niggles they are a nice bus to drive - so far Also BIG N I believe the new Arriva ones are low height - hence the flat top to the upper saloon windscreens - I much prefer the look of these to the "goldfish bowl" impression given by the normal height ones.You have my utmost sympathy regarding dangerous lack of vision - this is not a new phenomenon by any means and in my long career I drove many where, no matter how careful and vigilant you were, there were heart stopping incidents almost daily and particularly in the dark on unlit country roads. Without doubt the worst ever were our first South Yorkshire Road Transport Leyland Olympians with Northern Counties bodies - there were four. They were superb vehicles in every other way - except perhaps their Leyland TL11 engines' tendency to fracture number one injector pipe causing fuel to spray on the hot exhaust !! As far as visibility goes they were quite panoramic in daylight, but apart from that - lethal. The right hand half of the offside windscreen was OK, being shielded from the interior lights by the staircase, but the remaining threequarters of the windscreen areas gave a brilliant high definition colour picture of the interior of the bus - you could count the diamonds in the little brooches worn by the lady passengers and I've yet to see a better picture on a new television set. The road in front was virtually invisible even under street lighting and worse still in the dark countryside. The maker's only apparent solution to this - totally ineffective - was a purple fluorescent tube over the front nearside luggage platform. What on earth are the certifying officers doing to sanction such unforgiveable and dangerous blunders?? I'm going back over twenty years now but I still shudder at the clear and vivid recollections of my "nearest ever" incident. It was a dark Winter teatime and I was travelling along Methley Lane towards Leeds - Methley Lane (A639) was totally unlit in those days. Just the Leeds side of Methley Park Hospital there is a very slight left hand bend - the very worst circumstances for those rogue windscreens - and I never even got a glimpse of the criminal cyclist dressed entirely in black and not even equipped with lights, let alone showing them, until I got a glimpse of him as the passenger door passed him. Despite swerving to the right my heart sank as I was sure that he MUST have gone under the nearside of the bus, but mercifully he hadn't - I would have been convicted of course - that goes without saying.

BIG N · Post by **BIG N** » Wed 15 Feb, 2012 3:53 am

Indeed Blakey we still have lots of problems with reflected light off the nice large expanse of glass at the front, in fact if you look closely you will see many modern deckers, especially the Gemini's being driven after dark with the near side saloon lights switched off. This is something I think that has been made far worse with fluorecent lighting, I can only imagine it was far better in the days of buses being fitted with the standard 12 volt pearl lamps LOLOne side effect of turning half the saloon lights out after dark can lead to another heart stopping moment, All modern buses are now fitted with assult screens ( something else that is a bone of contention with many drivers ) and if you look at most modern ones the front most panel of these, the bit over the ticket machine, is usualy at an angle to both the cab and the windscreen. The problem arises when you are travelling down a dark or unlit road and a car is coming towards you, suddenly you get a reflection of their headlights bounce off the assult screen which gives an impression - all be it fleetingly - of a car coming out of a street on your left at high speed. It can certainly catch you out and give you quite a start.

BLAKEY · Post by **BLAKEY** » Wed 15 Feb, 2012 10:17 am

BIG N wrote: Indeed Blakey we still have lots of problems with reflected light off the nice large expanse of glass at the front, in fact if you look closely you will see many modern deckers, especially the Gemini's being driven after dark with the near side saloon lights switched off. This is something I think that has been made far worse with fluorecent lighting, I can only imagine it was far better in the days of buses being fitted with the standard 12 volt pearl lamps LOLOne side effect of turning half the saloon lights out after dark can lead to another heart stopping moment, All modern buses are now fitted with assult screens ( something else that is a bone of contention with many drivers ) and if you look at most modern ones the front most panel of these, the bit over the ticket machine, is usualy at an angle to both the cab and the windscreen. The problem arises when you are travelling down a dark or unlit road and a car is coming towards you, suddenly you get a reflection of their headlights bounce off the assult screen which gives an impression - all be it fleetingly - of a car coming out of a street on your left at high speed. It can certainly catch you out and give you quite a start. You have my sympathy even more now BIG N - at least I was spared the inconvenience and isolation of sitting behind an anti vandal screen, necessary though they now are due to the virtual lack of law and order these days. This extra reflection you mention sounds terrifying to me. I never cease to be amazed at how the designers and certifying officers appear totally unaware of such issues, and about the other real bugbear for me, as a passenger, of the totally ineffective and insufficient provision of emergency evacuation facilities. I shudder to think of what is bound to happen one day when a front door is blocked by an accident or there is an engine compartment fire - the only emergency door, and a pitiful narrow affair at that, is right next to the engine compartment and there could easily be ninety plus souls on board, all tangled up with excessive an illegally stowed luggage and buggies etc.Still, as long as all the interior fittings are in nice zany pastel colours or dreary funereal grey and lilac, and the totally out of all proportion route branding and slogans adorn the exterior of the vehicle then it seems that all is well.

Riponian · Post by **Riponian** » Wed 15 Feb, 2012 1:48 pm

In terms of escape, I would love to have one of the stickers on the airport apron buses at Munich airport. "In case of emergency destroy window" and a handy hammer to do so. Wouldn't work here.It could be worse, what are First going to do with all the FTR's they are getting rid of from York soon?

raveydavey · Post by **raveydavey** » Wed 15 Feb, 2012 8:05 pm

Riponian wrote: In terms of escape, I would love to have one of the stickers on the airport apron buses at Munich airport. "In case of emergency destroy window" and a handy hammer to do so. Wouldn't work here.It could be worse, what are First going to do with all the FTR's they are getting rid of from York soon? Put them on the 4 around Leeds, so they can stop substituting the ftr's for single crewed double deckers?Wasn't Cardiff (or Swansea?) supposed to be next in line for the ftr revolution?

BLAKEY · Post by **BLAKEY** » Wed 15 Feb, 2012 8:10 pm

Riponian wrote: In terms of escape, I would love to have one of the stickers on the airport apron buses at Munich airport. "In case of emergency destroy window" and a handy hammer to do so. Wouldn't work here.It could be worse, what are First going to do with all the FTR's they are getting rid of from York soon? I've no idea Riponian what they're going to do with them, but if they were to appeal for ideas I should be delighted to tell them. My personal view is that they should never have seen the light of day - along with all the barmy "spin" about "pilots, cockpits and streetcars" - then, after the failure to "get off the ground" (sorry, couldn't resist that) of the preboarding ticket machine system, "customer service hosts." When I was issuing bus tickets I had to be content with being called a conductor, and occasionally worse on a bad day !! As far as I can recall £330,000 each for 45 seats - built in traffic disruption comes as standard. They are often to be seen in Leeds "piloted" by folks with civilian baseball caps, trainers, shirts hanging out and all the rest. What an insult to the intelligence of the general public to pretend that fitting wheel spats to an articulated bus magically transforms it into a streetcar. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

BLAKEY · Post by **BLAKEY** » Wed 15 Feb, 2012 8:13 pm

raveydavey wrote: It could be worse, what are First going to do with all the FTR's they are getting rid of from York soon? Put them on the 4 around Leeds, so they can stop substituting the ftr's for single crewed double deckers?Wasn't Cardiff (or Swansea?) supposed to be next in line for the ftr revolution? In York for a good while ago now the purple horrors have not been used after weekday peak times or at all on Sundays as First are not prepared to pay "customer service hosts" as well as "pilots" at quiet times - so normal OPO buses are used entirely - the term "full circle" springs to mind.