How to cheer up a bus driver...

Turned out to be another of "those" shifts again, today. Saturday, of course, is normally when everyone and their pet cat decides to go shopping. All at the same time. Just, again as normal, as I'm starting my first round of duty. Reading this, you might be forgiven for thinking that someone's trying to tell me something.

Not so.

Fate merely has a truly and repeatedly twisted sense of humour.

Anyhow, back to today. So, right out of the gate... Well... Halfway to the end of the first trip really... things had been going swimmingly, light traffic, hardly any passengers, sunny, a veritable joy to be a bus driver. Then I got to Croydon. Oh ye bleeding gods. I hit traffic the like of which you normally only see just before Christmas, not just after New Year! as usual, it was the tail back for one of the shopping centre car parks, and as usual, people were blocking yellow box junctions, roads, Uncle Tom Cobbly and all. It was, in fact, one hell of a mess... as usual. By the time I got through there, I was ten minutes late...

Then we hit the roadworks at a particularly annoying choke point on the route. Controlled by three way traffic lights (single alternating way working), the queues really build up there. Today was no exception; you can normally get through fairly easily going one way... Coming back, you tend to get royally stuffed. I managed to only lose a couple of minutes this time, and knew what that meant on the way back. And not only because I'd seen the massive queue going the other way!

When I got to the end of the route, I was going in and out of the stand like a duck mating - scribble arrival & departure times on my log card, spin the destination blinds, reprogram the ETM (Electronic Ticket Machine, in other words), and metaphorically stand on the accelerator to try to get back on schedule.

Yeah, right. Like that was going to happen.

And as you can see from the photo, I did, indeed, get royally stuffed by the roadworks. That's the queue for it. It was a third of a mile long when I got to it. By the time I got to the other side of them, I was twenty minutes down (what we call "Being WELL late" on the buses, of course).

By the time I managed to squeeze through Croydon, I was half an hour late - and amazed that I wasn't even more late.

However, fate must've decided that I'd suffered enough as, when I got back to the start point, the Controller held me back ten minutes, and curtailed* me just short of the choke point roadworks - very nice

And just to affirm that there weren't any hard feelings, after I got there (with 15 minutes to spin the bus around, what luxury!), the radio controller called me up on the radio and told me to run ten minutes early to my meal break! YES! Picture a VERY happy bus driver punching the air - we normally get rapped firmly across the sensitive parts with a ruler (the knuckles - what did you think I meant?!) if we're more than two minutes early!

Folks, THAT'S the way to cheer up a driver - give him more time to stuff his face at lunchtime!

Curtailing a bus:

The practice of running a bus short of the normal end point of a route, in order to attempt to get the bus back on schedule coming back.

In essence, you're chopping the route short for that bus, in the hope that you'll slot it back in the right place in the running order, at the right time, so as to restore the route to normal running. Doesn't always work out that way, but it's one of the more useful tools in the box of a route controller.

Happy New Beer - I mean Year!

Happy New Year, everyone

Another dusting (again)...

Well, I woke up this morning to find that we had yet another dusting of snow overnight - luckily it was, indeed, only a light dusting this time, and should melt off fairly rapidly. It also shows that apparently the majority of weather forecasts out there aren't that detailed - the ONLY one to even hint that there was going to be snow was accuweather.com, and I only know of them because of the nifty weather application on my several months-old three-and-a-half-"G"-capable HTC Touch Pro 2 mobile phone - cum - PDA

Y'know I used to think, when they first announced the whole 3G thing, that it'd be an interesting fad, only used by business folks and true internet geeks on the move. Now I'm happy to admit that I'm wrong, and blimey, was I ever in this case - it's one of the most useful things to hit mobile comms in ages (ever since the introduction of widespread mobile phone networks, in fact). So much so, that I find I'm using it practically every day. Not only for checking email on the move (I like staying fairly well connected, just not when I'm driving, of course!), killing time during breaks by browsing the net, and so on.

It's also good for getting maps of places you don't know in timely manner (Google maps mobile, VERY useful!), and so on... the range of applications is growing every day - and before you say that I must have an iPhone, I'll tell you "no bleeping way!" - I'm very happy with my Windows Mobile PDA/phone, thanks very much, and will be hanging onto it for some time to come!

OK, back to the Ranting part of the Blant...

Frightening driving (again)...

Now, let's hope all the motorists out there have had their daily jug of Java , as some of the driving I saw yesterday was truly frightening

Idiot tracks...

Take this goon. Not content with being a Chelsea Tractor driver, whose tractor probably only sees mud and grass when parked outside his home (the garden), this muppit decided that oh no, the yellow box obviously didn't apply to him, and proceeded, in full view of no less than three CCTV cameras, and probably untold amazed somewhat more sensible motorists, that he'd not only put his lump of iron on a yellow box, but so positioned to block tram tracks as well. There's a phrase for that: Suicidal Impatience.

Lucky for him that the trams come round that corner dead slow (they've seen gits like this before, of course). Were it a railway level crossing, and not tram tracks, there's a good probability that this git would be spread across nine or ten grid squares by now.

Corner Cropping...

Now for this fool. What's the problem? See the red and white sign on the left? It's there for a reason. Buses come out from the left. Honking great big double deckers. To accomplish a safe turn right from the junction (back past my position), they have to use ALL of the space generated by the area forward of the "stop here" sign.

Result in this case? Chances are the fool would have had his car corner cropped to some massive degree.

Moral of these lessons?

OBEY the bloody signage, folks. It's there for a reason!

Here endeth the rant!

Again, Happy New Year, everyone!

Seasons' greetings...

Well. Been a while (again). Seems to come in fits and starts, this blant.

Then again, I've been damnably busy over the last few months, so that might explain a few things. I'm back on the day shift again (currently on a batch of early shifts), and when I've not been working, I've been recovering (the new rota I'm on has a truly punishing set of shifts - I don't think I've been so busy in years), and when I've not been recovering at home, I've been over at my partners place, getting away from it all (and spoiling Achtung & Chunky something rotten - oh, and the better half as well, too! )

Anyhow, the photo. Right. More bleeping snow. And since it was raining when I got home this afternoon, I couldn't put the cover over the car, so at oh-my-****ing-god tomorrow morning, colour me pushing ****ing snow off the car. Again.

And since we're talking Silly Season antics, let's ask why the average Amateur Driver (those who are not in possession of a "vocational" driving licence, i.e. those who are not PSV or LGV drivers) find it impossible to follow Highway Code rule 223?

223

Buses, coaches and trams. Give priority to these vehicles when you can do so safely, especially when they signal to pull away from stops. Look out for people getting off a bus or tram and crossing the road.

This does NOT mean that when you're a hundred yards away, you should stand on the accelerator pedal and overtake come hell or high water, does it now? No. It means, boiled down, GIVE WAY to buses indicating that they wish to pull out from the kerb. Unless some moron is trying to crawl up your exhaust, you should slow down, and allow the bus to pull out. Who knows, you might even get a meaty thumbs up out the window from the grateful bus driver!

Be nice, folks. It's the Silly Season, after all

Oh, and how do I feel in the morning?

Well, some company's got it about right, I think...



It's actually an advert, designed to be part of the corrugated "hold the cup here" ring that they put blisteringly hot paper coffee cups into, so as to avoid coffee shop customers dropping the coffee and holding the palms of their hands in pain on receiving ninetieth degree burns first thing in the morning. Good idea, that company. And no, I'm not naming you - you don't pay me for advertising space

Oh, and on Achtung...

This is Achtung (NOT her actual name. She gets to have privacy too ). here, she appears to have charged her lasers... obviously not impressed that we weren't about to share our sausages with her. Again.

What the HELL is Brown thinking?!

OK, the Territorial Army...

Currently, the TA supplies a massive amount of its' troops to assist our Regular Forces in places like Afghanistan.

Now, to save money, the T.A. has been told by the Government to cease any and all training, which includes the regular weekday Drillhall evenings, monthly weekend exercises/training and, in fact, all normal T.A. training, for six months.

See this article...

They say this will save twenty million quid.

What they DO NOT SAY is that it'll destroy unit cohesion. It'll ruin standards of training - these days, many T.A. soldiers are undertaking things like NVQs, safety courses, required skillset update courses, and so on. It'll completely wreck such training, resulting in increased costs when the T.A. soldiers return to their training schedules in six months.

They have, of course, said that continuation training, when a T.A. soldier is called up to serve in, say, Afghanistan, will not be affected.

Frankly, that's highly likely to be bunkum as well: I have now completely lost faith in this government.

They've cut public services, while voting themselves fat increases in salaries (that's a matter of public record). They've screwed up our Armed Forces, Police Services, Fire Services, and healthcare, while apparently fiddling their expenses (it's in the papers, and where there's smoke, there is invariably fire as well).

They have, in short, wasted money themselves.

And now they want to cut the training of one of the most important areas of defence spending?!

Words fail me. Well, they don't, but if I put down here what I really think, I'll be done under section 5 of the Public Order Act!

God help serving T.A. soldiers - because this bloody government won't.

It was THAT kind of shift, last night... (part two)...

OK... typing this up before I go to work tonight :)

So, there I was at our Friday night lunch stand (at 04:08 in the morning! Ye gods, I gotta find an easier and more sociable-hours usable way to earn a living!), when our nice friendly roadside controller comes up and says, "Sorry mate, I gotta nick yer bus, chummy's got a water leak, you'll get a sub" - he meant a substitute bus from the depot - "soon, OK?"

This, when for the first time in close to a fortnight, I actually had a bus whose cab heater worked as advertised, and pushed out warm air, not frozen air from the Siberian regions!

OK, so the bus wasn't exactly all systems go, the nice new shiny just-out-of-its'-wrapping iBus system on it was somewhat stuffed (it wasn't taking trip data, so no recorded bus stop location announcements for the punters to fall asleep by as they usually do), and the front route blind winding mechanism wasn't working properly (it only wound in one direction: naturally, this was not the desired direction!), meaning that I had to change from the day route number to my night route number by opening up the front route blinds cabinet from the upstairs saloon, and winding them by hand (laborious, that!), but forget that - the damn bus had a working cab heater!

And he wanted to nick it off me!

On a bloody freezing night just like it was last night!

Sometimes you just can't win.

So he got my bus.

Naturally, I muttered dark imprecations about the driver of the stuffed bus, the stuffed bus, the controller, engineers, et all. In my very best "Victor Meldrew" impression (from the telly series "One Foot In The Grave"), of course. Must retain some kind of sense of humour, or I'd wind up talking to myself, AND getting answers, too!

Anyhow, I wound up spending my break in a not-very-warm, and very drafty, staff room at the bus stand. Muttering dark imprecations about engineers, spit balls, baling wire, and chewing gum usage...

Hmm... I was talking to myself again, wasn't I?

Add to this the fact that my better half is off with a bunch of our friends this weekend, and partying hard without me, because I couldn't get the time off work (probably just as well, I don't dance, and I really don't do discos - they make my ears hurt!), and you might understand why I was a tad hacked off last night...

The kind of things speeding through my sorry excuse for a brain bucket (skull) at this point were similar to "I've had enough, I don't wanna play no more, gimme me ball back", and "Stop the world, I wanna get off!". You get the idea.

This somewhat less than ideally motivated attitude was inspired by previous incidents of this nature. Whenever you needed a sub bus, the bus the engineers would send out would be about one step away from being a candidate for the knackers yard... and specifically on a night shift, would likely as not have (1) no working cab heater, and (2) probably about as much acceleration ability as a slug, meaning that I'd not only be freezing my toes off, but would have to work my backside off to keep to time, even on an empty road.

So, imagine my shock and amazement when they sent not only a bus that had a working cab heater, but which was actually able to do nought to thirty in less than five hours!

Colour me not only impressed, but totally gob smacked! I sincerely took it all back about what I'd been muttering about engineers earlier (well, until next time, anyhow )

To even things out, it was all things back to normal when I got home a little while later. Once again, I'd failed to win the Euro Lottery jackpot. Hell, I hadn't even got any numbers whatsoever!

Oh... pooh. Back to work again tonight, then!

It was THAT kind of shift, last night...

It was the kind of shift where you find that Morons From The Planet Zog have replaced most of the human population (there's a good title for a comedy Sci-Fi movie - you saw it here first! ..um... the title, I mean, not the movie!).

The kind of shift that you only get when it's a full moon.

The kind on shift that makes you want to scream at the top of your lungs "Stop the world, I wanna get off!".

The kind of shift where said Morons From Zog all seem to want to moan and meander onto your bus (when you're already ten minutes late due to traffic), all spending (seemingly) hours searching for their passes in the most bizarre of places (no, their inside coat pockets would definitely be too easy a place to search first, naturally)...

The kind of shift where you ask someone not to drop the empty coke can on the floor lest it get stuck in the doors.

Yep. He did. of course, they jammed. I then had to spend five minutes unjamming the sodding things.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!

That kind of shift.

It's the kind of shift that had me about ready to pull my hair out in sodding great clumps (if I had any clumps, of course. A No 2 haircut knows no clumps!).

And to cap it all, I got back to the depot, to find that my car was covered in that horrid brown crap called dust that drifts over from the landfill site over the road. My car, that I cleaned not 48 hours earlier.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!

Yup. It WAS that kind of shift.

Stop the world, I wanna get off!

Welcome to the Great British Summer!

As you might have noticed last night, it was ****ing down. Cats, dogs, frogs, rabbits, stair rods, you name it, the whole enchilada was coming down at one point...

Then, it decided to get a mite chilly. The kind of chilly that sends folks who've been drinking all evening a tad, how can we put this, wobbly. Not physically wobbly, you understand. Oh, no, that'd be far too easy. No, this is the wobbly in the head kind of wobbly.

The wobbly that makes brave men attack streetlamps for having one shining eye, and looking at them funny, requiring a slap or ten. That they don't notice that they've probably broken every bone in their fists doing that probably only occurs in the morning, once semi-sober.

It's the kind of wobbly that makes folks get on a bus with no pass, no money, and no idea of decent conduct. Who then insult the driver, as they're looking to get a free ride, and want no arguments or challenges about the fact that they're being complete muppits, criminals (it's technically fraud, that being "attempting to obtain pecuniary services by means of deception"), and, frankly, bloody boring drunkards.

THAT kind of wobbly.

It'd be nice if there were such a thing as a "Sober-Up-Instantly" pill. Better yet, it'd be nice if the Old Bill could come down hard on these gits (as a deterrent, you understand), like they used to be able to in the 60s and 70s ("Come 'er, son" *slap* "we wannaword wiv you" *knee in the groin* "OI! Stop upchucking on me shoes!")... oh, hang on... I'm reliably informed that only happened in "Life On Mars".

Oh... pooh :(

So, back to the initial topic... why the crap weather? Global Warming? Nope. Not in my book, or it'd be bloody hot and dry. I think someone, somewhere, needs to rethink what our climate's doing, and come up with a more accurate - and punchy - name for it.

WEBUG (Weather B*****ed)... that sound about right?