Welcome to Snofu '10...

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that this bout of snow, ice, and bloody cold, is becoming a problem of epic proportions...

The BBC news today (the Freeview BBC News Channel) commented in a human interest article in Wales, that isolated communities - villages, hamlets, etc, were in danger of running out of basic foodstuffs, in addition to those that are currently already without power and communications due to the outages because of the weather.

The Road haulage Association, and for that matter, all freight haulage systems, are straining under the weight of the weather, road conditions suck writ large, and allegedly, supplies of grit (road salt) have been dropping like a stone due to the massive amounts needed to keep arterial - let alone what I'd call axial (or connecting) - routes open and relatively safe.

The Big Freeze back in 1963 apparently had similar problems, but we were, apparently, somewhat tougher as a country. Mind you, we didn't rely on high-tech kit nearly as much, there wasn't a junk-food generation of tellytubbies hoovering up all the food in the house, and we had a LOT of simpler pleasures (there were no home computers, the term "hoodie" hadn't been coined, and the nearest thing to a malcontent was a member of the communist party - it was the Cold War, remember).

Kind of makes you wonder if we're making great strides forward, or shuffling backwards, doesn't it?

Oh ho... here we go again!

So... Snow on the ground... And I still got into work... Dammit :(

So... On my first round, during the second trip, a driver from another bus company, who'd been following my bus down the road stopped me, and told me that my bus just lost all brake lights.

Oh joy.

So, I radioed control, and gave them the wonderful news. It took ten - 10 - tries for them to understand what I was on about, of course. Then the engineers phoned me on my mobile. Was I sure they weren't working? Yes, says I. Can I confirm this with someone else? Well, as luck would have it, a PCSO was passing just then, so she was able to confirm the problem. So it was then a question of waiting for the engineer to come from the depot, and probably change a fuse (I was writing this as I waited. turns out that they substituted the bus about three-quarters of an hour later, which made things a little simpler!)

So, I then sent a text to my route controller (as it happens, a good mate in the firm) with the bad news. He sent a text back "use hand signals, lol". Charming! So I respond that 'The Bird' probably won't go down too well!

What does the sarcastic wotsit send back?

You guessed it.

"tweet tweet"!



Later, after my meal break...

This was the scene on the roads after my meal break. This is at around 4.30pm, and as you can see, it was snowing rather hard, and the traffic was slower than dead slow, it was on occasion, completely stopped through motorists with no snow or ice training - or experience base to draw upon - making simple errors and spinning their vehicles. Add to this, we'd not seen a gritting truck in over an hour, either, and you'll understand when I say that the roads were as slick as... well, something coming from a runny nose, to put it politely. The road surface was practically lethal, to be blunt.

It appeared to be giving the company a fair amount of concern as well. We were all cut short on the route, so as to avoid getting stuck up a particularly steep hill - or losing control coming down it, more to the point, I suspect.

Personally, I'd have preferred being told to stuff all services, and take the bus back to the depot, but a certain bunch up in London called TfL obviously decided otherwise. Probably to avoid the Mayor being blamed like he was last February, when stuff all could use the roads for over a day.

Might interest you to know that we heard of many slow-speed and thus minor collisions - not all involving buses, thankfully - over the course of the afternoon - most occurring during the snow fall you see in the photo.

Now, I'm a professional driver, and I WAS scared practically muckless a few times that round (in other words, I was on occasion defecating masonry) - I was certainly bloody worried the rest of that round, I can tell you. That was definitely the most tiring - from a nerves - trip I've ever driven in my life. God alone knows how the amateur drivers out there felt, but I dare say it was a damn sight similar to my feelings on the topic.

Boris, if you're reading this, wake the hell up, and think of the safety aspect, willya?

Glad I got the cover on the car...

'Cause as predicted - I mean forecast - it did, indeed, snow again overnight. This was the situation at around 3:45 this morning...

Managing to get the cover on the car means that all I have to do it drag it off, shake it off, stuff it in the boot, and away I go to work (dammit) in a couple of hours.

Unless, in the next few hours, we get five feet of that muck suddenly landing in one fell *THUD* on the deck! (one can only hope it's BEFORE I set out for work!)

Just glanced at the weather forecast...

One word...

*GULP*

That's definitely burst pipes weather. Time to check the lagging, and crank up the central heating a notch or three

Edit (about two hours later): I better add that of course, the weather down here isn't as bad as the weather up north: They're having a right ******* of a time of it, obviously. That said, this is gonna be the coldest we've had it down here in quite a few years: I hope the road gritters and the social services aid to the elderly down here are up to the challenge.

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.