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Post by VPL630 on Jun 1, 2023 14:19:22 GMT
WS19 LJ13GKF, I know it’s a streetlamp but my god this is the reason why I don’t travel on them, selection of warning lights on the dash, couldn’t go anywhere fast as it was clearly in derate and one of the harshest retarders that made any brake application uncomfortable
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Post by VPL630 on Jun 1, 2023 8:14:14 GMT
Just wondering if any members have a Ford EcoBoost or should I say EcoBoom 😜 engine? Recently changed my car and really unsure if I am going to get on with this car. The 1.0 engine is very nippy around town but struggles on high speed roads. I also can’t get used to the much longer gear changes! You can be up over 30 still in second gear. It's geared long for fuel economy, just takes a little getting used to is it a 5 or 6 speed? if it's a 5 then 3rd is fine for 30, 4th will struggle a bit, I had one and did over 30,000 miles in it mostly on the motorway, it's not that bad, I recently drove an MG ZS with a 1.5 naturally aspirated engine and trust me, that is a slow car that should be restricted to local roads only I currently drive a 1.5 diesel Fiesta and it also has long gears to the point it's really unhappy if you drive at 30 in 4th, but for longer journeys, it's lovely, and can get over 60MPG on a long run
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Post by VPL630 on May 23, 2023 20:02:54 GMT
Today I mainly went out mainly for trains and then got distracted by a Volvo B7TL of Harrogate Bus Company operating on the X99 Sky Class route from Leeds to Wetherby, however the connection was super tight at Leeds so opted for the safer connection with the 60 from Leeds to Keighley which was operated with PJ05 ZWD, a lovely well looked after Gemini with nice comfy seats. The route has a lot of hills in both directions and quite a bit of fast running, despite that and it being around 20c the big Volvo fan only kicked in a few times on full roar, it’s been a while since I’ve been on a B7TL with the fan going. Despite the drivers best efforts we lost around 10 mins in total mainly due to loadings.
From Keighley I was originally planning on doing the M4 Mainline route to Burnley and the X43 Whichway back to Manchester but looking at the time I would be getting home I thought it would be safer to do the B3 Brontë Bus to Hebden Bridge and then catch a train, the B3 is a route that goes passes through many villages where you wouldn’t expect to meet a full size bus, climbing quite a few hills as well, one of which was too much for this poor B7RLE which started to overheat and go into limp mode at probably the worst part of the route where there wasn’t anywhere safe to stop just outside of Oxenhope. The driver persisted at about 3mph still climbing uphill and just as we were pulling into the first safe place to stop the alarm went off and full power was restored, typical Volvo.
Both really nice routes, the B3 being much tighter and scenic than I expected, you might want to give it a miss for a few days as it’s smells like the fields have been freshly spread with manure haha
1H02 0948 London Kings Cross to Brough - 802301 1K18 1215 Brough to Leeds - 185126 + 185127 2757 - PJ05 ZWD – 13:15 60 to Keighley 1751 - K100 TDV – 16:06 B3 to Hebden Bridge 2I22 1612 Hebden Bridge to Manchester Victoria Walk 1A69 1735 Manchester Piccadilly to London Euston
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Post by VPL630 on May 22, 2023 12:14:36 GMT
Upon noticing that an Ipswich buses Citaro was roaming around on the 93 (Colchester to Ipswich) and I'm off today I couldn't say no and boy was I in for a treat, after cruising around Colchester eventually making our way out onto the A12, "*KICKDOWN + MAXED OUT THRASH*" was activated, It's been so long since I've been on one that has been driven so hard, from a standing start being redlined in every gear until hitting the speed limiter in 6th, this was one hell of a ride, so much so it's the first time I've heard the fan roaring away like an old B7TL, this particular bus was in excellent condition. The route primarily serves the A12 but does stop off at a few small villages along the way which are very picturesque, the route is quite tightly time so you are normally in for a good ride, deckers do appear mostly during weekdays but Saturdays you are more than likely going to expecting an E200 if it's an older one you might be in for a treat with a 6pot variant. I think the moderators may well be imminently ending my time on this forum judging by my views elsewhere, but before I get unceremoniously dumped on the bonfire of history, this is a route I really want to try - it has some gorgeous countryside. Break the journey at East Bergholt to see the Constable Haywain viewpoint and have tea/cake, then on to the end of the line. Really rather nice, and with the better weather here now, rather a nice day out! Just by chance someone else was filming the journey, can’t believe I never clocked them, can see some of the views out of the window youtu.be/XwFL47cfb-c
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Post by VPL630 on May 20, 2023 20:45:21 GMT
Upon noticing that an Ipswich buses Citaro was roaming around on the 93 (Colchester to Ipswich) and I'm off today I couldn't say no and boy was I in for a treat, after cruising around Colchester eventually making our way out onto the A12, "*KICKDOWN + MAXED OUT THRASH*" was activated, It's been so long since I've been on one that has been driven so hard, from a standing start being redlined in every gear until hitting the speed limiter in 6th, this was one hell of a ride, so much so it's the first time I've heard the fan roaring away like an old B7TL, this particular bus was in excellent condition. The route primarily serves the A12 but does stop off at a few small villages along the way which are very picturesque, the route is quite tightly time so you are normally in for a good ride, deckers do appear mostly during weekdays but Saturdays you are more than likely going to expecting an E200 if it's an older one you might be in for a treat with a 6pot variant.
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Post by VPL630 on May 15, 2023 7:47:57 GMT
Lack of career progression not true. Plenty of other roles within the bus company that you can do other than driving. Then perhaps emphasis should be placed on that. The recruitment ads that have been popping up in France emphasise this. For people who've been told all their life that bus driving is 'low skilled' it's not immediately obvious. While there is career progression depending on the company you work for it might not be something you particularly want to do, at Stagecoach went up to assistant garage supervisor which I applied for multiple times, I sort of enjoyed it but the rota was rubbish, 1 weekend off every 4 weeks wasn’t my idea of fun, I did do it for a year and sucked it up but ultimately I was offered something better at Ensign and I didn’t really lose money, at Ensign I was offered the same job but knowing what it entailed I declined, I was much happier just doing driving, towards the end I was offered a fixed job that I’d been after for a while, I throughly enjoyed that it left me open to opportunities that just wouldn’t normally happen, going from doing a early morning E rail in Southend to a film job in Twickenham in the same day, carrying approx 100 police officers round London during the queen’s funeral, reversing a bendy bus onto a low loader after driving it back from Brighton, helping out in the office and explaining to TfL that we can’t just magic up 20 buses at 6pm on a Friday evening that all need to be on tacho for a route that we’ve never done over 60 miles away which is also high risk due to various low bridges. That was something that I enjoyed but at Ensign there wasn’t much that was higher that I had any interest in, at Stagecoach I could never deal with that rota full time as a GS, I could apply to go on a management course but believe it or not in the long run it still would have been a pay cut and I think another problem would be is that I would find it hard to discipline someone for doing something I know that I’ve done in the past, I’m just not that sort of person, we all make mistakes at the end of the day, we are not perfect and while some mistakes are worse than others it’s what you learn from your mistakes that matters. Unless you have an insight into how it all works, the things I’ve known drivers get disciplinary meetings for is just ridiculous “Not stopping at a bus stop when out of service” and various other things along those lines that shouldn’t even be brought to the drivers attention yet are and in some cases given such a harsh punishment when they have done very little wrong is 100% a great way for them to have little enjoyment of the job, I’m not saying everyone deserves a break but I think most management need to know the drivers they have working for them and try to understand situations better, I had an accident which was 100% my fault and I fully admitted to it, when pulled in about it a while later, I was asked how I felt about it, I asked if they watched the CCTV they said no, if they had, they would have clearly seen how I felt about it, how can you bring someone in for something they have done and not check the CCTV when it’s available and working? Anyway I think you have to look at what you want to do before you even apply to drive buses, for me buses was a back up plan for an apprenticeship that never came to be, I honestly didn’t want to drive buses but I couldn’t stand being at college anymore, I applied for a laugh as they got back to me in like 45 mins if that, the money was good so I stayed but moved about about a lot as I get bored easily and the parking restrictions at Leyton were just an unnecessary restriction, I got to work at any garage I wanted, drove over 60 routes and drove every type of bus in the fleet at the time bar the mirror cam buses, I did enjoy it and thought being a supervisor was what I wanted to do, in reality it was a headache, I still enjoyed some aspects of it, 8 drivers not turning up one morning was not one them and this was pre Covid. Ensign was a way out but now I’m doing something completely different outside of the bus industry and I’m much happier, I’ve never had so much time off work, the career progression exists and there are roles that I hope to work towards, the working environment is really enjoyable and training is thorough and extensive.
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Post by VPL630 on May 14, 2023 18:39:03 GMT
I think one of the main problems now is that the job is incentivised as a quick way to make money and so many people just don’t care about the job they are doing or take pride in any of it, the way you are treated by the public, management and controllers can easily get too much for people and in other industries wouldn’t be tolerated. I’ve just spoken to someone working in an office up London only on about £33k that gets 3 well-being hours a week to take off their normal working hours which are also flexible
Even with the money being paid which to a degree isn’t great, the lack of proper training and proper driving assessments just aren’t at the level they need to be at for the majority of people to drive in a professional manner. The shocking lack of familiarity some drivers have about the vehicles they are driving for up to 10 hours a day really concerns me, I’ve seen staff notices while I was at Stagecoach explaining how to operate the heating controls on an Enviro, the mind boggles, but moving into more concerning things, ferry lift. Ferry lift is a feature that raises the suspension of the bus and allows it to have greater ground clearance, this has got me out of so many sticky situations and has prevented damage being caused to the bus yet I bet 75% of drivers don’t know what it is, how to operate it or have the forward thinking to use it when needed and end up damaging panels/components unnecessarily. The thing with driving assessments that really bothers me is that some of them carried out by TfL don’t even last for 10mins, in 10 mins what are you really judging?
Another issue regardless of how you drive, professionally or unprofessionally, fast or slow, calm or aggressive, ultimately you are paid the same and lot of people see that as why bother doing the job properly and start messing about without a care for the people that are trying to or have to put up with the service.
As much as some people will say it’s a nightmare driving up London with all the cyclists and other idiots in the road, spend a good few weeks doing various rail replacement routes outside of London for Southern and Southeastern, that can be a real nightmare, having low trees that will smash the blind glass out of a single decker, blind bends that you need to completely occupy the other lane to make the turn, camber where the bus will ground out if you take the corner at the wrong angle/have a full bus/don’t use ferry lift, the list of challenges doing rail is far worse that service driving in London.
I don’t think many people enjoy the job anymore but I wouldn’t say that going to HGV’s is much different, depending on the work you do it can be just as bad and thankless
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Post by VPL630 on May 13, 2023 15:20:21 GMT
B5LH or B9TL Volvo? Which is for you and why? B9TL, that 9L engine can pull, LWB versions are also absolutely solid on the road, Ensignbus 15plates best I’ve ever driven B5LH’s are like bouncy castles, you can get some serious performance out of them but you have to be careful how you drive them as they will ground out easily and the ride at times can be horrible, if you turn harsh enough it really does feel like one could topple over, drove both Euro 5 and 6 versions and they ride was just as bad, gearbox set up in some of the later Euro 6 ones was much improved
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Post by VPL630 on May 10, 2023 7:39:09 GMT
Finished work early in Reading, decided I hadn’t been on a Citaro for a while, caught the 800 to High Wycombe in the form of 3009 - BJ12 YPU a Mercedes-Benz Citaro O530.
I’ve done the 800/850 many times but only once on a citaro and it was a very poorly one, struggling for power, emitting smoke and making some unusual sounds, however on this occasion the bus was in surprisingly good condition…for High Wycombe standards anyway…
The route is quite well padded which normally means you are in for a slow ride but kickdown was used multiple times and the driver didn’t miss a beat all the way showing caution when needed along the various tight bits of the route, not sure I’d want to spend all day driving down those roads and it probably explains some of the body damage those buses incur, there are some nice views out of the window.
Arriving into High Wycombe nearly 4 mins early with quite a healthy load I had 30mins to kill before the 102 to Heathrow, after getting some snacks and back to the bus station at 1500 there was a Scania E400 blinded as a 103 with a long line of passengers waiting, a min later after it should have already left the driver walked down from chatting to others and proceeded to get set up in the bus, 7 mins later still no one had boarded, the driver was still messing about with the ticket machine and in the end had to call a colleague over to help her out after that ordeal passengers loaded, she then put the bus in reverse and moved back without even looking in her mirrors luckily an Arriva bus had spotted her and had stopped because only after about 6ft did she check the mirrors and sound the horn…
Anyway another lovely Citaro turned up on the 102 in the form of 879 - BT09 GOK, shame the same couldn’t be said about the driver, on multiple times throughout the route, the driver made poor decisions, going into gaps that just weren’t there, trying to force his way down the road, failing to do proper observations causing harsh braking a few times, maybe he was having an off day but I doubt it due to the way it was consistent throughout the journey, including lowering the bus onto a kerb causing the doors to fail to close at a bus stop and then taking the best part of 5 mins to work out why they wouldn’t close and getting another passenger to try and pull the door closed to no avail, eventually he worked out how to raise the bus back up and the doors closed. At the M4 roundabout he clipped the kerb aggressively causing the rear near side to scrape the kerb as he came off it, an eventful joinery for all the wrong reasons, not to mention it was driven at a snails pace and while accelerating at random times he would completely let off and then reapply the throttle causing an unpleasant jolt.
The route isn’t anything special, no great sights, but for £2 it’s a useful connection to Heathrow and bonus that it’s a citaro
Hex to PAD, EL to LST, GA to SNF and home
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Post by VPL630 on May 8, 2023 17:26:02 GMT
Don't mainline trains have the ability for anyone to open doors when a train has stopped? This should also be common on the underground. Traction dependant you can open doors at line speed as well
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Post by VPL630 on Apr 27, 2023 6:54:32 GMT
Not sure if it's the best decision to cut GWR stops between Paddington and Slough. Hayes & Harlington in particular provides a useful interchange for access to Heathrow, as well as Ealing Broadway for the Central/District lines. This will just require passengers to now take a slower train or make an additional change at Slough/Reading. I’m guessing they don’t have a choice as I believe these are now pathed onto the fast lines Correct, GWR stopper services are planed to swap to the fast lines after Slough, this will mean that the Oxford trains that used to stop at Slough won’t anymore, so in other words no more 800’s will serve Slough and there should no longer be trains stopping at Platform 2 or 3, having briefly looked at the timetable the only GWR stopping services that serve the majority of stations will now be the overnight stoppers. For anyone that has been using the service single the last timetable change, you would have probably come accustomed to the slow running due to the GWR trains catching up the EL trains and just general congestion on the line, hopefully this should speed things up a little
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Post by VPL630 on Apr 25, 2023 5:46:03 GMT
Anyone else noticed a big increase of faulty trains on the Elizabeth Line recently been a few in the last couple of weeks. Yesterday there was severe delays from Paddington to Shenfield due to a faulty train at Stratford and today minor delays between Hayes and Harlington and Paddington due to same reason, guessing it's trains not communicating with the signalling system? I was speaking to someone who works on the Elizabeth Line and they said that the Easter ELR400 software update hasn't gone smoothly, with quite a few issues, including auto reverse at Westbourne Park still having problems. Recently it seems there has been a major problem every day on the line When I left work on Friday there was a 30 min gap for a Shenfield Train at Paddington, depending on where you are going it can be a pain but I always go to LST and get a nice empty fast train to Shenfield Today you’ve got a signal/points failure near Woolwich and a train failure at Paddington right in the morning peak
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Post by VPL630 on Apr 18, 2023 14:28:31 GMT
There have been some interesting vehicles running on the rail replacement, today I had one of the Oxford Tube Volvo B11RLE Plaxton Panorama‘s but also seen London Bus group out with their DB300/Gemini 2 a few days ago, it’s mainly coaches but with a few exceptions
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Post by VPL630 on Apr 11, 2023 9:40:32 GMT
A thought a fellow enthusiast suggested: You all know how much I support Diesel buses. There is a railcard which gives me discount to travel outside of London to other cities or counties. Done some reasearch and it seems that the other UK cities are on their way to going Electric. Coventry will be by 2025. I had a few places in mind like Essex & Hertfordshire where Diesels are the vast majority. Would appreciate other ideas from our members? It depends what you are after really, types of diesel buses or nice routes to do, tbh the only hybrid bus I’ve been on outside of London was a Go-North West MHV and that wasn’t out of choice. Cardiff has a lovely range of Citaros and Hills Anything run by Southdown PSV The massive Transdev network up north There are loads to do currently
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Post by VPL630 on Apr 8, 2023 14:46:06 GMT
Engineering works meant the Shenfield trains terminating at Liverpool Street main line platforms. I really miss the ease of alighting at these Liverpool Street platforms as I regularly enter station at Bishopsgate. Couldn't they run a service throughout the day on this " spur". Nothing too frequent, half hourly will do. Just change at Stratford with GA ? The timetable is complex enough as it needs to be from may where the Heathrow trains come from Shenfield
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