On 3/2/09 10:39, in article ,
" wrote:

In article , (Bearded) wrote:

VEHICLE & PAX
In the days of the "traditional: double-decker, eg Routemaster,
conductors would call 'seats on top" and persuade passengers to go
up rather than stand in the lower saloon.

Standing capacity was limited, with none of what the old
regulations used to call "perambulators or other wheeled
conveyance" - in other words, baby "buggies"

Actually, the space under the stairs was for stowing things like (folded)
buggies and quite well used as such in my schooldays.

I think this was the case on the later buses, but not on the Routemaster. I
believe the wording of the notice was:

"Light luggage or parcels may be placed (or carried, or some similar word)
under the staircase by permission of the conductor but at owner's risk"

No mention of baby buggies, which didn't exist when the Routemaster was
designed, and I think a folded one would be too long to fit in the space
provided.

I'm not happy. The word from work at 07:30 is that we are closed to
students today, but that staff have to go in, unless unsafe to do so, until
13:00 when the building will be closed.

I call 020 7222 1234; it's still saying that due to the volume of calls no
information can be provided by 'phone, and suggests the website. On the
website there is a snow section which suggests various sources of
information, including the TfL website, which I'm already in and, yes you've
guessed it, calling 020 7222 1234.

The website says something along the lines of, most buses are running
reasonably, and lists a few routes, in Edmonton, Enfield and Brentford,
which are not running. I leave home, and walk to the bus stop, there are no
buses to be seen, but a large crowd of passengers who say they have been
waiting for a long time. I can see no tyre tracks pulling in to the bus
stop, so I'm doubtful there have been any buses recently. If one does come
along I'm not going to be able to get on it with the size of the crowd
that's waiting. I walk to the next bus stop, which gives me an additional
route, but otherwise the situation is the same as at the first one. I carry
on walking; a 60 and a 405 pass me heading South, but nothing going North.
Somewhere approaching Purley I'm passed by two 405s which are full, and
don't stop; they're running on the main road, and not on their normal route.
Still no 60s. Eventually I do manage to get a 60 from South Croydon. No
sign of any 166 or 466 buses. Somebody said that there were no trains, and
I didn't see any crossing the bridges over the road, or on the line running
parallel where it can be seen from the road.

The pavements are covered in deep snow and ice; the East one being much
worse than the West for some reason. The road surface is wet, but almost
totally clear of snow and ice. There are significantly less vehicles on it
than normal, but none of them seems to have any difficulty. This applies to
the main road, there is still a lot of snow and ice on side roads; a
Waitrose lorry is stuck in snow completely blocking one side road for
example.

At 13:00 I leave work and walk to the bus stop. A 60 comes along, but I
don't notice the destination on it. We get to South Croydon, and it
terminates. I decide to walk down to the storage place to pay my rent. Get
there to find nobody in the office, as had been the case at 09:00 when I
passed it in the other direction. Unfortunately, in doing so I miss both a
405 and a 60. Wait quite some time for another 60 which does get me to
Coulsdon. We pass another 60 heading North, destination South Croydon. A
lot of buses seem to be terminating there, from both directions, but I can't
see why. Do they have a shortage of drivers to take them on?

This is clearly nothing like a normal service; why can't the web site give
more accurate information? When I arrived at work I looked for information
on those two specific routes, and was assured that they were operating
normally.

I've had to do a lot of walking on uneven snow ad ice in the last two days,
which has done my bad leg no good at all; twisting the knee, which I have
done several times, is particularly painful, and my feet are bleeding where
the ill-fitting boots have rubbed the skin off them. I hope things improve
tomorrow.

On Tue, 03 Feb 2009 15:17:40 +0000, Stephen Furley
wrote:
....
I call 020 7222 1234; it's still saying that due to the volume of calls no
information can be provided by 'phone, and suggests the website. On the
website there is a snow section which suggests various sources of
information, including the TfL website, which I'm already in and, yes you've
guessed it, calling 020 7222 1234.

The fix for this was to call 7222 1200 which has 1 for tubes, 2 for
buses. I needed both so it meant 2 calls as there's no way back from
"1" to "2", not * nor # nor 0.

Countdown was busy warning about unattended packages, and advising
peeps to call 7222 1234... No buses listed, no info to the odd waiting
soul that buses had gone for an all day sulk.

The whiteboards in HeathrowC and Hamm (P+D, the other one was closed
of course) had no info on what was up and what was down. Not like a
usual workday when they list all the daily drama.

This is clearly nothing like a normal service; why can't the web site give
more accurate information? When I arrived at work I looked for information
on those two specific routes, and was assured that they were operating
normally.

My flight was cancelled with 15 or so of us quaffing coffee (airline
version of). No info on baa.com nor the airlines' sites. In short, a
perfect demo of how the info age is not yet with us. Maybe one day
we'll get a 140 char Twitter-like improvement.
--
Old anti-spam address cmylod at despammed dot com appears broke
So back to cmylod at bigfoot dot com

In article ,
(Stephen Furley) wrote:

On 3/2/09 10:39, in article
,
" wrote:

In article , (Bearded) wrote:

VEHICLE & PAX
In the days of the "traditional: double-decker, eg Routemaster,
conductors would call 'seats on top" and persuade passengers to go
up rather than stand in the lower saloon.

Standing capacity was limited, with none of what the old
regulations used to call "perambulators or other wheeled
conveyance" - in other words, baby "buggies"

Actually, the space under the stairs was for stowing things like
(folded) buggies and quite well used as such in my schooldays.

I think this was the case on the later buses, but not on the
Routemaster. I believe the wording of the notice was:

"Light luggage or parcels may be placed (or carried, or some similar
word) under the staircase by permission of the conductor but at owner's
risk"

No mention of baby buggies, which didn't exist when the Routemaster was
designed, and I think a folded one would be too long to fit in the space
provided.

They were folding pushchairs and they went there in the 1959s and 60s, I
can assure you.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In see, so the bus companies don't get insurance then.

Kevin


No they don't, Bus companies are self insured with a deposited bond
under the Road Traffic Act.

"1200 vehicles fully comp and any driver? How many under 25?"

Btw my post wasn't anti bendy as many of you have seem to have taken up,
but just an example of how a vehicle now has to travel "cross country"
to get to it's start point therefore increasing the likelihood of having
an accident before it's even started its official journey.

"TroyTempest" wrote in message
...


In see, so the bus companies don't get insurance then.

Kevin


No they don't, Bus companies are self insured with a deposited bond under
the Road Traffic Act.

"1200 vehicles fully comp and any driver? How many under 25?"

Btw my post wasn't anti bendy as many of you have seem to have taken up,
but just an example of how a vehicle now has to travel "cross country" to
get to it's start point therefore increasing the likelihood of having an
accident before it's even started its official journey.

Just seems extremely odd that one of the world's major capitols, the world's
financial centre ground to halt because somebody decided it was unsafe and
there might be an accident and a claim. That is what insurance is for. Might
as well leave the buses in the garage 24/7 if that is the thinking.
For God's sake they ran the bus service through the blitz, now there is a
bit of snow and its Oh dear me, we can't ley the mammby pammby drivers out
in this, but they can have a snow ball fight. My milk was delivered without
any problems what so ever.

Kevin

TroyTempest wrote

No they don't, Bus companies are self insured with a deposited bond
under the Road Traffic Act.

Used to be common, especially for local authorities, but the bond is
now £3,000,000 so insurance with a very big excess may have worked out
better in the past few years.

--
Mike D

In message , at 18:01:32 on
Tue, 3 Feb 2009, Colum Mylod remarked:
My flight was cancelled with 15 or so of us quaffing coffee (airline
version of). No info on baa.com nor the airlines' sites. In short, a
perfect demo of how the info age is not yet with us. Maybe one day
we'll get a 140 char Twitter-like improvement.

My experience is that most flight departure delays are caused by
"incoming aircraft" delays. So what you really need is information about
when the inbound aircraft left its last port of call.
--
Roland Perry