Category Archives: Buses

Coming LIVE from the Number 200 bus


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This is a novel experience… I’m blogging direct from my bus!

Anyway, Glad so many of you guessed correctly what was wrong with the picture in my previous post so quickly.. Congratulations! You are now trained fitters. Such a shame that it took so long for our currently employed ones to find the problem.. Or to even listen to me when I told them the fan belt was missing.

15:55 – On the hottest day of the year the Water Temperature warning buzzer starts to go while the bus is in traffic. Pull over, Turn bus off and call fitters. Tell them said buzzer is going and told that there is noone to come out to the bus, So I’ll have to just let it cool down.

 

16:05 – After seeing all this water being dumped on the road by the bus, I open the engine flap to find that the Fan belt is completely missing. Ring fitters again to tell them this and and it is decided that someone will come out to the bus and fit new fan belt.

 

18:00 – Fitter arrives with no fan belt. Fitter goes back to depot for fan belt.

 

19:20 – Fitter returns with number of fan belts, None of them the right size.

 

19:37 – It is decided that the bus will be towed back to Aylesbury depot, Told by fitter tow truck will be no more than 45 minutes as it’s only in Bedford (13 miles away)

 

22:20 – Tow Truck arrives.

 

00:05 – Arrive back at Aylesbury Garage

01072008025

 

So thats eight hours and 10 minutes from breaking down to getting back to the depot.. All because of a broken bit of rubber!

Oh and also ARRIVA seems to be a fan belt free zone for some reason, Which is why noone could bring one to the bus. Which got alarm bells ringing the next morning at 9:30 when the same bus was sat there engine running, fan belt replaced, This seemed a bit odd that they’d managed to get one so fast. But anyway, off I went on my usual Park & Ride (Which hadn’t run up until I got to MK at 11am!). 18:00, Same piece of road, Same traffic jam…… Same bloody problem!! Fan belt Shredded!!!!

After going mad, The sensible option was agreed upon by management that a fitter would come out to the bus and I would go home in the fitters van for the Night. (I live in MK, I breakdown in MK but the bus garage is in Aylesbury).

03072008026

 

 

I’m in two minds again about transferring to MK Metro… Some days I wanna do it as soon as possible, Mainly to save money. But then when driving round MK all day, most (not all!) the drivers seem to bloody miserable, I don’t know why, They get paid more than us now! LOL

But after saying all that there’s quite a few miserable drivers at Aylesbury so I suppose it’s no different.. Perhaps it’s just being the “new boy” again… Perhaps I’m just stuck in my little rut and am trying to find excuses not to get out of it… Who knows! :/


Yawning?? You will be!!


Posted by admin

Absolutely nothing exciting has happened this week, So I’m gonna blog about all the boring things that have happened instead.. I can tell you are all excited already.

I only broke down once this week which is quite amazing. One of my wipers flew off the side of the windscreen and got stuck. Arriva fitters are so great that this is the result 5 minutes after my wipers were fixed..

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvI-G7qwl_o

(Yes I’m that sad that I video’d it). Once the decent MK Metro fitters came out to it, It took 2 minutes to fix and was fine the rest of the day 🙂

I’ve been totally addicted to Facebook this past week, Updating my status nearly hourly and getting annoyed that my friends on there haven’t updated as regular as me. I really do wish o2 would do another special deal with free facebook access.

I’ve finally dumped my contract mobile with Three. I’m now on Pay & Go with o2 which I think is far better value for money, Plus it all helps in my quest to remove as many bills as possible from dropping through the door. I now only have the Capital One Credit Card, o2 Broadband and Sky TV Bills arriving, and I hope to have the Capital One gone within the next 3 weeks.

Now that I’ve left Three, What a surprise that my phone has now developed a fault! I can’t send Text messages on my Nokia N95, It just keeps saying “failed” almost instantly. I’ve googled the error message and it seems a few people have had this problem. The solution? Have the phone replaced under contract! Great!! So now I’m using this brick thing for the time being…..

Nokia6680

It’s rather huge!! It’s was the 2nd 3G Video phone I’ve had and it seemed quite feature packed at the time.. How things change. LOL

I think I’m gonna change the style of my blog and do one big post each week rather than little bits here n there, What do you think?

The banking saga continues, (I can already hear Lynne moaning!). First blogged about in November 2006, I’ve given up with the Citibank Delta Card account and, seeing as my credit record is shot to pieces, I can’t get a “proper” bank account with anyone I’m just gonna stick with this Low-Life-Poor-Commoner Electron thing.

I’m on holiday this week so I would prepare yourself for an even more exciting post next time as I can’t see anything interesting happening.


Friday = Write off


Posted by admin

What a day Friday was, I managed to break down three times in one day, Not very productive!

First time was in the most awkward place I could, Blocking the road for the other buses in the City Centre. Me and another driver managed to get a one way traffic flow going. Then two hours later the same bus breaks down again and it’s finally decided after two fitters have looked at it that it will be towed back to Aylesbury…

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For some reason, When you break down you seem to attract the more ‘interesting’ members of society. One woman was standing on the pavement constantly saying “Poor Bus.. Poor Bus” and another, Who I can only imagine, By the way she was dressed, was taking a few minutes break from her street corner, Who kept shouting “I Hate this country!”.

I couldn’t wait to actually get in the tow truck cab and move away lol.

Towed back to Aylesbury, Given a replacement bus, Get back to MK and then this bus broke down, Some belt went to shreds or something…. Basically managed to do no service work after 10:30am. Nice way to ease yourself into the weekend I suppose.


I just don't get it!


Posted by admin

Am I being Thick?

Is there something wrong with me?

You can probably answer yes to both those questions, But can anyone see how somebody could think my bus was going to Luton from this Picture? ….

DSCF0435

Last Friday i was asked by two different people if I was the Luton Bus.

I JUST DON’T GET IT!


STRIKE!! STRIKE!! STRIKE!!


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I walked into work this morning to find this notice pinned up in various places….

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This has come out of the blue for most staff at Aylesbury as I don’t think anyone knew that the Union was even at a debate, or even discussing stuff with ARRIVA. I can only assume that our Union Rep hasn’t told us anything.

I heard about a Union Meeting that was being held last night at MK Metro, and via the grapvine, have heard that the three of us from Aylesbury working over there aren’t welcome (By the union and/or some drivers). Some seem to be taking it to a personal level by ignoring us which seems a bit petty, We are only doing what is asked of us! We know you don’t like ARRIVA, and to be honest I’m not a great fan myself, But there’s no need to take it out on us personally. Perhaps I was a bit too hasty last week to think the staff had changed there… Looks like the transfer could be on hold! 🙁

Also heard a rumour today that the full ARRIVA’ing of Metro is not too far away.


I've been tempted….


Posted by admin

I’ve been working at MK Metro for the MKMetro-26-MattCooperpast four days. Mainly to learn a few routes that we are going to be running with their vehicles but from our garage, But I’ve also found myself doing a few duties for them.

One thing I’ve found out this week is that my long term memory is pretty good as I’ve done all these route just from remembering when I was there three years previous…..

….and I have to say I’ve enjoyed it!!

Now I’m contemplating transferring over to them.. Not sure yet, It’s nothing but an idea yet. I’ve got this duty to do for a few months which will have me having my breaks at MK Bus Station so will have to see if the people are any friendler than they were in 2005.

Theres two things I’ve liked the most about working there, Being home within 5 minutes of finishing work and driving nice, comfortable, newish buses compared to our skips on wheels at Aylesbury.


Do you remember the first time?


Posted by admin

This post is quite special… No I’m not shutting the blog down so you don’t have to read my dribble anymore or the fact that I’m giving away free money to the first 10 people to ring me up and say “Guitar Caravan” (which I’m not)… But the fact that this is the 100th post to this blog.

There has been more than 100 blog posts of course as this is the third blog I’ve had.

To celebrate this fantasical moment in history I’m going to post post some bits from previous moments in time….

(my comments about the posts are in bold)

First Posted: 02 January 2005 20:20:16 o’clock GMT

Not really sure what you can reply when you receive this picture in an email….

jeantights

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First Posted: 13 January 2005 21:01:25 o’clock GMT

“Well, I had my interview at Metro, and was offered the job there n then. With the terms and conditions they were offering I would have been stupid not to accept.”

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I lasted 9 weeks at metro! I have ended up back at ARRIVA via a 2nd spell at Parcelforce LOL and now, Just to complete the Circle I’m being borrowed by MK Metro as they are short of staff at this very moment.

First Posted: 07 September 2006 23:12:32 o’clock BST

There is a Meeting for all the people I owe money to to vote if they accept my IVA and I can work at getting out of Debt, Thats what’s going round my mind at the moment…. All I can do is keep my fingers crossed.

Oh and some nice person has given me a cold over the weekend so I feel like Poo and its not doing my Psoriasis any good either :/

(I’ll stop moaning now)

Oh and I had this Text’d to me this morning.. I know some strange People!

lynnewig

This woman has now moved to Aussie Land. My IVA has been going fine ever since that day (apart from a minor blip) and I haven’t stopped moaning 😛

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First Posted: 30 September 2006 21:21:30 o’clock BST

[youtube VXS2QPn6tU4]

Still my all time fave video on youTube

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First Posted: 19 Oct 2006

“Instead I have found something called a Terrimundi, A Terrimundi is a little urn-shaped piece of pottery with a small slit in it to fit coins.