Put on a bus with known problems.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Straddled that Greyhound And rode into Raleigh
and on across Carolina

We had motor trouble that turn into a struggle
Halfway across Alabama
And that hound broke down and left us all stranded
In downtown Birmingham

(Promised Land - Chuck Berry reworking of “The Wabash Cannonball” )

Not talking about the poor pronunciation required to fit the meter :slight_smile:
They tried to this to me on Saturday.

Waiting for the time to go, the engine was on, idling to warm up the engine , and cool the insides, … but the engine revs up for two seconds and then stalls.

There’s a bit of a discussion, saying "You had problems on the way up ? "
Driver says “Yeah”.

I’m thinking, oh dear, so this vehicle is having problems ? well I guess its only stalling on idle I think.

Train arrives (its actually a railway replacement bus service), and so its time to go, we load up, the coach is full.

Organiser on the footpath says “Go”, coach stalls again.
Organiser says “good thing there’s a second coach, its empty. it will follow you in case you have problems when moving.”

I am think “seems thoughtless approach to the problem”. I start to think " We are going to be on a freeway, with steep hills. What it we stall in the middle of a freeway ? We might be in the middle lane ? How do change coach when we are on a freeway ? we’d be blocking traffic … we’d have to wait for police that could take an hour ?

Driver starts the engine again, tests it out… stalls again.

So I say to the driver … “hey, isn’t there a better solution ? How about us passengers move to the other coach now ? You ALREADY have Problems.”

And so, we did. They moved us to the other coach right there and then :slight_smile:

I don’t know if the other coach followed behind or he gave up on it.

2

Did you make it to the promised land? (And if so, did you call the folks back home?)

3

yeah but public transport is awful isn’t it.

I remember that trip. Another passenger near me started up a mobile phone call and talked Football ( or Rugby or something) all the way for the full hour… and it was a monologue…he stopped talking sometimes… yeah sometimes he forgot he knew how to inhale while talking… We almost got to the transcript of the players non-coding DNA …

4

It wasn’t in the US, but I once embarked on a 100 Km journey on a bus that they knew had no brakes. We had to all yell out the windows and throw money on the ground when we went through toll gates. I think we nearly hit half the livestock in the area. When we got to town, we had to circle until we slowed to a stop.

5

In Bolivia, I was on one of those 12-passenger buses with the engine amidships. The fuel pump went out. Owing to where I was sitting, I had to hold up a can of gas to gravity-feed the engine all the way to the destination town.

In Peru, the bus tried to go through a flooded river and made it, but tore up one of the brake lines. The driver proceeded about 100 miles with only engine braking, in the middle of the night, and went through towns in low gear, with his finger on the ignition key in case he had to turn off the engine to make an emergency stop.

In South America, you take thise kinds of bus rides as articles of faith.

6

I spent some of the happiest hours of my life on a bus. After basic training, I rode a bus for about eight hours from my basic post to my AIT post. It was empty enough that everyone got a three seat section apiece, perfect for napping. I read a novel, played my Gameboy, and napped. Also ate a candy bar I bought at the place we stopped for lunch. After basic training, it was heaven.

7

Rode Greyhound from San Diego to Seattle once. Thirty hours, with a few little breaks here and there. Someplace north of L.A., we picked up an older woman who sat behind me. The whole time she was on, she held a cigarette in one hand and coughed into the other (at least, I *hope *she coughed into the other.) At the border, the driver announced that by law, Oregon allowed no smoking on buses. That didn’t stop this lady, who continued smoking and coughing until she got off in Salem. Kinda ironic, that. I wonder if they still make Salem cigarettes?

This was back in '81, before some people got all militant about smoking in public. And I was young and didn’t worry too much about all the germs she was spraying all over the place.