Double Deckers (buses)

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in manchester they used to be orange and white. in huddersfield they used to be green and cream. are they still? no, not in manchester, but i cannot remember in regard to huddersfield.

― gareth, Wednesday, 20 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Part of the 'First' network now, so no.

― Jeff W, Wednesday, 20 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

In Glasgow they used to be orange. They are not anymore. In Edinburgh they are still purple and white.

― Ally C, Wednesday, 20 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

in the 80s bus fares used to be 2p in sheffield (they had one of those 'loony left' councils thatcher just lurrved, providing cheap public services to those nasty proles)

― gareth, Wednesday, 20 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Preston buses are blue. London buses are RED. Ribble buses are white with orange/blue/red stripes on them. I'm bored. Oh me oh my. I'm bored.

― Sarah, Wednesday, 20 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ally, surely you joke? What colour are they now? I used to love the rubbish old orange buses.

― Jonnie, Wednesday, 20 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

bus routes in leeds now have names like indigo line and orange line, in a very poor attempt at aping the london underground

― gareth, Wednesday, 20 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Aberdeen also purple and white.

― the pinefox, Wednesday, 20 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ribble buses are white with orange/blue/red stripes on them
Presumably because they're Stagecoach, which is a big nasty bus company. There seem to be a lot of Arriva buses about. They are blue and cream. A few make it into Oxford; those which are operated by The Shires (*daft bus company name alert!*)

― MarkH, Wednesday, 20 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

They are now red, or that white-with-purpley stripes colour that Firstbus have. The FirstEdinburgh ones that go out to Stirling are cream and blue.

― Ally C, Wednesday, 20 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm told that in Glasgow people smoke upstairs on the buses even though they have been repeatedly told not to.

― N., Wednesday, 20 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

heres a good mutation: whats the best name for a weird kooky independant bus company ie not arriva/stagecoach/first?

nr berkhamsted we have red rose, and i was in ealing the other wekk and there were some with a well fucking weird name, but i cant remember what it was. in sheffield we have yorkshire terrier, andrews and some other ones. i like the ones that come from someones surname, nice'n'old fashioned.

― ambrose, Wednesday, 20 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

the local busline where i grew up was called VAGGS BUSES: one caught fire once halfway home from school

― mark s, Wednesday, 20 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The ones that go out from Chesterfield into the peaks are Hulleys iirc and they're awful, real boneshakers and quite old, but if you haven't got a car they're the only way you can get out to lovely places like Chatsworth and Baslow.

― chris, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Isn't there a bus company in Stoke called PMT? (I think it's Potteries Msomething Transport)

― jamesmichaelward, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm about to go to a meeting called PMT, it is in fact the Plant management team.

― chris, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

in Cambridge there was a bus company called Go Whippet! all the buses hasd piccies of Whippets on the side. the best double decker buses are the ones in London with the open back that you can just jump on or off of or hang on to the pole at great risk to yourself and others, and earn stern glares from the conductor.

― katie, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

aaaahhhh Routemasters, I love those buses and I was gutted when they took them off the 98 route when I lived in Willesden.

― chris, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Potteries Motor Traction.

― MarkH, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

is Badgerline still going, cos that has a stupid name. i think it may have become part of the First group though

― michael, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

badgerline is a WICKED name! Michael vs. RickyT FITE!!!

― katie, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

actually after i'd typed it i realised i9t did actually look pretty good. i think i was thinking more along the lines of an odd name for a bus company, rather than a stupid name. is much less stupid than 'first' anyway (writing 'first' on every train window does rather confuse non-regular passengers on the platform into thinking the carriage is first class)

― michael, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I used to think Badgerline was associated with The Badger Brewery because both seemed to come from Blandford. I think in actual fact it was just the brewery that was located in such an odd place (Blandford is very odd).

― Jonnie, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Badgerline is (or was) in fact based in Bristol. One of their services was branded City Badger and had a logo featuring a bipedal badger complete with umbrella and bowler hat. The normal badger logo looked like a perfectly normal badger to the untrained eye, but I remmeber being told in one of my Vertebrate Locomotion lectures that its stance was, in fact, completely wrong.

Here in Oxford, those buses which aren't (i) Stagecoach or (rarely, since they're only on the buses from Aylesbury & High Wycombe) (ii) Arriva are run by the Oxford Bus Company, part of the Go Ahead Group, which always makes me think of "Go ahead, make my day!"

― MarkH, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Oxford buses I have loved:
The Blackbird Flyer
The Kidlington Cavelier
The Rose Hill Runner
The Ferry Hinksey Cheesy Nik Nak

― Pete, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

were you here when you could Park & Ride with Gloria Glide?

― MarkH, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I remember the HoppanStoppa rhyme from the radio ad (can't remember where HoppanStoppas went. Bletchley perhaps?):

HoppanStoppa stop and ride, the multicoloured minibus, HoppanStoppa gets you into town without a fuss.

Genius.

― Emma, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

For a brief few months in 1994, Thames Transit, who were replaced by Stagecoach, operated a Park & Ride service from the north (Pear Tree) to the south (Redbridge) park & ride car parks in Oxford. Thes buses had pictures on the sides and rear of the kind which covered up the windows, making them opaque from the outside (tho not, obv, from the inside). Having said that, from the inside you saw a load of black, horizontal lines, which led to migraines. The pics featured Gloria Glide, a six foot tall woman dressed in a scarlet 1950s air stewardess uniform complete with pillbox hat, gloves and diamante bracelet. Gloria's image was in a standing pose on each side of the bus, holding her arm out horizontally in the direction of travel, wheread at the rear she sat with her arm draped over the rear seat, looking out at the car drivers behind her. Bus drivers, quite understandably, felt rather twuntish driving vehicles so adorned; I remember one telling a colleague of mine that it was quite easy to forget for a moment that it wasn't a normal bus, only to see another Gloria Glide bus passing in the other direction!

― MarkH, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

three months pass...

Here in blackpool the only bus operators are blackpool transport and stagecoach ribble. Blackpool transport is the main operator which owns also the trams which run along the prom. The fleet consists of 170 buses and 75 trams. The fares are really cheap on blackpools buses but as soon as you get on stagecoach ribble buses you are paying an extra 10p which is a rubbish. On the 30th april 2001 they revished the services which blackpool transport ran they are now called METRO COASTLINES which kind os fits the town as it is a seaside town. We still have a few atlanteans running but there isn`t as many anymore as they are getting slowely scrapped. We recently took an ordered of 9 Dennis tridents which are low floor. Each route has its own colour which has made it easier to see them from a long way away. The annual number of people which travel on the buses and trams is 20 million only 7 million travel on the trams yearly. If you ever come to Blackpool you can get 1, 3, 5 and 7 day travel cards which can be used on any bus or tram for the number of days which are on the ticket. You can buy them from the transport offices on Rigby road or from the bus station and tourist information centres. They are not badly priced. If you get the 7 day one it is better value for money.

― Phil, Saturday, 20 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Since this has been revived by the Blackpool Bus Promotion Board, who are plainly short of advertising ideas and/or revenue, I'll mention that I got on a golden bus this week. It was all a bit busy and I didn't take the time to discuss this with the driver or any other mentalist behaviour, and it did not take me to some magical fairyland but Ilford, which is not even vaguely magical.

― Martin Skidmore, Saturday, 20 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

six years pass...

Has this design been commented on?

http://uk.cars.yahoo.com/08122008/36/radical-design-proposed-london-bus-0.html

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 9 December 2008 13:34 (seventeen years ago)

i quite like it, doubt it's feasible but half-expecting/mostly hoping the new routemaster proposal to be scrapped due to expense

― Yentl vs Predator (blueski), Tuesday, 9 December 2008 13:40 (seventeen years ago)

It looks like a biscuit tin designed to look like a bus.

― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy), Tuesday, 9 December 2008 13:41 (seventeen years ago)

It looks more like a toaster to me.

― NickB, Tuesday, 9 December 2008 13:44 (seventeen years ago)

i don't think it looks that "radical" but london congestion surely can't get any worse, so why not

― lex pretend, Tuesday, 9 December 2008 13:48 (seventeen years ago)

"On Route"? (pic 8)

it does look modern but i don't see how it solves the wheelchair problem (looks like it's easier to get them on and off but a wheelchair in the aisle on the bottom there will stop everyone forwards of it getting off, unless there's a bay at the back. not that the new buses are any better but...). also, they will need conductors again = double the wages.

― koogs, Tuesday, 9 December 2008 14:08 (seventeen years ago)

what happened to conductors when the remaining RMs were ditched? were they retrained in other areas or paid off? we had them in the past and tickets were cheaper then too - how did they do it?

all these designs miss the trick of external advertising (not conducive to the image Johnson is trying to project but if it helped pay for conductors and more than i'm for it)

― Yentl vs Predator (blueski), Tuesday, 9 December 2008 14:15 (seventeen years ago)

what the heck is that person wearing in the 11th picture?

― Ant Attack.. (Ste), Tuesday, 9 December 2008 14:17 (seventeen years ago)

this without the horns:

http://www.artifexcreations.co.uk/pics/darkness/darkness-legend-replica-prop-full-length.jpg

― jed_, Tuesday, 9 December 2008 14:28 (seventeen years ago)

all these designs miss the trick of external advertising

What do you mean exactly?

― dubmill, Tuesday, 9 December 2008 14:30 (seventeen years ago)

You can fit an ad across the side of that, I reckon.

It looks shite though, like the double-decker coaches you see. Also there's no point in having that post to hold onto when the door actually closes. Then again I am a Routemaster hata.

― Matt DC, Tuesday, 9 December 2008 14:41 (seventeen years ago)

http://www.lewishamshopping.co.uk/images/main/6095.jpg
http://k41.pbase.com/u29/haunted_chipshop/large/42949576.IMG_1516.jpg

still puzzled by the disappearance of non-TFL ads on the inside of buses too

― Yentl vs Predator (blueski), Tuesday, 9 December 2008 14:46 (seventeen years ago)

I thought perhaps there was some suggestion of a form of external advertising which restricted the view out of passengers. If that ever happened it would be the end as far as I'm concerned. I wonder if the public would stand for it?

― dubmill, Tuesday, 9 December 2008 14:46 (seventeen years ago)

I'm sure "they" wouldn't but it happens elsewhere plus if you can do it on trams and light railway why not buses. Bendies don't seem to have been designed with this consideration in mind tho - at least with double deckers you have the middle 'T' shape between the floors to play with

― Yentl vs Predator (blueski), Tuesday, 9 December 2008 14:59 (seventeen years ago)

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