Photo slideshow personalized with Smilebox

Driver testing US v. UK Thinking of training makes me realise how many differences there are between the US and the UK. UK PSV (Passenger Service Vehicle) driver training was much more centred around the driving experience that the potential driver is going to give his passengers. In the US, a trainee driver has to spend fourteen and half hours in the classroom learning all the rules and regulations, then pass a test before he can start on-the-road training. I now have a manual some three inches thick of rules & regs that I have to work through with these trainees. I realise that UK drivers now have a CPC (Certificate of Professional Competency) that they have to obtain. Since it is not applicable to me I'm not sure how much relevance the CPC has to safety, although talk amongst coach and bus drivers suggests it is a somewhat watered down In addition, school bus drivers (and possibly even regular bus drivers) have to pass an agility test every two years. This involves safety related tasks such as dragging 125lbs the length of the bus in 30 secs, lifting 56lbs from chest height to ground and back up again, being able to evacuate from the bus by means other than the regular front entrance. This is something that has never even been suggested in the UK. I can see the merits of this type of testing, but I suspect that it exists more as a 'cover my back' reaction by the legislators. I cannot think of a single instance where these sort of actions have been required of me in 38 years of service. On-the-road training MUST be a minimum of 20 hours, so when I came here with my experience I still had to do the 20 hrs. With a trainer charging $20 per hour that's a lot of money for a company - was I a better DRIVER after it, probably not, so that was money wasted as the trainer and I wasted fuel and time logging up the required hours. We have to have six and half hours refresher training every 24 months, and we have to attend regular First Aid and CPR classes, all of which makes sense to me. It's very easy after 30 - 40 years on the job to think you have experienced it all, but there is always something new just around the corner waiting to catch you out!!! So, is the US better than the UK, the UK better than the US, or is there something to be taken from both sides.

The gap with no postings. It's been a long time with no entries - two surgeries and a bag stuck to my stomach were the signs of cancer. Fortunately with good doctoring and care, everything has returned to a 'close to normal' state. The cancer has gone, the bag has gone, so life has much that is good to offer. Having got myself back to health, I have extended my work to become the new Driver Trainer for our school - certified by the State of Arizona no less. The lady who undertook all of the training has decided to retire and enjoy life (not that she didn't enjoy her work), and that left an opening which I hope I can adequately fill. This is going to extend the hours that I work outside my regular day, but it is a challenge that I hope will be rewarding. After close to 40 years in the business of transporting people (now across two continents), I think that I might have the 'odd' (very odd?) pearl of wisdom to share. My mind does go back to the earlier years when, first at London Country, then later at other companies, I was involved in training - in the one case I was supposed to be training new drivers how to operate a bus service (as opposed to actually driving). The problem with this was that the new drivers were trained on one vehicle type, and then had to go out in service with a totally different vehicle type. They had different characteristics, and indeed types of gearbox. The result was that passengers got a rather jerky ride. This WAS NOT the trainees fault, but it did mean that for the sake of everyone's comfort, they had to be taught how to drive this new vehicle. The new vehicles coming in were fitted with Leyland's hydrocyclic gearbox which didn't have a clutch pedal, but did have a gearstick about three inches long. The problem was that when you put the gear selector into neutral (ready for the next gear), the gearbox didn't go into neutral for a couple of seconds. By this time the driver had selected the next gear, so the system changed gear with a jerk and a bang, which caused general discomfort all around. The secret was to drive the bus out of gear, i.e. Hold the power on the accelerator for a couple of seconds AFTER selecting neutral, wait another couple of seconds, then select the next gear. Generally speaking, this gave a silky smooth gear change, and relaxed passengers. Most buses now are fully automatic which takes some of the art of smooth driving out of the driver's hands, and into the hands of (usually) a computer. Now this is the antithesis of the saying ' what you put into a computer is what you get out'. Even the gentlest, smoothest driver can give a rough jerky ride if the computer isn't co-operating.

Considerable time has gone by without a post - 10 months (a busy 10 months), during which time work has progressed on the house and land. However, we did manage to get away this summer with a trip to the East Coast. The following entry shows just a little of our journey through hell (it was 100 or more degrees), and high water (as many of our campgrounds were close to water - quite a novelty for folks from Arizona!!!

This free slideshow design created with Smilebox

The weather here is now changing drastically, with the day-time temps down into the mid-60's. As this follows some weeks of WELL above average temps for the time of year, this is welcome relief - although the locals are walking around all wrapped up, and shivering - they don't know what a winter is here! It does make it much easier doing all the work outside - and there's plenty to do. The land hasn't been mowed for at least ten years - so that's slow going with the mower running at max height, and slowest speed for the first pass.

The land has old fencing around three sides, which has to be renovated, and then the fourth side fenced from scratch. None of this is cheap - and isn't something that can be done too quickly.

Then I am looking forward to getting my shed, so that I can finally get all my tools out of the house and more readily available - and gain brownie points from the wife at the same time (fellas, you know what that is all about!).

But now is not the time to be sitting on a computer - work calls.

The end - and the beginning

Well, the house was moved on June 1st, and now, more than 4 months later, the contractor has finally finished his work. It's hard to believe that about 3 weeks work can take this long. Is this the end for us - no chance. Now we have to build a deck on this side of the house. We bought the deck way back in the spring with the expectation of building it during the summer. Oh well, perhaps we will collect the wood from the woodyard soon, and get on with the building work - so it's still going to look like a construction site around the house!

Apart from the house it has been quite busy subbing on the buses. There is one particular route that is a headache - largely because the regular driver doesn't bother to control the kids. It makes life very difficult when you only drive the bus one day a week, particularly when I expect good behaviour from any kids that I drive. A few days of verbal warnings didn't seem to do the trick, so I went for the write-ups to their principals. This seemed to have the desired effect - for the time being anyway. In this country it seems to be the norm to carry all ages of students on the buses (and I can understand why - but that's another story). Strangely, it's the young ones that are the biggest problem - they completely ignore the driver - but as I say, that is largely the fault of the regular driver.

A Home at LAST

Well, the house is in position, and the contractors have NEARLY finished - after 3 months, so they might manage to get all the shimming and trim finished sometime in the next month!!! Not bad for a job which should have been done and dusted in 3 weeks. The air conditioning has been connected up, so we can now live in the house, and start getting some order both inside and out. I have to say that whilst the work done by the concreting guy is really neat and tidy, he has to be the most untidy slob there ever was - his litter just left on the ground to blow around, the same with the empty cement sacks - not weighted down or thrown away. I guess we just have to bite the bullet and live with it!!!

Summer's heat is still with us, so we have sought out another 'cool' location, this time in the 'sky islands' surrounding the Turkey Creek caldera. This locale is known as Pinery Canyon, which whilst being fairly remote, has a number of primitive campgrounds. We stopped for lunch at one of them - amongst the tall pines. It's high, it's cool, and it's very pretty - sadly photos cannot do it justice. This whole area was formed when a volcano erupted thousands of years ago, followed by irregular erosion.

Well, we were going to have a fun day today, and had a few things in mind, when a brainwave had us changing things around. We live only about 1hr from Mt Graham which reaches some 12,000ft towards the sky. With temperatures by us at around 100 degrees, any respite is to be welcomed. So, we packed some food and plenty of liquid, dived into the truck and headed off for cooler places. The road goes pretty much to the top, but it's a long way uphill - some 29 miles. We stopped off at different campgrounds that we came across (just to assess whether we could / would bring our own caravan (RV) along one day. As we were going along, we were seeing signs for Riggs Lake, and sure enough, at the end of the road was a beautiful lake. It was so inviting that we got out the folding chairs and set them down beside the lake and ate our food. With a temperature of 71 degrees, it was extremely comfortable (the temperature had been 100 degrees at the bottom).

Even in a modern truck on good roads for at least two-thirds of the way, it is hard work to get up there, and yet we find that over 100 yrs ago there was quite a sizeable community existing on top of the mountain. They grew potatoes, worked the lumber, had sawmills, kept milk cows, and made cream. It would have been a very pleasant life during the hot summers, but the winter would have been a different story. At the end of March, my wife and I flew over Mt Graham whilst travelling from Dallas to Tucson, and we could clearly see an awful lot of snow still there even then, and if anything, it would have been harder still 100 yrs ago.

Still, we have found, and noted a very beautiful hot weather haven to which we hope to return to often.

Well, the good news for today is that the inspectors came and 'green tagged' the electric line into the house. This means that the local electric company will turn on the electric to us, which in turn means that the air conditioning guy can connect up the air conditioning - which given the nearly 100 degree heat will make us VERY happy.

Now it's just the gas and water to go..........

But, it's independence celebrations on Sunday, so no-one wants to work until Tuesday, so, we're waiting again!

The good news is that the monsoons are holding off - so there's no mud around to make everything messy.

Well, if nobody else is working, we've decided to take a relaxing day travelling the back-roads of this 'high desert' country, and enjoy the sights for the day.

Back again

Well, it's been a long time since my last post on here. Many things have happened in the mean time. We have bought 5 acres of land about 10 miles away, and we have just recently moved the house there. It's been in place for about 10 days now, and all of the work is nearly completed to connect up to the utilities. It has been a very frustrating couple of months trying to get all the paperwork done correctly, then getting the contractors moving. We had hoped to have the house moved during the last week of May, which would give us some 10 weeks to work on all the projects that we had lined up - oh well, we'll just have to deal with it!!

This whole idea of putting a house on wheels and moving it was completely new to me when I came to the US, but it seems a very common thing out here.

The good thing is that in August, the new school year is going to be a 4-day week, so I will have plenty of time to work on the 'honeydo' list.

I'm unsure what will happen driving-wise next year. Several drivers are retiring or departing, so I may end up doing more driving to cover the gaps - we shall see!

Long time since I have posted, what with Xmas and the New Year, and the fact that we have to find some land to buy. Anyway, last week-end was the one that I wait for during most of the year. The nearest town (about 30 miles away), and the one where I work has a big birding festival each year when lots of people come into town from all over the US. They have tours scheduled over three days, and this is where we come in. The local Chamber of Commerce hire in buses from the school where I work. Then all the driver's names go into a pot and are drawn to drive. This year I got a geology tour taking in some really beautiful country, and an early morning visit to see thousands of Sandhill Cranes taking off for there morning flight. This one involves picking up the passengers at 6am, so maybe I wasn't so worried when I got an e-mail to tell me that the organisers only wanted one bus instead of two.

Memories #2

Thoughts have been going through my head lately when I look at some of the vehicles that I have to drive now, and I think back to my early days with London Country when it still had plenty of RT and RF vehicles. I can recall occasions when vehicle shortage meant that I was given an RF like the one pictured above, to go and do a full duty on the Green Line. It was a pleasure to drive them after the more modern, but appalling Leyland Nationals. I wasn't the only one who felt like this - regular riders seeing an RF pull up for them would unfailingly express their thankfulness to the driver for bringing a REAL Green Line. To be honest, if I could find anything wrong with a National which would take it off the road, and there was an RF sitting in the yard, I would find it!! The pre-select gearbox was a pleasure to use in London, and if the engineers had kept up with the greasing, the steering was no heavier than power assistance.
Some years after the 708 had disappeared in the wake of the all-conquering 758, I had the privilege of driving an RF over the old 708 route for a group of enthusiasts going to a 'Running Day' at East Grinstead. With their thick seat cushions it was still a comfy ride for such a long distance. It's worth noting that even though the driver's seats on both the RT and RF were 'basic', I never suffered the back problems on the long run to EG that started appearing once the 'all-singing and dancing' suspension seats, and 'ergonomic' designs began to be fitted to buses and coaches.
Looking at the boneshakers that I drive now, I wish I was back on a good old Regal IV!!!

Memories.

Came across the blog of an old colleague a couple of days. I've been reading through some of his entries from the days when we worked together driving the Green Line Coaches, he driving the 706/7 to Chelsham, and I on the 708 to East Grinstead. I lived half-way between Tring and Hemel garages, and could travel in to work at Hemel on the 706, sign-on and take the following 708. Getting back to Hemel at the end of the day, it was a quick pay-in ( I would be cashed up by Watford ), and get out on the stop to travel home on the following 706. This certainly saved a lot of money - which could be conveniently spent in the George and Dragon at Northchurch when the 706 dropped me off - strangely, the coach always seemed to roll just past home before the brakes eventually bit just outside the pub!!!

For an insight into how things used to be on the buses, check out Dave's blog at http://40yearsonthebuses.blogspot.com

It's been a long road.

It's been over 35 years to travel the road from the farmyard in rural England, to the High Desert of Southern Arizona.