Got home early today – though up scarily early to do a day trip for work.
My noble steed to carry me home was a Lothian Regional Transport bus – nothing special there. But it was one of the old ones, which are becoming quite scarce today.
I’d been reading a magazine on the way back from the worktrip, where a couple had a sign from a London Routemaster bus – when these were decomissioned, parts were sold off to transport enthusiasts (and no doubt the odd mechanic too). I’m not suggesting that I want to keep specific items for an earlier LRT bus – that suggests a little too much devotion.
But it got me to thinking about why I have a soft spot for these older buses. Various features that you can’t quite put above your mantlepiece:
The spiral staircase – the stairs on these buses have a genuine, regular curve. This actually makes getting downstairs easier, even when going round corners, because you can always move down in the same way. Newer buses are of varying models – some have shorter stairs, some longer, but they all tend to pitch you headlong if the bus is going at any speed. And this is even when you are hanging on to both handrails.
The luggage compartment – there is a specific luggage compartment for suitcases etc. This is a real help if you are getting the bus up to the station or the airport bus – there’s a specific place to put your case, which stops you taking up an extra seat or blocking the gangway.
Two sets of doors – now I know some of the newer buses have this too, but it does make life easier letting people out of one door, and new ones in the other door. After all, this feature was meant to speed up time spent waiting at bus stops for passengers to finish moving about.
On the other hand, because more of the newer buses require you to walk back past the driver to get off, I hear more people saying thank you before they get off. This is a) polite and b) preferable to yelling ‘thanks driver’ half way back down the bus…
Sitting sideways. You don’t get so much of this on the new buses. I’m not sure that I should be championing this, given that I try to face forwards when travelling, if at all possible. But as a child, sitting on a sideways seat, it feels a little different. Decent sized sideways seats are excellent again for two people, big or small, plus luggage or shopping.
The higher up seats in the middle of the bus. These are really useful if you get on with large items of luggage, or other things to hold onto – you don’t have as far to sit down, and it’s easier to get up again.
For fairly similar reasons, they are popular with the elderly. There is however a certain fun in sitting with a friend in the higher seat behind the driver – it’s a bit like having a booth to yourself in a restaurant, because of being self contained.
I understand why the buses have changed. Legislation for disability you need to be able to get wheelchairs on. The same space is a real boon for parents whose tot has just gone off to sleep in the pushchair, and avoids you having to hoick the child out, disgorge shopping etc, just to get on the bus.
(I’ve not had to face oneupmanship between parents who think they have rival claims on this space – it only takes one pushchair – or how it feels to hope for a space and find it already full.)Â The new buses can go lower to make them easier to get on and off – back to support for the elderly.
All of these groups are particularly likely to need to use buses, quite beyond equality of access. It doesn’t take much looking at our local paper to see how people have lobbied for more of these buses to start their service in our area, because there are lots of people wanting the benefit of this kind of bus.
So three cheers for a decent public transport system, that’s also affordable, on the monthly pass at least. But still…these were the buses that captured my attention when, as a child, I got to ride them into town while visiting my grandparents on holiday.
At least there are a good number of double deckers around still, new bus or old. The delights of sitting at the front upstairs still persist. And with a husband who needs the legroom, surprisingly, it’s often still better at the front than in seats further back.
LRT seem to keep winning awards for their bus service, so something’s going right. Let’s hope they can acknowledge the earlier buses in their hall of fame, as well as their innovations.