www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-16091997
I liked them.
Where these buses will go now?
PS: Got the answer. Another news link says they will be sent to Malta!
www.lbc.co.uk/londons-bendy-buses-to-be-sent-to-malta-48368
I wonder how they can fit in Malta narrow streets where even a normal bus struggles to pass.
Last edited by: movilogo on Fri 9 Dec 11 at 10:16
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I went to the 'Cobham' bus museum at the end of November - its now in a brand spanking new building within the Brooklands museum. Perfect time to go to the museum by the way, we got personal guided tours by volunteers through many of the exhibition halls.
Quite a few of the current exhibits used to be in London, went to Malta and came back as end of life wrecks which were then restored.
I was asking the volunteers how they felt about the bendy buses, and whether there was any enthusiam for getting one for the museum. The answer seemed to be a universal 'no'. We were joking that the buses may have to go to Malta and get to the end of their life before there might be much of a call for a few to come back!
The biggest clamour for steam locos was some time after they were withdrawn from service. Luckily one scrapyard in Barry had a huge number which he's bought but hadn't yet cut up - those locos form the basis of many steam lines today.
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It's beyond me how anyone could think a bendy bus would be suitable for service in London.
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>> It's beyond me how anyone could think a bendy bus would be suitable for service
>> in London.
Wasn't it Red Ken's bendy thinking?
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We had bendies in Tenerife, called Gua Gua's, the G is silent (like Bellboy)
Probably one word ~ Guagua.
Last edited by: Dog on Fri 9 Dec 11 at 11:14
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Know the 207 route well. These were used as the Uxbridge road is relatively straight. Back in the day, trolly buses ran along it.
These buses were not good from a road user perspective. They created many hold ups when stopped. Two together was impossible was like overtaking 4 normal single deckers, which was quite rare as the Uxbridge Road is one lane either side. People used to jump on the middle opening and ride for free, and they had a habit of catching fire.
No, I will not miss them. As someone else said, they are not great for our roads in London but suited to larger roadways like airports and Euro Disney.
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The bursting into flames thing was certainly a draw back, I saw one going up, boy they really do burn!
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>> It's beyond me how anyone could think a bendy bus would be suitable for service
>> in London.
They were a solution to a problem; a bus with full disabled access and passenger capacity of a double decker.
I don't know how the routes to which they were allocated were selected but they certainly included many for which they were, in reality, unsuited. The Red Arrow services round work regularly fouled the junction at Theobald's Rd and the former west to south filter lane from High Holborn into Kingsway.
They're a death trap for the unwary cylist. Never go down their nearside and keep the blighter behind if you and it are both turning left. OK to overtake at stops provided you're confident and assertive enough to keep out where the driver can see you in his mirror.
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We use the Bendy Bus on our frequent trips to York - Park at the Park and ride and for a very resonable (I think) return price (for the two of us) about £3-4 right into the centre of York
The ones they have are huge Merc things, clean and there is one every ten minutes. I have to admit though they are huge - I would not like to drive one of them things through Yorks narrow streets (one of the roads the bus goes down, there must be only a half foot gap between the bus and the row of terraces).
However they are generally always full sometimes standing room only - so they must work.
Last edited by: Redviper on Fri 9 Dec 11 at 12:22
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Used to get the 74 bendy a lot and yes it was pretty mad that such a large vehicle was used on the streets of London. The routermaster was compact for a very good reason.
I think some of bendy buses still operate in the North Manchester area but I am not sure, we used to have loads at one time.
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The smirking red-faced ideologue, Gaddafi groupie and phoney Ken Livingstone should be sued for every penny he has - a fairly pretty one by now I can't help imagining - for foisting these dangerous, expensive things on the London he claims to love: the original cradle of the double-decker bus.
Disabled access is a load of twaddle. When did you last see a bus with a full load of disabled individuals? The lower deck of a normal bus will always accommodate all two or three disabled passengers that might be expected in a very elderly or unhealthy part of town.
The little carphound acquired the things because he actually wanted to slow down and obstruct London traffic and was afraid his trashing of the road system wouldn't do it thoroughly enough. He imagined people would buy his sentimental crap about the disabled, the elderly, pedestrians etc. and to give him his due, many did (even here).
I blame myself. Voted for him twice. Idiot.
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I remember these being trialled in Oxford (my home town) in the early 80's. Unpopular with drivers and passengers alike, they didn't last long.
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>> Where these buses will go now?
>>
>> PS: Got the answer. Another news link says they will be sent to Malta!
>> www.lbc.co.uk/londons-bendy-buses-to-be-sent-to-malta-48368
Come to Bristol where they've all been re-painted in the last few months as the Park 'n' Ride buses..... and they don't fit on the Bristol streets either.
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Never been on a UK bendybus, assuming they're like the ones in Stockholm:-
g.co/maps/ndxz3
The seating capacity seemed ridiculously low for the amount of road occupied. Quite entertaining (on a relative scale) to sit on the seats in the bendy bit and watch the front half of the bus move relative to your seat.
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As Victorbox says it's no joke for Bristol as the contract to run Park and Ride services in the city has been awarded to London based CT Plus who have repainted them blue and introduced them onto Bristol streets bringing widespread problems and a very unhappy public
www.thisisbristol.co.uk/Moves-ease-problems-park-ride/story-13436651-detail/story.html
The story is dated September but things havn't improved.
J
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IIRC they all had to be stored for a time while UK law forbidding carriage of passengers on a trailer was amended.
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I thiunk that was many years ago, when they were first introduced into the UK in Sheffield, following the Labour Government's Transport Bill - possibly in the sixties. Resulted in very low to zero bus fares in Sheff, and great improvements to traffic circulation. Possibly the only example of successful sensible policy by that party.
8o)
Last edited by: neiltoo on Fri 9 Dec 11 at 15:40
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Bendybuses were apparently illegal on British roads until 1980!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bendibus
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Earlier....
www.transpirebus.org.uk/latebendy.aspx
"1. The first type of articulated bus (unless anyone else knows otherwise), to be operated in service in Sheffield was the MAN SG192R with MAN/Goppel AB63D bodywork. Special dispensation was granted by the then Minister of Transport to the South Yorkshire PTE to operate five such vehicles from the late 1970s on their ‘City Clipper’ service. They were allocated fleet numbers 2001-2005, although the last one 2005 remained as a demonstrator with MAN-VW who were based at Swindon. These were the first such vehicles to be allowed to operate in service in the United Kingdom, although licensing difficulties meant that they had to run without fares being charged. Here 2005 was on loan in April 1982 for evaluation by the then National Bus Company subsidiary City of Oxford and operated on the service from the city centre to the housing estates at Blackbird Leys."
But not the sixties.....
8o)
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Not illegal, just illegal to chage pares for travel on an artculated vehicle.
Was at sheffield in the late 70s and they had some running a loop around the city centre, free travel.
Not that travel on the buses in the socialist repuiblic of South Yorkshire was expensive, a bus to university was 5p (a similar journey on Teesside was 60p) and a bus fronmt he centre of Sheffield to Castleton was 50p.
The bendy-buses had a reputation for knocking people over on pavements.
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>> As Victorbox says it's no joke for Bristol as the contract to run Park and
>> Ride services in the city has been awarded to London based CT Plus who have
>> repainted them blue and introduced them onto Bristol streets bringing widespread problems and a very
>> unhappy public
>>
>> www.thisisbristol.co.uk/Moves-ease-problems-park-ride/story-13436651-detail/story.html
>>
>> The story is dated September but things havn't improved.
>>
>> J
>>
I know a few people who use that park and ride - they all moan about them, however, they are the sort of people who will always find something to moan about
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see 2 bendy buses running round luton airport
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Stuck in the bent position are they?
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I seem to remember a utube thing shot in a Moscow underpass with ice on the road, in which an articulated bus does a spectacular tank-slapper...
Perhaps these useless things could be used for some sort of banger racing? The disabled could be invited to see how narrowly they have escaped.
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An alternative perspective from former Guardian editor Peter Preston.
tinyurl.com/cz8sc2w (link to article on Guardian website)
Preston had polio as a child and while not needing a wheelchair is not fully mobile either. His point is that bendys were a boon to the less than able bodied. Even the hale are reluctant to go upstairs for a short journey.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Mon 12 Dec 11 at 10:18
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...Even the hale are reluctant to go upstairs for a short journey...
I once heard a black conductor on a Routemaster announce several times: "Room on the roof, room on the roof. No standing on my bottom lip!"
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>> see 2 bendy buses running round luton airport
>>
Today I saw some running round the Olympic site
www.hctgroup.org/the_hct_group/ct_plus/site_transport
blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/andrewgilligan/100022000/bendy-buses-at-last-someone-loves-them/
" Others have been spotted on fittingly humiliating work (rail replacement services, and ferrying people through the mud of the Olympic Park building site.)
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believe all the maltese old busses were ran by owner drivers. which added to the character of the place. shame to see that go.
just back from cuba , and guess what. there over there. that should see them survive for another 80 years
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Saw one in Birmingham last weekend.
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Articulated(not bendy)buses were in use in Australia in the 1950's-in the UK,some firms with large sites used articulated buses built from ex-RAF aircraft recovery trailers to move workers round their sites and,IIRC,it has never been illegal to carry passenges in trailers as long as the passenger has DIRECT contact with the driver.
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I was talking to a Dutchman in Portugal who had converted a Bendy into a motor caravan-he had managed to get it stuck on a hump-back bridge-I never heard the outcome.
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Bendy bus makes final journey - Tigger
