Stagecoach buses - a tale in three parts
Also known as two fires, a crash and an inconvenienced engineer.

For some bizarre reason I always seem to be around or on buses just as they give up the ghost, to the point that I do my best to avoid them at all costs. At the time though I was commuting between Huntingdon and Cambridge.

Incident 1 - FIRE!!!!

On my way to work, headphones in listening to Dire Straits (Money for Nothing album, if you're interested), everything is nice and calm, the gentle rocking of the bus is sending me to sleep (the fact that it was 6.30 in the morning and I'd been out on the lash the night before may have helped here).

About halfway into the journey, the bus starts to make a beeping sound, the driver pulls over and cuts the engine, sound stops. Tries to turn it over only to be met with more beeping and a grunting engine. Fucksticks, the engine has died and now I'm going to have to wait for the next bus to come along, at least I won't be late methinks.

Then the passengers from the back seat start to file forward, with some haste. Odd, says I in my internal monologue, must be getting off to stretch their legs and wait at the side of the road for the next bus. How wrong I was.

The back of the bus was on bloody fire, and they were scrabbling off so as not to be roasted alive. Time to get a move on myself, wait patiently for the aisle to clear (I sat in the middle of the bus, so far enough away from the fire to not be packing my pants with fresh fudge, good thing too as it would have been beer fudge, which is just awful, but I digest) then filed off with the other passengers.

End result, Fire truck, next bus shows up, file on, get to work just in time, fun story to tell in the break room at lunch.

Incident 2 - driving into the bus station, literally

No joke here. On my way back from work, two days after the fire incident, pulled into the bus station at the mid point of the journey (St. Ives). Passengers get off, chavs get on, bus goes to leave and just piles straight forward into the barrier.

Turns out that the steering had packed it in just as the driver pulled into the station. Fortunately there are buses that run very regularly on this route so was able to jump on the next one a long (5 minute delay to my journey at most).

Incident 3 - FIRE!!!!!! Yes, again, honest, nothing to do with me officer.

Living in Cambridge now, first day of walking to work (20 minutes in a straight line, nice place too). Along my route is the Drummond street bus station, about a minute out from there I hear the unmistakable sound of a fire engine attending an emergency, thinks I 'I bet there is a bus on fire at the station'.

I was only bloody right.

So there it is, I have the magical ability to set buses on fire, whether I'm on them or not apparently. I do my part to avoid these occurrences happening by walking everywhere I can, or bumming lifts off friends (no car or license, plus it's too bloody expensive to own such things).

I'd make a length joke here, but it seems pointless when I can set buses on fire from over a block away with an offhand remark.

Is that smoke I can smell.............
(UncleChuckles "Cthulhu fhtagn", Fri 30 May 2008, 10:21, 1 reply)

actually..
it's Drummer Street and it has summed up the council attitude in Cambridge for a long time with the signs on the shelters just outside of the station.

"Welcome to Cambridge
No Parking Please"

it should probably read...how dare you consider driving a car here but as they have just put in a another pop up car destroyer I'm not sure you can drive round there anymore anyway.
(cmouse is pondering about life in other jobs, Fri 30 May 2008, 15:13, closed)