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Price of progress
Like bungalows in comparison with houses, single-deck buses have risen in price even more steeply than doubledeckers and far beyond the general level of inflation. According to Scottish Transport Gazette a single decker that cost £5768 in 1968 increased by 377 per cent to £27,495 in March, 1978. A double-decker advanced in price by 329 per cent from £7939 to £34,044.
That was not all. "Complexity of design has been responsible for a greater degree of unreliability and premature failures," says Scottish Transport Gazette. The need for extra repairs and the high cost of spares has increased maintenance expenses from £252 per vehicle in 1968 to £1154 in 1978. This is known as progress.
Now they know
Kienzle have been given the kiss of life in Victoria, Australia, where few operators are said to have understood what tachographs are all about. H. Kiss, the company's representative, has rescued them from apathetic decay with a definitive explanation of the many purposes that these controversial instruments can fulfill.
With a little modification they might even be persuaded to cook the dinner. One thing they won't cook is a driver's record.
Fed up with drivers
Members of the Australian Professional Transport Drivers' Association have been delivering food parcels to a group of charity walkers led by a 70 year-old clergyman on a 4700mile hike from Perth to Brisbane and Canberra. The venture was sponsored by Freedom from .Hunger and the Society for Those Who Have Less whose carefully chosen initials spell SFTVVHL. They may have less of some things but they have sorer feet than most people.
The walkers, succoured every two days by professional drivers from one side of Australia to the other hoped to collect $ 1m for children's charities.
Touch of class
Hauliers may be a rough, rude lot, but they appreciate a touch of class when they see it. They are the biggest recruiters of graduates in any of the many sectors covered by the Road Transport Industry Training Board.
Between 1970 and 1978 the board promoted the recruitment of 11 53 graduates by 249 employers. More than 400 went to earthy hauliers whereas only 126 were engaged by upstage passenger transport operators. Nearly half the graduates became managers in their first jobs, which may explain the annual average wastage rate of only 17 per cent among the "educated" compared with 25 per cent for all employees in the industry.
Reborn at 40
London's RT buses, a type now an unbelievable 40 years old, are so popular the world over that there is a flourishing market in fakes, says LT News. Con men buy double-deckers anywhere in Britain and, having painted them red — a colour apparently synonymous with, the sinful capital — pass them off as authentic London buses.
Life begins anew at 40 for many RTs. Some have become children's mobile play centres. One was cut in halves and used as part of a theatrical set. Another is a fish and chip shop in Calgary, Canada. The most exalted must however, be that which gathers converts for the Divine Light Mission.
About the only thing the RT apparently cannot do is to gather converts to London bus driving.
Bridge to the past
The election of Britain's first woman Prime Minister is not the most important event of the year. according to the tourist authorities it is the 200th anniversary of the completion of the Iron Bridge at the place now of the that name on July 1779. Much is being made the event, including the open of the Museum of Iron by Prince of Wales on July 5.
Cast by the nearby Cc brookdale company, the brii was the world's first civil gineering work to incorpor iron structurally. The Cc brookdale freight line v reopened to passenger traffic May 27. Bicentenary day will marked by pageants, proc sions and special events in Severn Gorge, which has b( described as the birthplace the industrial revolution.
Grimy wisdom
What is said to be the "collec wisdom of various cleaning a horities" has been combined a unique prototype van to sqt high-pressure water at di London Transport bus-stop lars and shelters. LT Ne' archly describes it as part a war on grime.
Unfortunately it has come years too late to be T. Lawrence's eighth pillar of via dom.
Fired two ways
Until I read Seddon Atkinsoi Truckman, edited by that .ar( punster, Maurice Brown, I h not realised how many comm English phrases had their igins in firearms.
For instance, there is the t shot who fires staff who fail hit the target (later to be c down to size by an industr tribunal); the high-calibre apr cant who sets his sights on sc cess; the person who triggers trouble; the soldier with a ba like a ramrod; the cause that not worth powder and shc and, of course, Ray Goodier, Seddon Atkinson fitter, who fired with enthusiasm f making beautiful reproductic handguns — lock, stock ar barrel.