Thursday 15 June 2006

Traffic,Water and a Crash.

Yesterday it was a traffic out of the woodwork day. When I took over my bus it was 15 mins late. An hour and half late I was still 10 mins down when a red light came on on the dash and a very loud buzzer started it's attempt to send me even future down the road to deafness. A couple of radio calls to Orange control and it was decided the bus was low on water so the passengers got transferred to the next bus and I drove the two miles to Paignton Bus Station nice and carefully. There I put 20 litres of water in the radiator. Light went out and the buzzer stopped scaring the resident seagulls.

After meal break, back to the traffic, still 15 mins down with a bus just in front of me who was 30 mins down. The over the radio came the news of a crash at Tweenaway Cross. The 12A, which I and the bus in front were on, go through Tweenaway so this was just the news we had been waiting for. Tweenaway can be slow at the best of times without having a couple of car drivers deciding to redesign the fronts of their cars. Now by now I knew the 12 behind me was 15 mins away and got on the radio to check the status at Tweenaway and was told,"Long delays". It would still be better for those people wanting to go the Brixham to wait for the twelve. And I told lots of passengers this. With the best of intentions. When I got to Tweenaway there were long delays, but not the way I was going. It was clear, the other roads were jammed up but Totnes Road was like a Sunday morning at 4:30am and I got to Brixham 5 mins early. I wasn't due out for 15 mins and had a nerve racking time when I realized that all those people in Torquay and Paignton I had told would be better waiting for a 12 had not yet arrived.

Just as I set of 2 Number 12 s arrived full to the gunalls (what ever they are?) with all those people who had waited 20 mins for a bus and could have been on mine and home 15 mins earlier. I just looked in the off side mirror and hoped no one notice me and start screaming abuse at me. Sorry to all of you.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You mean 'gunwales' - but, yes, it's pronounced 'gunnals'. It means the top edge of a boat's side. So a boat 'packed to the gunwales' is as full as it can be.