Wednesday 29 July 2009

Now a Coach Driver.

Should change the name of the blog to coachdriving now but I'm not going to, it's been busdriving for too long to change. As I mentioned a few days ago I applied for a part time job diving a coach for one of the hotels here in Torquay. It's three days a week, two of those days are basically dropping of and picking up guests in the Midlands, that's Sunday and Monday and on Thursday evening taking those guests who wish to see a show to and from Babbacombe Theatre. Couldn't be simpler. Anyway I started on Sunday with a quick tour in the morning round Dawlish and Teignmouth then a trip up to Bristol where I meet an other coach driver. He had guests going to the hotel and my passengers were on the way home. To save all the passengers swapping coaches we, the drivers, just swapped coaches and I drove back to Torquay and the other driver headed north. The tour in the morning was dry with rain approaching up the Channel but it did stay dry. Then as we set of in the afternoon it started raining and didn't stop. All the way up and down the M5 nothing but rain.
There were a lot of new things to learn. The first being how to work a tachograph. Buses don't have tachos, the driver has a running board which sets out his/her running times and bus operators have to make sure these times don't contravene drivers hours. One thing I learnt was how to set up the tacho with my smart card. This records any driving I do automatically and checks to see I don't go over the time limits that are set by EU regulations. One thing it doesn't do is automatically register when I am on a rest period. I have to remember to do that myself. Very important I take 45 minutes break after a maximum of four and a half hours driving and if I forget to press the right button the tacho will think I haven’t taken my break and nasty things will happen. Cruise control, I know lots of cars have cruise control now a days but I have never used it before. Once on the motorway I switched it on and it felt a bit weird trundling along at 95kph without pressing the right hand peddle. Soon got used to it though. The retarders were different as well, on the bus the retarders kicked in automatically when the brake peddle was pushed down, on the coach there is a lever to operate them so you can slow down without pressing the brake peddle, just pull the lever. Neat. Getting on the coach was different as well. Coaches tend to carry passengers who have lots of luggage and this gets stored under the seating area. This does mean the passengers on a coach are fairly high up a the travel along which has the benefit of giving then a good view but it does mean there are 5 or 6 steps to climb up unlike modern buses where you can walk straight on. Does tend to make loading and unloading a coach a lengthy process. It also meant the coach driver, me, tends to sit much higher up than a bus driver. And lastly, an other new thing was driving past people standing at bus stops, never done that before.

16 comments:

Joe said...

Great news David. Things work out in the end sometimes. Good luck.

ex DG said...

Congratulations on your new job, Dave.
Just think driving without a ticket machine, so, no, you don't have to charge passengers as they get on, and no arguments about passes either.
good luck and we await photos - BUT not whilst you're driving:-))

Lord Hutton said...

Well done. Just remember to steer!

RobertM said...

Congratulations on the job.

cogidubnus said...

Yes, nice one mate!

Anonymous said...

Well done Dave, great to see that you've got a new job.
I tend to miss the goings on when you were a bus driver such as what ex DG listed.
Still, great to see that you're back in the driving seat!

retired driver Peter said...

Congrats! looking forward to your tales of life behind the wheel again. In the past I did bus driving, coach driving and at times a mixture and I always preferred being 'on the buses'and I still miss it, although I have friend whose preference has always been to be a 'coachman'
It will be interesting to see what your preference is but in any case to be gainfully employed behind the wheel must be a great feeling'
Best wishes

Plymothian said...

Well done!

Looking forward to having to clean your own coach though?

Plymothian said...

...oh yeah and don't park in bus stops!

Dave from Leicestershire said...

Well done on getting the job, Dave.
I hope you enjoy it.

Simon Mac said...

Congratulations! Well pleased for you.

Anonymous said...

Congratulations and good luck.

To be pedantic, some buses are fitted with tachographs for long routes that fall under EU regs.

Anonymous said...

David:
Many congratulations - as you say, very different, it would be interesting to know where Private - non fleet hotel owners have their coaches maintained!

No doubt many of you guys on line know the answer!

retired driver Peter said...

all coach and bus operators small or large are required as part of their management team to have a CPC qualified transport manager, a n operating base and if they do not have their own servicing facilities a registerd maintenance provider all of which have to be notified to and registered with the area Traffic Commisioner. all of this is overseen by the Department of Transport who may (and do) make spot checks as well as requiring vehicles to go through regulare checks. a hotel owner who operates coaches as part of the business has to first obtain an operators licence and comes under the same regulation as the large groups (such as Stagecoach or First)

bouncertqy said...

Dear Peter (Retired Coach Driver)

May I thank you for your interesting response to my above query. I trust you are having a peaceful but active retirement after years of driving the public to their various required destinations.

Anonymous said...

".....another new thing was driving past people standing at bus stops, never done that before."

Are you sure?

You can't have been a bus driver round this way, then!

;-)