Taking bulky items on buses

[alxndr]

I do seem to remember a bus firm in Glasgow getting in to trouble after allowing a cooker on board , iirc it was mccolls

Are you perhaps misremembering this slightly?

Bus driver's oven delivery detour

A bus driver took passengers on a detour to deliver and unload a cooker and a chest of drawers for friends.
The items were loaded into the space reserved for prams on the Glasgow to Wishaw service run by Coakley buses.
Passenger Margaret Dymond, 28, said she was stunned and took pictures of the goods which were unloaded during a 10-minute detour in Motherwell.
Bus firm owner Eddie Coakley said the Polish bus driver had been given a warning and lost his bonus.
"It shouldn't have happened," Mr Coakley said.
"We brought in an interpreter who spoke to the Polish driver and explained that his behaviour was not acceptable."
The driver made the detour at about 1000 GMT on Monday.
Ms Dymond, a mother-of-four, from Viewpark, Lanarkshire, captured the scene on her mobile phone.
"There was a couple on the bus with a pushchair and a young child and they were having a job getting past," she said.
"That was bad enough but I was stunned when the driver took a right turn off the route and actually took them right to the door of the flat."

BBC NEWS | Scotland | Glasgow and West | Bus driver's oven delivery detour

Reading that it sounds like the detour/favour for a friend was more the issue than the nature of the item.

 

[AM9]

Modern TVs still have a large glass screen which could cause injury if it broke (typically much larger than CRT days).

I have taken a tower style PC on a bus unpackaged but it was years ago (late 90s).

Best one I have seen (also late 90s) was a guy loading a sailing boat mast onto a bus at Caenarfon. He got on and laid it down the aisle as if it was the most normal thing in the world, with no objection from the driver.

I think you see a lot more "silly" stuff in London than elsewhere, partly as car ownership is lower but partly also because drivers tend not to get involved in things happening on board.

There's no glass in a modern TV. The front panel of an LCD, or OLED, is a sheet of polycarbonate or similar which is strong but flexible. The cases are PVC or ABS - similarly strong but flexible. Possible the last glass-fronted TVs were the early plasma types which haven't been sold for over 20 years and likely too heavy fro most people to carry anyway.
Even CRT TVs had to meet stringent safety requirements which meant that if the case was intact and the back cover fixed, an implosion would not be a safety hazard. Since about 1965, all TVs CTRs had laminated armoured front screens, i.e. the glass was shatterproof like a triplex windscreen and securely held in a reinforced rimband. The rear cone and stem of the CRT was vulnerable but the case and rear cover were designed to contain all glass fragments that an implosion might cause. That's why the vents sometimes had a fine mesh behind them. The idea of a complete CRT TV imploding and sending dangerous glass shards everywhere is a myth.

 

[Peakrider]

I was wondering what the position was in terms of taking bulky items such as small items of flat pack furniture (obviously boxed and not assembled) or electrical or electronic appliances on buses. Have any of you had any experience of doing this yourself or seen anyone doing so?

About 20 years ago I took my new TV home on the bus in its box without any problems. It was a 14 inch TV (old style, box-like as opposed to flat screen). I think I put it in the buggy space where the tip-up seats are.

However, a few years later I saw someone trying to get on a bus with a TV. Again I think it was an old style 14 inch TV, but it wasn't boxed. This time the driver turned him away, saying it was against the law to take a TV on a bus. I wondered if he was just being over-zealous, or if it actually is illegal to take an unboxed TV into any indoor public place that doesn't have a TV licence. Or it might be a safety thing.

I wondered this because I have a spare TV (a 14 inch flat screen TV with a bracket attached to stand it on) that I acquired second-hand and I have a friend who is looking to move house and who I think might like it. I don't drive, and nor does this friend, but they may be moving to somewhere near my office.

I would guess that bulky items are carried at the driver's discretion, and that wheelchair users and passengers with prams would have priority over passengers carrying bulky items.

When I lived in London I took all sorts on the bus with no issue at all. If you could get it on the bus you could take it. Many IKEA trips on the then 16 bus with flat packs and even chairs and once a 6’ length of pipe on a Routemaster - the conductor said to lay it along the floor “inside” as it would never go upstairs! And lots of trips with large pieces or sheets of wood from B&Q!
In the same way I’ve seen people board North London line trains with double mattresses. I took a single mattress myself on the Cologne tram. Never had an issue.

 

[Taunton]

Not a bus but on the DLR in London, a substantial Christmas tree, being handled by two chaps, to general amusement. Those in the area will recall a very popular place that sold these each year in the old railway arches under Limehouse station, lost to the 3-car station extension.

 

[6Gman]

I once saw a bloke bring a toilet pedestal onto a bus and stow it under the stairs.

Mind you, he was the driver!

Stopped the bus, went into a hardware shop, came out with the toilet, stowed it, got back in the cab and continued the journey.

 

[The exile]

I took a single mattress myself on the Cologne tram. Never had an issue.

Not that far away, many years ago I managed the various components of the taller version of IKEA's Billy bookcase (in two trips!) on Essen trams. The hardest bit was getting them from the tram stop to my front door as it was a windy day and the bigger bits decided they wanted to play at being sails.
More interestingly - passengers on the Budapest public transport network are permitted to take with them (free of charge) "one bundle of wrapped tree saplings" - though it doesn't state at what size a sapling ceases to be a sapling!

 

[neilmc]

I used to be a conductor on the Middleton-Moortown routes in Leeds.

One day a Scottish guy got on at Corn Exchange with a huge parcel which he was struggling with and asked how much it cost to Middleton.

"9p," I said (this was a long time ago). He muttered about the extortionate cost of public transport in England, to which I added:

"And that parcel looks way over 28lb, you have to pay another 9p for that."

That made him really mad.

"Och, ye try and cheat me on the bus, an' then ye won't let me take ma parcel - well, I'm not paying for the parcel!" he declared.

I'd had enough of him by then, and threatened to toss the parcel into the River Aire as we passed over Leeds Bridge. He clearly didn't believe me, so I rang for the driver to stop on the bridge and began lugging the parcel to the rear exit.

"Och, ye wicked Sassenach," he said. "Not only d'ye overcharge for the bus, now ye try to drown ma wee boy as well!"

 

[AM9]

The largest thing I've taken on a bus was my Brompton folding cycle. It was enclosed in its nylon cover and I put it on the luggage rack of a 724 Greenline (in the days when the route was using proper Citaro interurban buses). The driver didn't even bat an eyelid.

 

[Geordie driver]

I used to be a conductor on the Middleton-Moortown routes in Leeds.

One day a Scottish guy got on at Corn Exchange with a huge parcel which he was struggling with and asked how much it cost to Middleton.

"9p," I said (this was a long time ago). He muttered about the extortionate cost of public transport in England, to which I added:

"And that parcel looks way over 28lb, you have to pay another 9p for that."

That made him really mad.

"Och, ye try and cheat me on the bus, an' then ye won't let me take ma parcel - well, I'm not paying for the parcel!" he declared.

I'd had enough of him by then, and threatened to toss the parcel into the River Aire as we passed over Leeds Bridge. He clearly didn't believe me, so I rang for the driver to stop on the bridge and began lugging the parcel to the rear exit.

"Och, ye wicked Sassenach," he said. "Not only d'ye overcharge for the bus, now ye try to drown ma wee boy as well!"

Brilliant, thanks for that's, made me laugh out loud.

 

[duncanp]

I once saw a bloke bring a toilet pedestal onto a bus and stow it under the stairs.

Mind you, he was the driver!

Stopped the bus, went into a hardware shop, came out with the toilet, stowed it, got back in the cab and continued the journey.

There is an episode of On The Buses called The Cistern where Stan and famiy have to buy a new toilet, and they try to transport it home from the hardware shop on the bus.

Naturally, Inspector Blakey gets on half way through, and does his nut when the doors open to reveal the toilet and cisten inside.

 

[Geordie driver]

This thread has kick started a memory, this is on a bus I was driving.

On my break I had bought 2 very tall CD stands, which I loaded onto the luggage bit for the last half of my shift. At the first terminus I saw the last 2 passengers getting off, they seemed very interested in my boxes. I turned the bus round and went to load up and these 2 ladies were waiting, apparently the CD stands belonged to them and they had left them on the bus!

I told them to Foxtrot Oscar.

An hour and a half later and there they were at the stop waiting to board, they behaved as if they had done nothing wrong.

 

[londonbridge]

For the record I seem to recall holding on to it (my fence paint tub) tightly.

 

[AM9]

For the record I seem to recall holding on to it (my fence paint tub) tightly.

So if the bus makes an emergency stop, you and your tightly held tub of paint go into whatever is next forward of you, (back of seat, grab post or softer option - another passenger).

 

[Tom Gallacher]

I do seem to remember a bus firm in Glasgow getting in to trouble after allowing a cooker on board , iirc it was mccolls

I don't know about that one but a driver at Coakley's was disciplined for rerouting his bus to pick up a fridge and delivering it somewhere else.

 

[Auld reekie]

Paint and similar definitely are not allowed due to the severe damage they can cause to the bus if they are dropped and burst open. Though as with most things there isn't exactly an X ray machine on board, so if you camouflage it sufficiently (e.g. in a supermarket carrier) nobody is going to know.

Many years ago I dropped a tin of paint on a bus.
It went all over the place.
As you can imagine the conductor was raging.
It didn’t help when I said it was only emulsion and not gloss.
Fortunately for me I was getting off the bus.

 

[_toommm_]

I've took a 32-inch monitor on an Arriva and First bus in Leeds before, still boxed, and it was obvious what it was. I got a few little stares from passengers, but when I asked the drivers they said it was fine.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Many years ago I dropped a tin of paint on a bus.
It went all over the place.

You can kind of now understand the bus staff's reluctance to allow such an item on their vehicle in the first place. Wonder just how long it took to clean up the bus in question afterwards?!

 

[MP33]

In one of CD's of the explosive expert and after dinner speaker Blaster Bates. He tells a story of when his Motorbike and Sidecar were off the road, going to a job on the Bus with high explosives and detonators in his pockets.

 

[Bletchleyite]

You can kind of now understand the bus staff's reluctance to allow such an item on their vehicle in the first place. Wonder just how long it took to clean up the bus in question afterwards?!

If it was water based emulsion and had gone straight to the depot and been hosed out probably not too long, though if it got on seats covers may have needed replacing. Gloss on the other hand would probably have required a full refurbishment and replacement flooring at a cost of thousands.

 

[175mph]

In Hull, I've seen people from offices carrying computer equipment on loan from the companies they work for such as monitors and printers, (in their original boxes) onto the buses so they can work from home and nobody batted an eyelid.

If it was water based emulsion and had gone straight to the depot and been hosed out probably not too long, though if it got on seats covers may have needed replacing. Gloss on the other hand would probably have required a full refurbishment and replacement flooring at a cost of thousands.

I imagine there would also be a real possibility of the offending passenger either finding themselves banned from the company's buses in the future or the company invoicing them for the replacements required or a combination of the two!

 

[Eyersey468]

In Hull, I've seen people from offices carrying computer equipment on loan from the companies they work for such as monitors and printers, (in their original boxes) onto the buses so they can work from home and nobody batted an eyelid.


I imagine there would also be a real possibility of the offending passenger either finding themselves banned from the company's buses in the future or the company invoicing them for the replacements required or a combination of the two!

A bit off topic but we once billed a load of school childrens parents via the school for leaving a bus in a state after throwing eggs, flour etc around. It took 3 days to clean apparently.

 

[Auld reekie]

If it was water based emulsion and had gone straight to the depot and been hosed out probably not too long, though if it got on seats covers may have needed replacing. Gloss on the other hand would probably have required a full refurbishment and replacement flooring at a cost of thousands.

If I remember correctly it was just the floor.

 

[DelayRepay]

Mate of mine moved house using the Sheffield Supertram. He was renting furnished so no huge items. He bought a Day Rider and spent the day going back and forth, a few bags at a time!

 

[Deerfold]

When I was a second year student I bought a large second-hand hifi system, taking it home in two trips on the bus.

About 5 years ago we had to pull out our kitchen to access the dangerous condemned gas pipes in our house.

After trying to find anyone who might be interested in them, I took the kitchen cabinets, one at a time, on the bus to the tip (the bus got me about 70% of the way there with a walk with several rests after that) - they were enclosed in bin bags so as not to damage anything on the bus.

 

[Rick1984]

My parents took a Habitat sofa from Glasgow to Kilmarnock on the bus. Obviously it was self assembly but still pretty bulky.

I've taken a very large picture from Norwich to Great Yarmouth

 

[Baxenden Bank]

When I was a second year student I bought a large second-hand hifi system, taking it home in two trips on the bus.

About 5 years ago we had to pull out our kitchen to access the dangerous condemned gas pipes in our house.

After trying to find anyone who might be interested in them, I took the kitchen cabinets, one at a time, on the bus to the tip (the bus got me about 70% of the way there with a walk with several rests after that) - they were enclosed in bin bags so as not to damage anything on the bus.

Most impressive. Also that you were allowed into the tip with them as a pedestrian. Locally such gutter walking vermin* are strictly prohibited, making it rather difficult or costly to get rid of things.

*I write as a lifelong non-driver myself - generally being reliant on public transport or the two dangly things to get around.

 

[Deerfold]

Most impressive. Also that you were allowed into the tip with them as a pedestrian. Locally such gutter walking vermin* are strictly prohibited, making it rather difficult or costly to get rid of things.

*I write as a lifelong non-driver myself - generally being reliant on public transport or the two dangly things to get around.

I was questioned about whether I'd parked a van round the corner and had to show my tip pass (I was trying to make the house a bit better at a crap time when my (driving) wife was away with work).

It wasn't the easiest place to walk into.

I got rid of 8 using 3 day tickets (total cost £8). I thought the local authority would have charged £10 each to take them away - but have just checked and found they're on the list of things they wouldn't take - but would have only been £20 if they had.

 

[175mph]

Saw a mother and her two kids get refused boarding by the driver this afternoon because of the mini tricycle she had with her. The driver said it goes against the regulations and the mother said every other driver has allowed it. She left the bus calling the driver something unmentionable.