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Bus loses its roof in London

It appears have had an argument with a tree.

On The Daily Mail web site.

Re: Bus loses its roof in London

Looking at the pictures on the link, two thoughts occur.
First, how devastatingly serious that could have been with a full top deck load.
Second, this ties in with my recent post in which i praised the rattle free interior of an RM compared to the Bristol RE type for this is yet another example of the Routemaster design excellence. A bus that had a respectably high passenger carrying capacity and a remarkably good fuel consumption despite being built of solid construction that kept passengers safer. True, the lightweight materials of today didn't exist then but that just makes the design more credible.

Buses striking trees is nothing new. RM's did it too but a curved solid roofline withstood a branch impact even if it left a mildly or substantially damaged roofline that enabled the bus to continue on thus denying the media the opportunities that a modern day decapitation bring. But I also think that a more robust tree management system existed years ago when LT had its own purpose built tree lopping trucks (four Thames Traders) that operated across the entire network all year round. I'm sure LT had dispensation to lop branches on any bus route irrespective of an offending tree being on council or private land.

Warnings of overhanging trees are also not entirely new. We may think that because of fairly recent street signage. But in my time on LT such warnings were posted in garage notice cases and on the time cards carried on each bus. These were to advise the crew of the scheduled position of their bus in service in order that the bus was operated to time and to the correct destination. These time cards also carried warnings and instructions coded, rather appropriately R or M.
M stood for 'time to be maintained' in order that a connection could be made with an early morning or late evening staf bus or night bus - or whatever other reason.

R stood for 'restriction' to cover any safety related concern. One such applied to all Putney and Riverside RML's on the 74's and 74b's regarding the overhanging trees along the Cromwell Road in South Kensington and this was in place in 1976 to my knowledge.

Re: Bus loses its roof in London

Astonishing that such overhanging low trees are permitted in such a busy street in central London. It must be very difficult for drivers who have to cope with passengers as well as other, sometimes inconsiderate, road users. RM drivers had less distractions. Is there a place for warning signals activated by hazards such as obstructions and cyclists passing on the inside. Seem to remember that such devices are starting to be fitted to lorries.

Not strictly speaking a Routemaster topic but I am not going to delete Neil G's excellent and interesting reply.

My bus number (if any): RMs 238, 471 & 2213. GS17

Re: Bus loses its roof in London

Looking at various footage, the bus hit a tree not overhanging branches, what was surprising was the ease that the roof came off.

There are ( or were) similar overhanging tree trunks at the Westminster end of Whitehall and the pavement is built out by the trees to avoid buses getting close, a look at the red paint on one showed it not to too successful,and now with larger front overhangs, such measures are practically useless.

My bus number (if any): RTL 960, RM 1585, RMC 1486 and several RTs

Re: Bus loses its roof in London

Although off topic the news of a de-roofing in Central London brings home the frailty of current bus designs. Here at Southern Vectis my team are fighting a constant battle with overhanging trees and bushes. When enforcement notices are issued to land owners they are usually ignored and we have to take the law into our own hands and cut them ourselves.

Within our fleet we have 28 Scania Omnidekkers and to my knowledge we have changed over 60 top-deck windscreens. This is more to do with the design as they seem unable to withstand even the slightest brush from a twig. Conversely, the Enviro 400's do not suffer from this problem but instead, when the nearside mirror comes into contact with a hedgerow, the arm gets turned round and pushes the mirror head through the leading leaf in the passenger entry doors. Bizarrely, the single-deck version, the Enviro 200, has the mirror mounted on the corner pillar and does not suffer from this problem but, according to the Engineering Manager, VOSA will not let us modify the 400's to this condition.

Absolutely no thought given by the manufacturers or VOSA as to operating conditions or the requirements of the operator. This was why the Routemaster was so successful, it was built to an operators specification and not the BBC type diktat, "you'll have what we think is good for you".

My bus number (if any): RM 912

Re: Bus loses its roof in London

I couldn't agree more, especially in rural areas now that trees are not lopped regularly. Its a nightmare on a single carriageway trunk road with trees either side keeping a vehicle over 8ft wide with mirrors to the left of the centre line, if you try to keep tight to the nearside you risk having your mirror broken. When its been raining the branches hang further down and outwards into the carriageway, but if you break a mirror or damage the vehicle it is always going to be the drivers fault. I remember when I was on NatEx that even the most experienced drivers would get caught out by overhanging tree branches, then if the mirror was damaged that was the end of the trip.

Re: Bus loses its roof in London

Because of the tree management in place on the 'old' LT, instances of damage were fairly rare. With buses being confined to just one or a few routes it was usually easy to identify where a problem existed and to deal with it. This might involve narrowing down to a particular route shared by more than one garage if other buses started showing a similar damage pattern at a similar time.

The sad thing about an RM being better able to withstand a branch or bough strike was the near certainty of a dented roofline not being repaired. Such damage wasn't considered to be a garage repair and as it also didn't stop the bus from being used in service it was usually just left until next overhaul. Which rather made that particular Routemaster strength seem like a weakness as a more modern bus type hitting the same tree would undergo a repair and look good again!

Re: Bus loses its roof in London

Roof line damage was not a garage job and was left for the Works, if it was really bad ie holed, then it would go in as an accident.
However, front dome repairs were a garage responsibility and each garage had access to a Coppersmith as he was called who knocked out dented domes as well as front wings. In the garage Coachmaker's shop there was a board with a list of buses for front domes and front wings to be knocked out on the next visit.

One RMC I remember we had for 1st cycle overhaul at Aldenham had no visible damage to the N/S roof line, It had not been marked up for attention, but the U/S man found damage to the interior N/S front lighting panel and alerted our "2nd Bite" Inspector. When we looked on the N/S roof he found it had been filled to a significant depth from front to back with prestolith, the grey filler LT used. The panel beater had to burn it out to see how bad it was and great big chunks of filler came out, big enough if dislodged to kill someone. An advice was issued to garages banning the use of filler above the colour band for repairs following this.

The damage was so severe in two bays that the bus was removed from the High Bay and taken to the Accident Shop for repairs, two new roof sections and hoopsticks being fitted. No roof plates, as were sometimes fitted to RTs were as far as I know ever approved for the RM.

My bus number (if any): RTL 960, RM 1585, RMC 1486 and several RTs

Re: Bus loses its roof in London

The ironic thing about the Kingsway is that these are also some of the precious designated coach parking bays ! Very dicey parking tight enough into the kerb to allow buses to pass between the coach and the railings of the underpass without clouting a tree. It also looks like all the twenty odd coach bays are due to be be lost without replacement along the Embankment to be turned in to Boris's Cycle Lane. Obviously better for London if coaches drive around and round polluting the atmosphere desperately looking for coach parking meters before their driving time expires. Along with the proposed Ultra LEZ in 2020 the only people to lose out will be the venues and the visitors to London, many are young school children in our case and it is not practical to take them all in by bus or tube.

My bus number (if any): RML2747