ON THE BUSES (GCT), April 1960 to February 1974
By George Rountree.

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INDIVIDUAL PECULIARITIES
Daimler buses up to D216 with pre-select gear changes had the gear selector mounted on the steering column, on the right underneath the steering wheel convenient for fingers operation. The mechanism was in the form of a metal sectored selector, with a lever pivoting near the steering column having the lodging positions for each gear laid out in a curved row. The selector itself was shaped to fit between two fingers of the right hand when gripping the steering wheel, and could be moved within the gears range without actually engaging one until the gear change pedal in the position occupied by the clutch pedal was depressed and released. This arrangement was simple to operate, but with certain vehicles it had a serious flaw you had to be aware of. The normal method was to select the gear then operate the pedal to engage it. But as the bus would not normally move until the throttle pedal was depressed it was possible to work it as a conventional clutch pedal, and unskilled drivers familiar with ordinary vehicles sometimes did this until they learned to use it properly. However, operating the pedal in this manner carried the risk of 'kick-back'. A few buses had this quite alarming failing that you were unaware of fault until it happened, and the only way to avoid it was to slam the pedal to the floor each time. This might seem easy but to carry it out uses energy, and after a couple of hours of ordinary driving, with the left leg getting tired that was when to watch out because it was the very time you would be caught. The pedal itself had a powerful return spring and the act of releasing it, for it to catch the actual below-the-floor lever of the gear selected, ended with the pedal in its normal reposed position.
    The arrangement of levers under the cab floor was such that it was possible for the engaging mechanism to release one and fail to catch the next one. Here I write in ignorance of the actual mechanical set up, but when it happened there was nothing to prevent the pedal, with its strong return spring, from rising up its full distance which brought the pedal head close under the front, lower edge of the driver’s seat. The reaction was sudden, and while spring pressure was usually light in the normal operating range, when it became totally disengaged, the farther the pedal rose the stronger the force it exerted, so that there was never time to get your foot clear. In wet weather, when the grip of the sole of the shoe was reduced, the foot could abruptly slide off the rubber of the pedal head sideways. This caused it to come up suddenly with its full force and bang with a loud metallic thud against the underside of the cab floor. This will illustrate the risk to the ankle, the Achilles tendon actually, being jammed between the pedal top and the sharp edged front underside of the seat. Occasionally, when relieving a driver he would be limping and would pass on the warning to 'watch out for that adjectival gear pedal or it'll have your leg off!'
    With the cabs being quite high up, if you were caught out and your foot was trapped, in order to free it you had to go through the following pantomime visible to everyone on the lower deck. With the foot and ankle jammed under the seat, you just had to fight the pain. With the bus still moving and keeping a firm grip on the steering wheel, you had to rise up and brace your head and shoulders under the cab roof, then push down hard, making sure to slam the pedal all the way to the floor viciously. Doing this helped to relieve the fury at being caught and to avenge the pain.

DRIVING MIRRORS AND THE STOP/GO BELL
Rear vision mirrors on buses at that time were tiny and difficult to adjust when compared with those of today. There was one on each side and a third was mounted high up in the cab. Today’s buses have the entrance/exit close to hand which makes it easy for the driver to see the movements of departing and boarding passengers. On vehicles that were known as ‘back-enders’, driver and platform were at opposite ends, so that depending on the number of passengers on the lower deck it could be difficult to keep an eye on what was going on at the rear, particularly on a busy bus. To do this, the mirror fixed in the cab above head height, allowed you to look through a window high up in the cab rear wall to be aware of what was happening on the lower deck. At one time it was mandatory for drivers to wear their hats at all times particularly when driving; a rule that was strictly enforced on the trams on which, with certain exceptions drivers stood all the time. This didn't apply on the latest streamlined trams which had a rather different cab layout which included a seat. But bus drivers found that wearing a hat interfered with the view through the interior mirror, so this rule was relaxed.
    Trams had no warning horn as such. As mentioned before, they had a foot operated bell that was worked by pressing on a metal plunger in the floor, hence the lines from a Broadway song of the 1930s from the musical show 'A Street Car Named Desire' sung by Judy Garland (?):
'Clang, clang, clang went the trolley,
Ding, ding, ding went the bell...'

The 'dings' were of course of the other bell conveying signals between conductor and driver.
    The bell code on buses used by conductors to signal to the driver when to stop and when to go was one beat for halt at the next stop, and two for go. Three bells meant 'full up, don't stop till the next bell!' The operating system was by push-buttons on the bulkhead on the rear platform and at the rear of upper deck. On some buses there was also a chord which stretched from rear to front of the lower deck, suspended through spaced out metal rings fixed to the ceiling, with the forward end attached to the clapper of the bell in the cab. That arrangement sometimes caused a problem, because if the bus lurched when someone was walking along the passage, they naturally reached for the handrail which was also fixed to the roof. If in the stress of the moment they missed it and caught the bell cord, the driver was usually less than pleased.
    On new rear platform buses, in the confined space of the cab the bell was often far too loud, and one of the first things any driver who valued relative peace and quiet, was to muffle it. In the rear wall of the cab above head height, between the door and the interior rear view window there was a panel on which was mounted the switches for the upper and lower saloon lights. Behind the panel which unscrewed at the top and hinged down, there was a shallow compartment to give access to the wiring, and the bell was fixed inside this space. If it was as it had been originally fitted the clangs really were loud, and if you were the least bit sensitive to sudden loud noises, the sound could be unbearable. With the newer Daimlers, which were less than a year old, most of the bells were still in their original condition and, as they were enclosed, to get access to them you had to carry a screwdriver to open the panel. Although it was strictly against the rule that forbade interfering with equipment, doing this allowed you to wedge a folded up wad of paper or discarded cigarette carton under the edge of the bell, which reduced the noise to an acceptable level. Over a period of time the bells in all the vehicles received this treatment, but occasionally, taking up one newly returned after an overhaul at the bus works and driving blissfully on, you could be shattered the first time the bell was used because the muffler had been removed. When that happened, it was a case of getting to the terminus as fast as possible to make time to shut it up before you were driven round the bend.
    I used to wonder how some drivers could be so insensitive as to be unaware of the level of noise. On asking one I had relieved the previous day, and then been deafened the first time the bell was used, if he had been aware of how loud it was? His reaction was to think for a moment then in a manner that indicated that he had more important things to worry about, said that he hadn't noticed! On finding the bus you had just taken up had an unquenched bell an alternative was to come to an arrangement with your conductor not to use it except in an emergency. But some were aware of the implications regarding the rules governing its (mandatory) use. However, this could be double edged, because a long time might pass without it being required so that you forgot about it. Then just when you had let it pass out of memory and had drifted into a state of comfortable automation, letting the subconscious mind deal with all the externals involved with the job, when there would a sudden loud clang for an emergency which had arisen. Or perhaps a lapse of memory by the conductor, or a passenger afraid you were about to pass their stop, jerked you almost violently back into the real world.

DRIVING AND DREAMING
The phenomenon of 'the subconscious mind taking over' while driving is no myth, it was a reality as far as I was concerned anyway. The first time it happened was in the early days and it caused puzzlement and apprehension. It was on a journey that began at the Broomielaw on a warm summer afternoon, when I found myself driving out Barrhead Road with no memory of actually getting there. The most recent impression that could be dredged up was when leaving the Broomielaw, but there was no recollection of anything that had happened in between. Looking cautiously in the inside mirror to see what was happening there, I half expected to find the lower deck in uproar, with a crowd of angry faces and a forest of gesticulating arms, perhaps belonging to passengers who had wanted to get off as far back as Eglinton Toll! Had the bell failed to operate or had we all been affected by the soporific inducing weather?
    But everything was calm and peaceful so I assumed that everything had been done as it should have been. That I really was driving a 21, 39, or 48, and not a 38 and should have gone to the left at Shawlands Cross, or again to the left at Pollokshaws West as a 45 or a 57. It was a peculiar sensation, one I think the transport authorities would have strongly disapproved of. This is to say nothing of the passengers themselves, if they had had the slightest inkling of it. It seldom happened but after a time I got used to it. It had to be accepted that it could not be induced, for it was a state of consciousness in which realisation of having been in it only arrived when it terminated. Often in the course of a boring four hour stretch of driving I longed for the ability to conjure it up, to enjoy the sensation of returning to the present and discovering I had arrived at the relief point at the end of the shift.
    As a state of mind it deserves closer examination. But I have little more to add except to state categorically that it did occasionally occur although, usually in the calm and relaxed conditions of summer mid-mornings, afternoons or, less often, evenings, particularly if the vehicle was easy to drive. I can't recall ever being jerked back by an emergency. It was as if my mind could see into the immediate future and knew that there was a period free of stress ahead, with no out-of-the-ordinary happening which allowed it to drift off to dwell on pleasanter things without there being any hazard. I was reluctant to discuss the phenomenon with anyone at the time, but after leaving I mentioned it to other ex-drivers. Some looked at me in an odd kind of way to see if I was joking, but one or two said they too had had similar experiences.

ACCIDENT
Another draught was rather different in that it was obvious where it was coming from but how to treat it was difficult. It was to cause by far the worst accident of the handful in which I was involved during fourteen years and the only one for which I was responsible. The occasion was during my first summer and is memorable because of its unpleasantness. It happened on an early shift while travelling ahead of time out Barrhead Road around 7am. Having already made a trip to the Broomielaw, I was returning to the outer terminus and although it was mid-summer, early mornings were still chilly, and lightly clad in summer weight clothing I was feeling the cold, especially in my right leg. On the Daimler buses the handbrake lever came up through the floor in a long 3" wide slot running fore-and-aft in the top of the curved wheel valance. If the seal was properly fitted it should allow a space for the lever to travel back and forward freely without rubbing on the metal of the side of the slot.
    The draught excluder here was in the form of two strips of heavy-duty rubber fixed over the slot, so that the lever could pass between them, which allowed them to fall back into position as the lever passed to preserve the seal. If the lever was off lying off centre and could rub on a side of the slot, it eventually sheared off the strip on that side. On this occasion this was what had happened, but it was the strip on the side nearest the driving position that had gone, so that the remaining flap was directing the draught on to my right leg, which was beginning to feel numb. I looked about for something to use as a shield while the vehicle was still moving, and passing Damshot and heading towards Peat Road, I decided to try placing my uniform hat over the slot, and leaned over to retrieve it. In trying to pick it up from where it was usually tossed, down into the corner at the front off-side beside the fire extinguisher, I had to stretch over a distance. Then, partially straightening up I placed the hat over the slot, taking time to locate it for maximum benefit. That accomplished to my satisfaction, on straightening up and looking ahead it was to find that the bus had mounted the pavement, the edge of which was unusually low just there, and was heading straight for a lamp post that was only feet away.
    At that time long before the Pollok Centre was built, the area was covered by a mainly tenement ‘intermediate’ type housing scheme called South Pollok, and the main road here had lamp posts along the pavement edge. Slow as the speed was, the resulting crash was fairly devastating. The pole was knocked down, and dangled by its cables as it lay across the pavement and on to the nearby greensward. The bus was damaged at the front although as far as can be remembered no glass was broken. The radiator cowling and the radiator itself were smashed, and clouds of steam were pouring out. The impact with pole left a concave mark in the beading below the destination screen of that bus, D96 a narrow bodied vehicle, and after it was repaired and put back on the road, it served as an unwelcome reminder for me over the years to come each time I encountered it. There was only a handful of passengers on board, and although a couple of seats on the lower deck had been bent forward by the bodies being thrown against them, no serious injuries were sustained. Disciplinary action resulted of course, recollection of which is hazy but it was probably a three-day suspension.

THE PHANTOM INSPECTOR

< GCT Inspector, John Souter (thanks to his grandson, Eric, for the identification).

The following story is of an odd event that had me wondering for a few rather alarming seconds if something of a supernatural nature had occurred. While driving up Peat Road to the Nitshill terminus of the 48 service, then in Cleeves Road, an inspector came on board to check the tickets. The terminus turning point was on waste ground about 50 yards along Cleeves Road, and it was during the late afternoon rush hour and the layover time was brief. Because it wasn't worthwhile getting out I remained in the cab, all the while conscious of, and watching for any movement by the official on board who, after checking the tickets of the few passengers on the lower deck when he got on, had gone upstairs and remained there.
    Just before departure time a bus on the 49 service that shared the turning point with the 48, arrived and drew in behind us. I set off, proceeding down Peat Road to the roundabout and into Barrhead Road, all the while I was keeping a lookout for the inspector getting off, for it was  advisable to know their whereabouts. Surely, I thought, he would go off at the roundabout stop on the main road, which was the busiest in the area. It was unusual for a 'hat' on duty to stay on a bus for more than a few stops, and because of the number of buses that passed there, the roundabout was a favourite place for them to lurk. Drawing in to the stop, where quite a crowd had gathered, I scanned the faces as usual on the lookout for anyone I knew, a normal occurrence for this was former home territory. Quite suddenly I received a shock as if a cold hand had gripped my heart. For there, standing among the crowd was the man I thought was upstairs on my bus! The sensation of unreality, of living in a dream world, lasted for a few seconds then realisation came along with the two beats of the bell to start up from my conductor.
    Despite me keeping a watch on the platform, the inspector must have transferred to the 49 at the terminus during brief period we were at the stance together. This was confirmed by the conductor who said he only just caught a glimpse of him as he stepped off the rear corner of the platform after we started to move off, at which point my attention would of necessity have been to the front. The 49 must have left just after us, and travelling to the Hurlet then by Barrhead Road to the Peat Road roundabout and on into Braidcraft Road on a quieter route, had arrived there before us. This had allowed him to walk over and wait for us again in Barrhead Road. For the record, Cleeves Road is where the original Peat Road entered Nitshill when it was a narrow country road, before Priesthill and Craigbank housing schemes were built.
    In the late 1940s, Peat Road beyond the end of the dual carriageway at the original St. Robert’s Church that today is the church hall was still bordered by fields up to Nitshill, and as it neared the village it passed the Victoria Brick Works. The number 14 bus service, coming from a terminus in the Glassford Street area in the city, ran up Peat Road to the village. When the 23 service was introduced in the late 1930s it ran from Govan Cross via Hillington and Crookston to Househillwood, where the terminus was opposite the original church in what became Glenlora Drive. Then for brief period before it was extended to the Broomielaw, it ran to Pollokshaws where, after turning into Ashtree Road, the terminus was in Riverford Road.

COPING WITH THE WEATHER
Many exciting and alarming tales could be written about driving in weather conditions of fog, smog,  frost, and a hurricane that are seldom encountered today. Icy roads caused by the latter are rarely encountered in the somewhat less severe winters of recent decades, and cold spells are less intense and are of shorter duration than in the past. The worst condition was when the three phenomena occurred together. The effect of cold weather inside the buses in the days of the back-enders, draughty, doorless and heaterless vehicles, tales of the events on the road may be enlightening.
    Domestic fires were the major producers of those elements that caused smog, but calm weather conditions were necessary to allow it to form. Smogs occurred in calm conditions when there was low temperature and a high degree of humidity in the atmosphere, and because homes and industry were stoking up their fires and furnaces for maximum heat. At first the street-lights took on a baleful halo, and if conditions worsened they could become totally obscured, and at its worst standing under a light and looking up, only a faint glow would be visible in the murk. If conditions of humidity, temperature and a lack of wind were at their worst, mist would form, the condensation of droplets being helped by soot and dirt particles in the air. Without a wind to disperse it, smoke hung around the places where it was produced, and became gradually denser until it was a thick choking greenish-yellow pall. The result sometimes developed into what was called a pea souper that caused an increase in the number of deaths, mainly of older people with chest ailments. Because of a chest condition smog always gave me a hard time.
    Calm frosty spells seem to occur more frequently in the past than they do today. It must be more than forty years since we experienced a dense fog here in which visibility was reduced to a few feet, but that is probably because there is only a fraction of the dirt going into the atmosphere now than in the past. Back then, if calm conditions persisted for longer than a day the effect was cumulative, so that by the third day, to draw a breath in the open air was like drawing in a mouthful of soot. During a bad spell of smog it would be quite noticeable in the cinema because of the greater vista. At its worst the screen became invisible from the seats at the back, and it could be described as like looking through a veil, or a scene in a movie or video made in soft focus. It was noticeable in shops, and even in the home,
    The worst spell of fog/smog I experienced happened in the early 1960s. In mid evening I was on the number 45 Bishopbriggs/Rouken Glen route when fog, which had been forming all day, began to lie in dense banks. Heading south and feeling my way at walking pace down Springburn Road, I was progressing by driving on the soon to be lifted tramlines. The smog was so thick that nothing else could be seen, even on the nearside. Trying to follow a faintly seen tram line carried the risk of inadvertently crossing the centre line of the road and meeting another vehicle doing the same thing, coming the other way. This was the lesser of two evils, for driving close to the edge of the pavement on the nearside carried the risk of running into a parked vehicle. The density of any fog is as variable as is the mist which induces it, and progress through it is by a series of variable prospects as visibility alters. Some drivers were so scared of fog they got their conductor to walk in front, but understandably many of the latter were afraid of that and refused. Before the trams were withdrawn and the rails lifted they could be used as a guide as I was doing on this occasion, but of course the man hazard in fog of that density is that while concentrating on watching the road surface you tended to forget to look ahead.
    As I passed slowly under the now removed railway over-bridge known as Inchbelly Bridge without being able to see it, and crept up the incline of the last few yards of Springburn Road at Charles Street, the fog became so dense I could see nothing from inside the cab. Opening the cab door and looking down even the road surface was invisible. It is a most frightening experience to be in a high cab and not be able to see anything but a dirty grey miasma outside, which caused the mind to play tricks; am I on the edge of a precipice or coming up to a wall? These were the most insidious thoughts! However, after a few minutes it began to clear slightly so that it was possible to proceed. But the route took us into Parliamentary Road, which was lined with tenement dwellings. This meant that to avoid the very occasional parked vehicles, having to keep to the tram-lines again. In conditions like this, when driving became too risky the Transport Department allowed drivers to head for the garage, and this occasion was the only time I did so.
    There was an occasion in the early 1960s when, after a couple of days of heavy rain the road under the then single span railway bridge in Barrhead Road was so badly flooded that it was closed for a few hours. This meant that for a short time all bus services had to be diverted, and after much confusion and indecision, westbound services were directed to go all the way round through Thornliebank and Nitshill and eastbound via Mosspark.

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