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

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FUNNY STORIES (4) This incident occurred in Boydstone Road on what was then the 45A service to Carnwadric at mid-afternoon as the schools were coming out. Arriving at the stop at the shops, because of double-parked vehicles I had to draw up out from the bus stop bay and near the centre of the road. As I did so the school crossing man stationed here stepped out brandishing his lollypop stick, and stood in front of the bus a few feet away with his back to me and both arms extended while holding the stick in his right hand. A few children were crossing over the road in a spaced out stream, when I became aware in the bus’s offside mirror of a car coming slowly from the behind. There were two women in the front deep in conversation, with the driver quite unaware of what was happening ahead of her. My first thought was to alert the car driver, so I frantically tried to open the cab door and signal to her to stop, but it was too late. The children who might have been at risk, and the car driver, were extremely lucky that there happened to be a gap in the flow over the crossing just then.     At this stage I was almost in a state of collapse, heart-in-mouth thinking I was about to witness a tragedy. But still blissfully unaware the car driver continued on, passing the man's outstretched right arm. He suddenly realised what was happening, and it was his reaction that allowed me to recover from the shock, and move to the other extreme of being helpless with laughter. He was a tall thin lanky man in his 70s, and he gathered up his legs and launched himself after the car yelling and brandishing his pole. With the car still moving slowly but gathering speed he had almost caught up with it, intending to have words with the driver. But as it increased its speed and began to draw away from him, in exasperation he lifted the stick and brought the circular plate, with STOP CHILDREN CROSSING on it, down hard on the car roof. The funniest part of all was that neither women appeared not to notice, and they went on their way oblivious and still yakking. It took me a few moments to recover before I was able to carry on. FUNNY STORIES (5) During the early 1960s in the days before it became part of a one-way system, I was driving a fairly full bus in the city centre in heavy slow moving traffic up Union Street in the inside lane nearing Gordon Street. As I approached the bus stop and was about 20 yards short of the entrance to the Central Station, the vehicles in the outer lane were stationary but were encroaching on the inner one. A gap had opened up in front allowing me to proceed. Leaving the stop it was a tight squeeze for the bus, and I had to creep along cautiously with the tyres brushing the pavement edge. The large vehicle I was passing was making me edge past very slowly, when I became aware of an ominous scraping noise which stopped when I did. It sounded as if the bus was in contact with something, but a check in both outside mirrors showed no obstruction on the pavement and a small gap on the offside, so I tried moving again. As I did so the noise began again, only louder and accompanied by a juddering sensation. At the same instant I became aware of a movement in the mirror showing the lower deck, of a figure dashing down from the upper deck onto the pavement and rushing up alongside the cab to speak to me. It was conductor Pat Carlin, who was in an excited state with his eyes popping. He said 'For God’s sake whoa George, yer knockin' doon the Central Station'.     Up to the 1970s the station entrance here had a canopy above it that projected out to a point level with the pavement edge. (See the upper photograph on page 53 of the book An Illustrated History of Glasgow's Railways in my collection). I had been aware of it but never thought I'd be in the position to need that knowledge, but now, the bus had been scraping along the front of it. Examining the situation from the pavement revealed that the canopy seemed secure, but because of the road camber the bus was leaning against it in contact just below upper deck window level. The only way out of the situation was to try a reverse, which I did very gingerly. But what saved the situation was by Pat transferring weight by moving as many passengers as possible to the offside, to ease the contact between canopy and bus, which did the trick and allowed me to move forward with a tiny clearance.     The rest of the time on that part of the shift was spent wondering about the possibility of getting into trouble for the damage, a few scrapes, caused to the bus, but two things saved me from this indignity. The first was the bus was out all day, which meant that up to half-a-dozen or more drivers would be in charge of it over the time between leaving the garage in the morning and returning in the evening. In that regard, there was a brief time among the timetable revisions when the first bus out at 04.30am, was on the road for 20 hours continuously, and was the last one to return at half-past midnight. The second thing that saved me from trouble with the Transport Department authority was that when being relieved by the next driver, I told him the story and we had a brief discussion about what to do. We looked at the scraped paint-work and small indentations, and agreed that there was a good chance of getting away with it if nothing was said to anyone else. However, I was concerned that the last driver returning to the garage at night would be questioned, perhaps even blamed for it, but in the event there were no repercussions that I heard about. THE SPEED TRAP My only encounter with the law during these years happened when I was on the number 38a service on an afternoon in summer in the early ‘70s. While driving up Eastwoodmains Road past the end of Seres Road heading for the Clarkston terminus in Mearns Road, I noticed that a speed trap had been set up for westbound traffic in operation at the bus shelter about 30 yards up the hill. Arriving at the terminus and with a double-decker because the LSs had been withdrawn, and having a few minutes to wait, I went round to talk with the conductor. The speed trap was mentioned and said it was fortunate I was aware of it for the return journey. We talked for a few minutes, and from among the intending passengers who had come on board there was one who had something interesting to say.     More time went past, then I realised we were a few minutes late for departure time. Setting off with time to recover on what was expected to be a busy journey, I was going at maximum speed down Eastwoodmains Road. Not being required to stop there, I kept going, only to be brought up short by the polis beyond Seres Road and booked for doing 40mph; it was the only time I was thankful for the speed governor of a Daimler! However, this being my first offence I thought it worthwhile to send a letter of explanation to Renfrewshire Police. It worked. Soon after I received a reply from them which stating that 'it wasn't their intention to prosecute on this occasion, but please refrain from exceeding the speed limit in future'! THE STICKING RACKBAR & THE ENGINE STOP CONTROL An irritating fault that occasionally occurred with the Gardner diesel engines was the sticking rack-bar. It didn't seem to affect the engines of other manufacturers, probably because they had different fuel delivery systems. From what I can remember of the Gardner system, what seemed to be the device that controlled the engine speed was located in the fuel pump injectors on the nearside of the engine. It was connected through a mechanical linkage from the throttle pedal and came through the bulkhead from the cab, and by a system of rods and cranks operated the rack-bar in the pump.     Accelerating in a lower gear, when the maximum speed had been reached and the pedal released, the revs should quickly fall to allow a smooth change up to the next gear. On most of the Gardner engines new or recently overhauled, the system worked properly, but on some with a high mileage the return spring had weakened and the rack-bar tended to stick in varying degrees. When this happened, a tediously long pause had to be endured for the revs to fall sufficiently before the next gear could be engaged without producing a violent jerk. In a worst case the revs remained at maximum and the driver was forced to go through the box with everyone on board enduring the jerks each time. This was frustrating, particularly when going uphill with a load, because as the road speed dropped the revs never fell away enough to allow a smooth change. The older vehicles with pre-select gear-change were less affected because the selector pedal could be used like a clutch to slow the revs before it was released. But when it happened with the semi-automatics there was no way of lessening the thump when switching to the next gear up.     The worst case of this kind happened to me on the 57 route. The bus had been showing severe symptoms of the fault, and on turning into the terminus at Clayslaps Road near the Art Galleries and drawing up the engine remained at full revs. The only way to stop the noise was to switch off. I then reported it to a nearby inspector who summoned a breakdown fitter. When he arrived, starting up the engine and with it racing he lifted the bonnet and poked the rack-bar rod, pushing it back to the start of its travel, and immediately the engine speed returned to a normal tick-over. Of course it meant a vehicle changeover, but what this was I've no recollection now. The rack-bar fault was reported whenever it was encountered, but over the years it made no difference to the number of times it cropped up. Rectifying it would have probably been more expensive than the management was prepared to afford.     The method of stopping a Gardner engine was unusual. Those of other manufacturers were stopped by putting the heel behind the accelerator pedal tip and lifting it up. The procedure with the Gardner’s was that a length of metal rod was attached to the fuel cut-off control in the injector unit, which projected through the radiator cowl at the front of the bus. At its outer end the rod had a loop for a finger to grip and pull, from which it was supposed to return to the running position by a spring after the engine stopped. Occasionally the spring was weak or had broken, and if you were inexperienced, which applied to all new drivers, sometimes the breakdown man was called out to a bus that wouldn't start because the control had been inadvertently left in the stop position. The rod-end with its loop can be made out in photos of the front end of the newer Daimlers, in particular the one I took of D218 in Newlands garage forecourt with my son Colin standing on the platform. It is just visible low down on the nearside next to the radiator cowl vents, on the right as seen in the photo. THE CLARKSTON DISASTER On Thursday, 21st of October 1971 I was again on the 38A service, and had been waiting out the lying time at Clarkston terminus in Mearns Road at the junction with Seres Road, ready to depart down Benview Road at 2.50pm. It was the first end of one part of a duty, consisting of two double journeys between Clarkston and Millerston on an afternoon shift which totalled four hours. When I left on time everything was normal, but on returning it was to find the traffic backed up and stationary in Eastwoodmains Road almost back to Fenwick Road. There was talk of an explosion at Clarkston and the road was totally blocked. Details of the tragedy are in a Flashback cutting from The Herald of Saturday 22nd October 2002 marking an anniversary of the event. This report, a copy of which is in my files, states that 22 people died. The significance of this tale is in the timing, in that arriving I had passed within yards of the shopping centre, not long before the explosion occurred at 2.56pm. If the service timetable had been for an arrival time of about 10 minutes later, then the bus I was driving could have been involved to a greater or lesser degree when turning from Busby Road into Mearns Road. A tv programme was made of the tragedy in 2006, a copy of which is on DVD 13. NIGHT SERVICES Up to eighteen night services were operated by the transport department, and these were allocated around the nine or ten garages, of which services 8 and 11 were worked by Newlands crews. All the services ran to an hourly timetable, running from 1am from George Square to outer terminuses spread out round the edge of the city from which the return departure time was half-past the hour. The number 8 ran out Pollokshaws Road to the Arden terminus of the 57, which at that time it was in Nitshill Road, with the innovative routing of from Shawlands going out Kilmarnock Road, then along Nether Auldhouse Road to join the normal services route at Harriet Street, and had a running time of 25 minutes. The 11 ran out Cathedral Street and Alexandra Parade to the 38 (short turning) terminus in Tay Crescent off Cumbernauld Road at Riddrie, with a running time of 20 minutes. Except for the weekends most of the night services carried few passengers, but there were occasions when it could be extremely busy, and with no restriction on the number of passengers carried a situation could and did arise of a bus carrying one-and-a-half times its designed maximum capacity.     At quiet times there could be as much as 15 minutes lying time at the outer terminuses, that is time between arrival and departure, and there was for me a memorable event at the Arden terminus. I had a conductress a young girl, Mary McCafferty who had lived on a farm near Ballykelly in Northern Ireland, and sitting on board at Arden at around 3am one morning, we heard a curious booming sound coming over from the fields to the south, which at that time was farm land. I looked at Mary, and said 'what on earth is that'. As a girl familiar with the countryside she laughed and said 'that's a corncrake'. In recent times these birds have become very rare but with the conservation measures in force their numbers are now increasing in the West Highlands and Outer Hebrides. STAFF BUSES Each garage ran a staff bus which operated after midnight for staff members who lived a fair distance away and had no other means of getting home. Any vehicle that happened to be available was used and it was usually driven by the union representative, a shop steward. The official was a driver who was paid a normal wage by the Corporation, and who was supposed to be on hand at certain times to negotiate in disputes, which could and did arise and needed to be settled urgently. In my time it was first Adam Rutherford then Andy Hargan who had the position. They were expected to do a certain amount of driving, but after dealing with union business their main task was driving the staff bus. On his two weekly days off any driver finishing his shift around the time it was due to leave could be asked to take it on. Because few had cars then, those who finished after the last bus had gone had no means of getting home other than by a long walk if they lived some distance away.     This transport was supposed to go to the point nearest where they lived within the area covered by the service buses, and whoever undertook it had to wait in the garage office until the last bus came in. There was nearly always someone wanting to use the service, mainly within an arc round from Pollok, Arden and Crosshill to Pollokshields, but there were stories of staff bus drivers taking a risk and going well outside our normal service territory as far as Barrhead, and even to Nielston. I drove the staff bus a few times, but there was seldom more than two or three on board and all these lived within the above area. I kept hoping for the thrill of having someone who lived some distance away, but that never happened.     However, there were some interesting events worth setting down. The first concerned the head depot clerk, Jimmy Mitchell, who lived Largie Road off Newlands Road at the point just before the Cathcart Circle railway bridge. One night I finished a shift long after midnight, and as I entered the office to hand in the time-board, Jimmy was there and seemed to be waiting for me. He approached me and said quietly, 'do me a favour and run me home, George'. I was puzzled by this request and my first thought was why didn't he use the staff bus? He then explained he'd missed it, it had already left with about six on board and probably wouldn't be back for about 45 minutes. It became apparent later that regardless of the wait, the driver was a careful individual who did everything by the book, and might be reluctant to break the rule and refuse to go out Newlands Road with Jimmy, because it wasn't on any regular route. My next question was to ask about a vehicle, and he said he had arranged with the night foreman to use another bus. I of course welcomed the opportunity to drive along a road not covered by any service. As we went out Newlands Road Jimmy sat in a seat at the rear. Then as I neared the over-bridge carrying the Cathcart Circle line, the height restriction meant it was too low for double deckers, he rose and stood with a finger on the bell push ready to alert me in case I forgot, and ran past where he wanted to get off and hit the bridge. I did this on two occasions.     Driving the staff bus was one of the very few occasions I got to do on my own. My friend Sam Hill was always interested in the workings of the service, in particular performance of the vehicles themselves. In telling him about the staff bus, it occurred to me that it was nearly always on the roads after 1am when they were deserted, so here was an opportunity to meet up and let him have a go. The next time this happened I called him to arrange the meeting. I had Auldhouse Road in mind, but he said that his wife Morag had alerted him to the fact that if we were caught my job might be put at risk, so the endeavour was abandoned.

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