Stagecoach Manchester

[Mayneway]

RE: Stagecoach Manchester

(12/01/2015 21:58)Dentonian Wrote:  How things change. Hyde Road used to be the premier depot, often called upon to help other depots out. Now its losing work. What I can't understand (and surely, this goes on at other depots), is why crew reliefs take so long nowadays. Time was that a bus pulled up outside HE depot, driver got off, relief driver got on. Pleasentries and any intelligence was quickly exchanged; machine code keyed in, and off we went; 30 seconds max. But in the last year or so, it has taken drivers three minutes or more to get the machine to work. Not only that, but "in my day", peak hour reliefs were frowned on, but now virtually every 203 & 205 passing the depot from 1540 to 1620 seems to change drivers.

3 minutes is ambitious Dentonian. It takes the drivers 3/4 minutes to sign into ticket machine then another couple of minutes to fill in defect card, plus getting the seat and steering wheel into the correct position. Then there's the drivers who insist on re-positioning the external mirror above the door.

I've been on 169's that are already 5 mins late where the driver taking over has insisted on finishing his fag before even boarding the bus!