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Dragon on the Web interdum
Well as I have said in the last page, in 1982 I finally became a bus inspector. In Cardiff all inspectors start off as ticket checkers, or at least did back then. That is not the case everywhere. In London the revenue inspector is a senior job.
But I became with three others part of a team of about thirty inspectors that looked after the day to day running of the bus service and is 500 odd drivers. My job of course was to check that passengers had the correct ticket for the journey and had not tried to travel further than the ticket they had paid for. That was a common problem and still is. Not all of course but there was always someone on most buses. We would have to check a minimum of thirty buses a day and if we did not there had to be a good reason behind it.
As the time went on we got involved in other things. The bus station was at that time very busy indeed and buses were in and out about 100 times an hour. It needed the services of two full time inspectors to run it and they were usually those with a lot of experience.
The junior inspectors like myself were taken under their wing and shown the ropes and how to do the job. It was a busy place and we had to check that the buses were leaving on time and that if a driver was due to take his bus on after a break then he was not sitting in the canteen when he should be sitting on his bus!
Then there was the radio room. Radio contact with buses had been in a few years by now and all the 200 plus buses were fitted with one. We were shown how to use the radio and during a working day around 150 buses would be on the road and calls were coming in every couple of minutes. You had to be plain spoken and get the message across or receive the message properly.
There could be minor things like a bus in traffic running late or it could be major such as a serious accident. You never knew what the call was going to be about and the job was busy all the time. That is still the case although with the modern call office the driver can indicate how serious the call is through a code.
We all became what was then known as G.D’s. That stood for General duty inspectors. We more or less did just about everything on the job from working on the bus station to working in the radio room, checking tickets and being send out to problems such as an accident involving a bus or perhaps trouble that had broken out on one of our vehicles.
It was a full and busy life and I was enjoying it a lot. Then it happened. The worst day of my life up to that point.
I had been sent to the bus depot to change a defective bus for a fit one. I had done this more times than I could remember, but this time instead of turning right from the depot to head to the bus station I turned left and then left again following one of our bus routes.
The problem was that the route I was taking was for single deck buses and I was driving a double deck bus! I took a 13 foot bus under a 12 foot bridge and took the roof completely off!
Well the roof fell in on me after that. I was immediately suspended and then sacked. That was automatic for such a serious incident. But due to my excellent record I was reinstated and kept my job.
But I was downgraded and lost a years pay rise. I was also taken to court for driving with due care and attention and had points on my licence and a fine. It was a terrible time but I was lucky to keep my job. I am not sure if I would have kept it today that is for sure.
After that the next stage of my career started to take place and that can be found on the next page.
The Bus inspector
The Depot
