Busaholic
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- 7 Jun 2014
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A few Saturdays ago someone who'd been a lorry driver in the 1990s expressed his thanks on a radio programme to an unknown tram driver in Minsk at that time.
The driver had dropped his trailer somewhere and had to pick up another in Minsk, a city with which he was unfamiliar.
It being evening, he decided to leave the lorry park in search of food and, seeing there was no prospect in the immediate area, took a no 19 tram to nearer the centre.
He neither spoke any Russian nor knew the cyrillic alphabet, but did notice a sports ground near to where he got on the tram that was marked 'TENIS'. He found a place to eat and went to the other side of the road to get a no. 19 tram back to the lorry park.
Once he was on the tram, on which he was the only passenger, he dozed off and, next thing he knew, found himself in the depot, together with a rather startled driver. The tram driver understood no English but the lorry driver remembered the 'TENIS' sign and mimed tennis shots, which brought recognition to the face of the tram driver.
He indicated to the lorry driver to sit down, the tram driver got back behind his controls and, twenty minutes later, indicated the Tenis stop. The lorry driver, full of gratitude, tried to offer money in the shape of U.S. $10 bills, much prized back in the day, but the tram driver wouldn't accept any payment, even though it was obvious he'd ended his shift for the day.
I'm adding this thread now parly as an antidote to numerous other comments over the years of unhelpful train and bus staff, some of them drivers, amongst the fewer comments of kind and unselfish staff helping, sometimes in a (potential) crisis, and also because it served as a reminder to me of a similar unselfish act performed in quite similar circumstances by a taxi driver to my wife and self in Moscow in 1974, when we became irretrievably lost on that city's Metro system.
The driver had dropped his trailer somewhere and had to pick up another in Minsk, a city with which he was unfamiliar.
It being evening, he decided to leave the lorry park in search of food and, seeing there was no prospect in the immediate area, took a no 19 tram to nearer the centre.
He neither spoke any Russian nor knew the cyrillic alphabet, but did notice a sports ground near to where he got on the tram that was marked 'TENIS'. He found a place to eat and went to the other side of the road to get a no. 19 tram back to the lorry park.
Once he was on the tram, on which he was the only passenger, he dozed off and, next thing he knew, found himself in the depot, together with a rather startled driver. The tram driver understood no English but the lorry driver remembered the 'TENIS' sign and mimed tennis shots, which brought recognition to the face of the tram driver.
He indicated to the lorry driver to sit down, the tram driver got back behind his controls and, twenty minutes later, indicated the Tenis stop. The lorry driver, full of gratitude, tried to offer money in the shape of U.S. $10 bills, much prized back in the day, but the tram driver wouldn't accept any payment, even though it was obvious he'd ended his shift for the day.
I'm adding this thread now parly as an antidote to numerous other comments over the years of unhelpful train and bus staff, some of them drivers, amongst the fewer comments of kind and unselfish staff helping, sometimes in a (potential) crisis, and also because it served as a reminder to me of a similar unselfish act performed in quite similar circumstances by a taxi driver to my wife and self in Moscow in 1974, when we became irretrievably lost on that city's Metro system.
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