Trivia: What things don't you see on buses these days?

[Statto]

Doors open to pull out at junctions etc.

Quite often in fine weather, doors would remain open throughout the service, which you don't have now

 

[Fokx]

[QUOTE="Bletchleyite, post: 4962618, member: 27187”]
Still get those on some Arriva buses in MK.
[/QUOTE]

That is true but the more larger ones as seen on say a Plaxton Pointer or Wright Endurance or Alexander PS are now non-existent.

The ones that are fitted to most buses post 2000 barely fit much more than a Metro newspaper box

 

[Non Multi]

Fresnel (wide angle) lens on the rear window.
Hand painted all-over adverts.
Billowing thick clouds of grey exhaust smoke when starting up.
4 piece folding doors.
Roll up blind behind the driver.
Wire overhead luggage racks.
Black grab poles.
Becoming rare: Split front windscreens.

 

[TheSel]

Open top buses in service under the wires of Sheffield (Stagecoach) Supertram network.

To be fair, South Yorkshire police quickly suggested this practice should cease.


Northern Counties bodied Daimler Fleetline '222WFM' - formerly Southdown, Crosville and Crosville Wales TCD375J - on City Road, Sheffield, working service 216 to Dinnington, under the 'Supertram' wires.

 

[PG]

Sliding ventilators - all hopper windows nowadays.

 

[py_megapixel]

TV screens mounted behind the stairs on the upper deck showing CCTV footage. If there's a screen mounted there now on a new bus it's almost certainly showing route information from the PIS instead.

 

[Typhoon]

Staff with peaked caps that made them look like they had authority.

Windows you wound open (I don't know their technical name) - London

Roof Top boxes - London

 

[Non Multi]

Sliding ventilators - all hopper windows nowadays.

Not quite, the NBfL/New Routemaster has sliding ones. The original design omitted opening windows altogether, and had to be retrofitted after gaining a reputation for being sweatboxes in the summer months.

----------
Corporation crests.
Liveries with a pinstriped border.
Flip dot (Hannover) displays.

 

[MotCO]

Tickets? In London and some other towns, flat fares only require contactless cards to pay to enter.
The white band saying "Private" when LT open platform buses were not in service.
The red 'STOP' flag which dropped from the cab ceiling when the engine was switched off.
Pre-selective gear boxes.
Indicator ears.
Comfortable (deep) seats.
Air operated pantographic wipers.

 

[PeterC]

Leeds City transport used to have fare tables when fares went up like that.

Remember being on a Pennine bus and someone sent a basket of hens as a parcel. So we did our ride with the noise of hens!

Bus lights turned off when it wasnt dark. they seem to be on all the time these days. why?

Boxes of day old chicks on Crossville buses in Wales.

 

[Roilshead]

The "hut man", armed equipped with a mirror on the end of a long pole, who used to board Citybus vehicles as they entered the central security cordon in Belfast to check for explosive devices under seats. The short horizontal yellow line painted on the outside of Citybus vehicles at floor-line, to allow Army snipers to position their shots at the correct height when detonating explosive devices - Werner Heubeck, in his Tyrolean hat, carrying explosive devices off "his" buses. Burned-out or burning buses being used as road-blocks by "the organisations"/criminal elements - armed men in balaclavas boarding buses and ordering "everybody off, now". Soldiers, customs, police, and Garda, boarding cross-border services at crossing-points - UDR and RUC, full-stop.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Open top buses in service under the wires of Sheffield (Stagecoach) Supertram network.

I'm rather intrigued by the idea that anywhere in Sheffield would be touristy enough for such a service! I like it as a city, but it's hardly Windermere.

 

[py_megapixel]

I'm rather intrigued by the idea that anywhere in Sheffield would be touristy enough for such a service! I like it as a city, but it's hardly Windermere.

It always astonishes me that anybody chooses BigBus London over a journey on a red AEC Routemaster (you know - one of the things the city is famous for!) when you consider that both are configured to run past many of the major sights.
But they do, clearly...

 

[randyrippley]

Overhead luggage racks
Rear-end luggage boots
Boxes of flowers for delivery to florists en-route
Car parts for delivery to garages en-route (Hutchings & Cornelius were owned by Vincents, a BMC/Leyland main dealer)

 

[PG]

Overhead luggage racks
Rear-end luggage boots
Boxes of flowers for delivery to florists en-route
Car parts for delivery to garages en-route (Hutchings & Cornelius were owned by Vincents, a BMC/Leyland main dealer)

Alexander's used to convey (hopefully empty) coffins at one time, signified by a knock on the cab window and 'parcel in the boot, driver'.

 

[ANDREW_D_WEBB]

Cash on TfL services.

 

[py_megapixel]

Cash on TfL services.

Honestly most city centre services now people seem to have switched to contactless cards or ITSO

 

[busken]

Open top buses in service under the wires of Sheffield (Stagecoach) Supertram network.

To be fair, South Yorkshire police quickly suggested this practice should cease.

View attachment 89191
Northern Counties bodied Daimler Fleetline '222WFM' - formerly Southdown, Crosville and Crosville Wales TCD375J - on City Road, Sheffield, working service 216 to Dinnington, under the 'Supertram' wires.

I always wondered how safe Bournemouth open top double deck trolleybuses were.

 

[Class465pacer]

In London:
Double deckers with centre staircases
Ticket machines at stops

Very common in the 2000s, now non-existent

 

[Class45]

Honesty boxes. I remember these on Luton Corporation buses in the 1960s. If the conductor didn't get round to you, you were supposed to put your fare in the box as you left the bus. There was also a used ticket box.

 

[DunsBus]

The paper windscreen stickers used by SBG companies, which continued to be used by SMT and Lowland until the late-90s.

 

[PG]

The paper windscreen stickers used by SBG companies, which continued to be used by SMT and Lowland until the late-90s.

Bluebird and Strathtay were still using them in the early 2000's.

 

[jonesy3001]

Metro newspapers, seen the racks on the buses but no papers or is it because of the coronavirus they're not on the buses.

 

[GCRS]

Open top buses in service under the wires of Sheffield (Stagecoach) Supertram network.

To be fair, South Yorkshire police quickly suggested this practice should cease.

View attachment 89191
Northern Counties bodied Daimler Fleetline '222WFM' - formerly Southdown, Crosville and Crosville Wales TCD375J - on City Road, Sheffield, working service 216 to Dinnington, under the 'Supertram' wires.

Sorry to wander off topic but I worked on this bus and its sisters back in the early 90's. I assumed they'd all have long gone off to be scrapped by now. It's nice to see that the name Happy Dragon has stuck with this one.

 

[Surreyman]

gear levers

 

[Bristol LHS]

Nearside staircases, which were a feature of 2/3 of the PTE buses when I was growing up in Tyne and Wear.

Carpet on interior walls and ceilings, which seemed to be a thing on breadvans.

 

[ta-toget]

All this is fairly recent (last year or two).

[…]
- Luggage Pens
- Bench seating
[…]
- Periscopes that you could look down and see the drivers head

As has been mentioned up-thread, I've still seen luggage pens on Arriva. And bench seating I've seen (and possibly ridden on), but that's on a local operator with older buses. And I've been on the upper deck of buses (old-ish, but not the oldest) that still had a periscope, though most have cameras these days (and most that had enough for a double pre-COVID only had a single…).

People standing at the front talking to the driver.

I've seen that while the bus is driving along.

Thinking about it I don't recall seeing the 'passengers must not' notice immediately behind the drivers cab on any of my recent journeys.

IIRC it used to read:

• Stand forward of this notice
• Speak to or otherwise distract the driver while the vehicle is in motion
• Leave luggage in any gangway

I'm case anyone trips/falls and then attempts to claim that the bus company were at fault because they couldn't see as the lights were turned off...
Sadly this is true, we can't expect anyone to be responsible for themselves Actually scrub that as the lights can help disabled folk to see.

I seem to remember that over the water (Irish sea) CIE had the no smoking area at the rear of the bus, the opposite of standard UK practice.

I've still seen those notices on buses.

 

[TR673]

Piece of card placed in a slot on the front of the dashboard (or somewhere in the windscreen) that contained additional route information which wasn't on the front blind. Nottingham City Transport used them in the early years of 'Go2' (early-mid 00s) and I think Trent/Barton had them around the same time too. Electronic blinds that could switch between the destination and via points pretty much killed the little windscreen cards off, but they did help when a generic liveried vehicle appeared on, say, a yellow line route so it had a yellow card in the windscreen.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Piece of card placed in a slot on the front of the dashboard (or somewhere in the windscreen) that contained additional route information which wasn't on the front blind. Nottingham City Transport used them in the early years of 'Go2' (early-mid 00s) and I think Trent/Barton had them around the same time too. Electronic blinds that could switch between the destination and via points pretty much killed the little windscreen cards off, but they did help when a generic liveried vehicle appeared on, say, a yellow line route so it had a yellow card in the windscreen.

Lothian used to use those until very recently, may still do.

 

[Megafuss]

Given they have went to Smartcard, you don't see the sticky part of Megarider wallets holding bits of Stagecoach buses together these days