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Old November 24th 19, 10:55 AM posted to uk.railway,uk.transport.london
Anna Noyd-Dryver Anna Noyd-Dryver is offline
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First recorded activity at LondonBanter: Jan 2015
Posts: 355
Default Jobsworth driver

wrote:
On Sat, 23 Nov 2019 23:13:31 -0000
"NY" wrote:
"Charles Ellson" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 23 Nov 2019 12:34:10 +0000 (UTC), wrote:
It took me 4 days to learn to drive a bus - test on the 5th. And that
involves
having to actually steer the vehicle through narrow streets and around
parked
vehicles, not something train drivers have to worry about. So I reckon 2
or 3
days to learn to push a lever backwards and forwards and get a feel for
braking under different loads (no different to an HGV) and a few more
weeks for
for learning signals, basic trouble shooting and some routes. A month
tops.


What sort of vehicles had you driven before then? Were you already used to
driving anything larger than a standard Ford Cortina size of car?


Articulated HGV so I had a bit of a prior advantage.

Driving an ordinary car felt very weird afterwards - the steering wheel felt
so high up, when I'd got used to the elbows-resting-on-my-knees position for
steering the van.


Driving a lorry is like driving a large car for me. Driving a bus is wierd
however because you're about a meter in front of the steering wheels so you
have to leave turning movements later than feels normal.


Unless you're driving a half-cab or an Optare Solo

Bin lorries and some other specialist vehicles share the 'cab well forward'
position of a bus.


Anna Noyd-Dryver