I looked out of my window the other day and saw a light covering of snow. I couldn’t believe the news that schools were closed because of it.
When I ran Oldham depot in Greater Manchester in the late 1970s, heavy snow falls in winter were the norm. Most of my drivers and conductors, along with other staff, managed to get to work despite the conditions. School buses ran and only in the most extreme conditions did we fail to turn out.
Even in the early 1960s when I came into the industry, rarely did buses fail to run in bad weather. Drivers and conductors got on with the job despite having no heaters on their buses, all of which had open rear entrances.
Drivers stuffed newspaper down their socks to minimise the effects of cold draughts in the cab, while conductors wore gloves with the finger ends cut out so that they could still operate ticket machines.
Platform staff wore greatcoats to keep themselves warm while Oxo cubes were handed out so that staff could have hot, nourishing drinks. The best that a driver could hope for in terms of technical aid was an annual issue of a demister cloth. And if visibility was poor, the cab windscreen could be opened to an angle of 90 degrees, giving the driver an open view of the way ahead without the protection of a glass screen!
In foggy conditions, Manchester’s buses displayed the word ‘FOG’ on the intermediate destination blinds. An old colleague suggested that it was a way of indicating to intending passengers why a bus was late where the presence of fog wasn’t quite so apparent. A neat marketing trick, perhaps?
And in foggy weather it wasn’t unusual for a conductor to walk in front of the bus holding a torch to guide the driver safely along.
I love the apocryphal story of a passenger in Stalybridge who offered to help in this way and when the bus arrived at its terminus, the driver said to the conductor “What a nice chap it was who guided me through the fog”. The conductor sheepishly replied, “He was, wasn’t he. I feel awful – I charged him his fare.”
My wife told me of a time that her bus to Shadsworth High School, Blackburn, was stuck in a snowdrift and all the children got off and walked the rest of the way to school.
When they arrived, all the teachers and school staff had made it and life went on as usual. Well I’m pretty sure that staff employed by bus companies still get to work in the worst conditions even at 0500hrs which means that they are around to get children to and from school. So, why does the snow of today close schools so readily?
