Hi Guys,I have never driven any bus either North or South but I know from driving a car without power steering that a bus would not be easy to drive withput power steering, and as Dan rightly said you would have arms like Popeye when youre finished!!
What I dont understand is why werent the Bristols fitted with Power steering from the start? Sure CIE were building Standard Atlantean D's back in 1966 and even they had power steering!! And what year are the Bristols? 1977 mostly I think.
Also on someone else's point about the public image impact of Translinks use of 20+ year old buses is that CIE for many years were using buses 15+ years old plus and that did them no favours PR wise, I remember many a time a rattly Vanhool D would have most OAP's holding onto the handrail for dear life they would jump 'n' jerk so much (and they would make sure to give the poor driver a right grilling after), now having said that times have changed economically over the last 10 years in the ROI and we now have a nice fleet of lowfloor AV's but there are some old rattly RH's still around from 1990, but overall the fleet isnt too bad.
BUT, give Translink a chance to buy new buses, "Rome wasnt built in a day"...
Your comments please,
Mark Phipps.