Western Greyhound 501

[whole diary]

[chrisoates]

Western Greyhound seem to get to run a lot of routes that 'First' don't want - the 501 - it's really the 547 but the software hasn't been updated - runs from St Ives to Newquay up the north coast and is a really lovely ride on a summer day as it hugs the coast all the way up.
Did some coast hugging today but the drizzle was so thick I couldn't see much - Hell's Mouth was still scary though.
All was well, if a little obscured, until we nearly reached Perranporth where the bus ran out of diesel......

An hour to kill I ate my pasty and watched a movie on my MP3 player (isn't modern life wonderful).

I've never had public transport fail for lack of fuel before - did have an HST^▸ (High Speed Train (Inter City class 43 125 units)) fail for lack of coolant at Truro though.
 
 

[inspector_blakey]

I've heard various anecdotes about fuel gauges on BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) diesels of "modernization plan" (and possibly later) vintage sticking and luring train crews into a false sense of security! And come to think of it, I'm sure there was a spectacular SNAFU^▸ (Situation Normal: All Fouled Up (I have toned down the F word)) a few years ago that involved a class 33-hauled railtour running out of fuel somewhere in darkest Norfolk and having to be refuelled from a tractor, although I can't find any of the news articles right now.

In fact, the only time an HST^▸ (High Speed Train (Inter City class 43 125 units)) has ever sat down on me in service was a problem with one of the tones of the horn on the front powercar being stuck on, necessitating the set being turned on the triangle at Didcot (and no doubt spoiling many of the locals' lie-ins as well, seeing as it was bright and early on a Sunday morning...)