Meanwhile in Shropshire ...

Col_Decker

Bus Spotters?

 

BUS SPOTTERS?

 

 

 

Phil_aka_Pip

Strange isn't it. I knew a chap once who liked buses so much that he bought Rover tickets to travel on all the routes he could during his spare time. He wasn't autistic, and was to all intents and purposes completely "normal", except for his enthusiasm for buses.

EricTheWeary

I used to know someone who had a compulsive thing with busses and he had memorised the entire West Midlands bus timetable. He was a long term psychiatric patient ( I was working at the hospital) and never went on a bus so it was useless information to him although useful and surprisingly accurate if you asked him how to get somewhere.  

RocknRollDave

Ah, the bus timetable...a superior work of comedy fiction if ever there was one.

Phil_aka_Pip

RocknRollDave said:

Ah, the bus timetable...a superior work of comedy fiction if ever there was one.

Even better than rail timetables

4string

And the headline in the Shropshire Star just about sums up the place. Left at 19, and found that there was a world literally and metaphorically outside my home town... 

EricTheWeary

RocknRollDave said:

Ah, the bus timetable...a superior work of comedy fiction if ever there was one.

when I was regularly catching the bus into Birmingham city centre ( only earlier this year) the bus companies had abandoned the idea of a timetable for quite a lot of services, just replacing it with an approximate frequency. For example, if a bus is due on average every 20 minutes if 3 turn up together once an hour then they weren't fibbing.
However, after that teenage girl was murdered on the bus on the route I took I gravitated toward the train instead.

Grunfeld

Ah bus obesssives... here's a tale:

My son hadn't been at school for too long when the teachers were wondering whether he was somewhere on the autistic spectrum -- it's unusual for 5 year olds to be doing sums with square roots and so on.  And he was totally absorbed by the registrations and serial numbers of buses... there are books of these things you know, and he had several and he would study them all the time.  Sure, he liked stories about bears and stuff, but if you wanted to know what model bus was introduced into which UK fleets in such-and-such a year, he knew.

For the longest time this was his favourite song:



So it was kind of no surprise when, now 20, he went into a particular occupation.

And about three weeks ago  I got a wonderful text full of excitement which basically said, “Hey guess what, you know my favourite bus in my bus book, the LN 407B* the first of the 1987 low loading double deckers, on page 6 -- well, I've just found out that it's here, it's been fully restored, and I'M DRIVING IT!!  :-)  “

Just for the record he's not autistic, he's just really, really into buses!  :-)



* I can't remember what number it was because I'm not a bus freak

gilby

After a six year stint, I'm leaving Shropshire next week. Think you'll understand why now.

Col_Decker

Oh you can never leave. Never.

Phil_aka_Pip

Col_Decker said:

Oh you can never leave. Never.

Is Royston Vasey in Shropshire?

RocknRollDave

Great story!

Col_Decker

Phil_aka_Pip said:

Col_Decker said:

Oh you can never leave. Never.

Is Royston Vasey in Shropshire?

I like to think there's a bit of Royston in all of us

 

 

scrumhalf

250,000 photos by two people in three years?

That's 114 photos each per day.

A tad excessive?

VimFuego

I did my army basic training just outside of Royston (no vasey tho, but it's not far off it).

holnrew

I don't get bus spotters. Trains are far cooler.

mike_l

VimFuego said:

I did my army basic training just outside of Royston (no vasey tho, but it's not far off it).

Bassingbourn barracks?

Funnily when dad was in the RAF he did his Canberra course there....

mike_l

Question of the day has to be, why is Decker one of the blokes in the picture?

Unless he's a bus spotter