Buses and Trains

To get away from Fizzy’s national concerns, I’d just like to touch on a subject Fizzy covered a few weeks ago and this is my continuing irritation with bus travel and while I’m here the trains too. Not enough that buses are often erratic in their timing, I just watched three 40s come down Maryhill Road in a virtual funeral procession or the prices get stuck up for no good reason it seems that every bus past 10pm has to have some near fight on it.

For weeks now nearly all every 62, 66 or 40 bus I get out of town has some sort of incident on it from your clichéd ned telling a daft looking heavy metal boy “Your bird’s mouth has just got you in a lot of bother,” to other clichéd neds asking “who wants it?” I’m constantly sick of having to look out the corner of my eye for something kicking off or having to sit for twenty minutes while the driver waits for the police to arrive. What is it about this part of the world and buses?

Last night I had to assist in forcibly throwing someone off the bus. After threatening to report the driver for some imagined indiscretion an obviously mental middle aged punter was holding us all up by refusing to be chipped off the bus, so me and another punter assisted him. He seemed to be plotting some kind of revolt against the driver and hoped to recruit the other 4 passengers on the bus. It was not to be for him.

If it wasn’t for the fact that I had to get the bus into this worthless job of a morning I’d go back to the trains in a shot. Even although they’ve slapped in their gate system at Queen Street, making out that they’re doing us all a good turn and clamping down on the handful of folk who skip their fare by irritating the rest of us. While using that cracking phrase, ‘revenue protection.’ The word ‘protection’ implying that they are experiencing some sort of attack on their finances and they now, poor defenseless them, they’ve had to take this drastic measure. If I’ve turned up in time to buy a ticket and there’s no manned ticket desk, then there’s no one on the train to sell me one, why when I have arrived at my destination in time, should I be forced to join a queue to pay for a journey I’ve just completed? I have no problem with queuing before my journey but after my journey has ended is cutting into my time. So to sum up it would appear that public transport is a nightmare, no matter what means you use.