The perils and pitfalls of becoming a  P C V  licence  holder

After a long and sometimes happy career fixing broken computers it was time to find something less demanding to ease me into my dotage. What could be more natural for a life long bus spotter than to become a bus driver?

Making that decision was the easy part of the process!

First there was the small matter of my driving licence . I hadn’t needed to show it to anybody for years, so I had no idea where the piece of paper might be. An unexpected change of address while the application form was at Swansea complicated even the simple task of replacing the document.

Armed at last with my shiny new photo-card licence I presented myself on a fine October morning at Beeline’s Bracknell depot for a driving assessment. Chief instructor Peter Moore, a stalwart of the old school who cut his teeth on Greenline RTs out of Windsor garage, conducted proceedings as formally as a real driving test in complete silence apart from giving route directions. To my great relief he decided that the way I drove the company Ford Fiesta (!) indicated that I might be bus driver material.

The medical was next with red carpet service as a private patient in the company GPs surgery. Passed fit it was back to Coldborough House to sign forms including an indemnity that I would pay £90 per day for my training if I failed to complete the course and £500 if I left the company’s employ within the first year! Time to hand over my licence with the ink barely dry and settle down to another wait for a big brown envelope from Swansea.

	At last it was time to be reunited with an old friend
	GUW470W formerly LS470 on 607Express

When I used to ride LS470 on 607Express along the Uxbridge Road I never dreamed that one day I would be sat in her driving seat with my future happiness depending on my ability to drive her. I’d driven VRTs, Nationals and Mercedes bread vans round the yard in the dark at Milton Keynes Citybus' Winterhill Depot in 1987, but nothing can prepare you for the sensation of driving a full size bus on the public highway. Peter Moore’s theory lesson about positioning the bus by looking at the sides in the mirrors did little to salve the optical illusion that the white line in the middle of the road was disappearing between my feet and as for the feeling when you maneuver round a roundabout for the first time! Only first hand experience can convey the sheer culture shock of it all.

	It was dark when I drove these			& when I took this for a spin
	The 1st generation of Milton Keynes Mercedes minibuses			MK Citybus Leyland National in the Bus Station
		RM16 lived in preservation at Milton Keynes' Winterhill depot (now disused!) for many years and and is the one that got away, as it is still my unfulfilled ambition to drive a Routemaster
	©Peter Wright

You may know that like most UK driving tests the PVC test has a theory section for which the pass certificate must be shown to the examiner before the practical test begins. The test is 35 questions from a book of over 2500, based on a mixture of common sense, the latest Highway Code and PCV law. For matters related to driving tests Beeline use the delegate examiner employed by CentreWest. This meant that my theory test was at Alperton Bus Garage on 26^th November 2001 and I passed with 34 out of the 35 after changing one of my correct answers on the third read through.

	Get details of driving tests and other information from
	The Driving Standards Agency			MCW Double Deckers at Alperton

Due to the age of the bus and the winter weather we had one or two reliability problems with poor old 470. Not everybody gets live instruction on motorway breakdown proceedure but the junction of the A329M and the M4 (Junction 10) at 5 o'clock in the evening is not a good place to find you have no forward gears - only reverse.

A National MkI reallocated from Provincial (UPO443T) was available as an alternative, but suffered from its own wear and tear plus the fact that the instructors all hated it for being old and tatty. There was also the minus point that it had a pre-selector gearbox so every gear change required a movement of the stick but with no clutch pedal it only qualified the driver for an automatic licence. For all its alleged faults I thought it quite a nice bus to drive. An MCW double decker DAE510W was borrowed from Southampton but blew its exhaust on the second day of driving. If the mystery photographer who snapped the bus at the Met Office Roundabout on, I think it was 17^th  December 2001, can be traced I would love a copy of the picture with me driving.

	A preserved Leyland National MkI
	How our bus could have looked with lots of  T L C

While all this bus swapping was going on a lot of time was spent route learning, not a bad job being paid to ride round on buses all day taking notes! Peter Moore was called away to other training matters and handed over driving instruction to Malcolm Coleman another very experienced bus man who had also had his own business as a driving instructor.

Trails and tribulations weathered 470 and I presented ourselves to delegate examiner Dave Williams at Greenford Depot on Tuesday 8^th  January 2002 and after the longest 40 minutes of my life I was rewarded with a pass certificate – a full PVC licence! A last two easy days of route learning followed before I was introduced on Friday 11^th  to Ian Bradley who was to be my Driver Trainer and teach me all I needed to know about carrying passengers and collecting fares, starting with an introduction to the Wayfarer machine.

Malcolm Coleman’s last task was to type train me on Saturday 12^th . He said I was like a dog with two tails (cleaned up from what he actually said!) as I was confronted with a yard full of buses and asked "Which one would you like to drive next?"

It was dark and cold when I reported for work at 06:12 on Monday 14^th January 2002 ready to join Ian on N^o. 11 duty, starting with the first bus on service 155 at 06:45. Over the next few days - under Ian’s expert guidance I took to the job like the proverbial duck to water until by close of play on Wednesday 23^rd Ian announced that I didn’t need him anymore – I was a fully fledged bus driver!

To see more pictures and comments about Beeline go to Bus Zone

	Route 154 passes through older estates with narrow roads			Seting off from Camberly to Reading			Low floor Scanias are first choice for Bracknell town services
	DW108 in the yard at Bracknell			Northern Counties bodied Scania No.815			821 leaves Slough on the now abandoned 190 Sunday service

My first solo "flight" was again on the 155 departing Bracknell Bus Station at 09:35 on Thursday 24^th . By luck or design Malcolm Coleman and 470 were there to wave me off and witness my trademark mistake – forgetting to select drive before releasing the hand brake

In March 2002 an opportunity arose to move to Bristol so I made arrangements to transfer to Badgerline based out of the Bristol Country Bus Station at Marlborough Street Bristol, thus avoiding the £500 penalty for not staying with Beeline for a whole year. Various factors mainly contained in a Volvo gearbox prevented me actually driving for Badgerline.

	A training bus too far !			The Badgeline trainer based at Weston-super-Mare
	C159TLF - Volvo B9M-46 Plaxton C43F			Formerly operated by Durbins Coaches

There is no photographic evidence to support the claim, but I did manage a couple tours round Bristol in one of Cityline’s oldest Leyland Olympians for a running day held in the city centre on Easter Sunday 2002. I am now happily plying my trade round Bristol International Airport, but that, as they say, is another story.

© Martin G. Layton 2003

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