Rail Replacements Services Are Enough To Send Anyone Off The Rails

Whenever you read about rail replacement coaches, it is rarely good news. Take the bus which took a wrong turn, last week. The finger was pointed at an over reliance of the sat nav - a familiar problem all motorists suffer from at some stage:

http://www.bucksfreepress.co.uk/news/8993987.Passengers_rescued_after_bus_gets_stuck_down_lane/

A Polish truck driver got stuck in my village the other day and had to spend the night with a local resident, while the police figured out how to get him out. A Polish truck driver got stuck in my village the other day and had to spend the night with a local resident, while the police figured out how to get him out.

I feel sorry for the driver. Not for the mistake he made, all us bus drivers have made them at some stage in our careers and have had to face the music for our stupidity. I am the best example of someone who has had his fair share of dents, bumps and being trapped in a place I shouldn't have been.

I feel sorry because he was on the wretched occupation of rail replacement buses in the first place. It is one of the most the most numbskullingly boring jobs I have ever done. Ignore the fact that it is lucrative for the bus company and well paid for the driver, in bus company terms. It involves hour upon hour of sitting around, usually in a school car park miles from the station, where you cannot go far from the bus, in case you are called to take a load of passengers down the railway line to all stations.

It's impossible to relax, as you are always in fear of being called. There is only so much you can say to the other waiting drivers. I am in the minority. The other drivers seem to take it all in their stride. Having pulled my hair out, plucked my eyebrows, I begin to count the hairs on the back of my hand.

Many of the routes are around low bridges and narrow lanes. There are easier ways of earning £7 an hour.

'Don't bother going down to that station,' said the only passenger I once had on the bus. 'It's so narrow you won't be able to turn around. Besides there won't be anyone there - there's only one passenger a week who goes from that station - and he works on the railways.'

A helpful passenger. far more helpful than the inadequate notes I had been given by the rail company. I was in luck. Usually passengers on rail replacement services are the last people you ask for help. They are in a bad mood because their journey has been interrupted and they have been evicted from their nice warm carriage onto a cold bus.

It's enough to send anyone off the rails.