And yet another adventure

[daidoji_gisei]

Friday's big adventure happened early: about 6:34 am, in fact.

I had just gotten on the bus downtown when the driver calmly mentioned that he was having trouble with the transmission and would be shutting down the bus and restarting it. I have no idea why this is supposed to help the transmission, but I'll admit my ignorance is vast on the subject of diesel-powered buses. I sat down and patiently crocheted while waiting for the bus to get moving again. After a minute of the driver messing around with various bus things, he picks up his radio and calmly tells dispatch that they need to send out a replacement bus because the one he has won't start. Being clever, I immediately deduced that I was not going to make my downtown connection. This was slightly annoying but it wasn't like there was anything I could do about it and thus no real reason to get upset. In the end it only took them about 15 minutes to get us a replacement bus so I was able to catch the next bus south and got to work only a half-hour late.

When I told Tara what had happened, she wondered out loud how one went about towing a bus. My guess then was that they would hook it up to another bus, but on reflection I am wondering if that is really needed. Buses are built to roll, after all, and so as long as the wheels were operational a heavy-duty tow truck might be all one would need. I can't quite picture hoisting up the front wheels the way they do it with cars, though. Wouldn't they be prone to breaking in the middle? Maybe I'll ask a bus driver, the next time I get stuck with a chatty one.

Comments

transmissions

[mirumototsubasa.livejournal.com]

Seeing as I'm having transmission issues myself right now, I've learned some things about them! Like, some are connected to the electronic scanner things in the vehicle, so when the scanner reads that something is wrong (Like low pressure due to a fluid leak, or a busted gear.) the computer automatically sets it to default mode, which in my case is 3rd gear. I dunno with buses. This is fine for limping along to get the problem fixed, but not so good for driving down a street, and stopping and starting back up. However, shutting the engine down and restarting reboots the computer, so that the transmission can once again work as normally as possible.

I'm sure there are much clearer and more technically correct explanations, but that's about what I know. *grin*

Re: transmissions

[daidoji-gisei.livejournal.com]

That makes sense. Thank you for the information!