Re: Footscray pix

-Murph,Forsythe,the God of Large[Green and Cream]Things.PB.PS.Depot
Starters have Cabins,certainly not Offices.-- In
TramsDownUnder@y..., "IS Edit" <bobmurphy2@c...> wrote:

No.

It's been gone for years.

And so has the old depot starter's shack, the one that used to get

hit by runaway buses.

It ended up with more fences around it than Fort Knox to try to

protect it.

The whole yard sloped downhill to the front, except where the old

tracks went right under the building.

All the AEC Mk VIs were parked facing downhill towards Buckley

Street. When you'd pull in you'd drive through the west lane of the
bus wash and loop around and park, then kill the engine and take a
hike.

The Mk VIs had an automatic Wilson self-changing gearbox, a

mechanical parking brake, and door interlocks on both doors, a bad
combination. There was no way to leave it parked in gear.

Sometimes the drivers would forget to apply the handbrake because

as they parked the bus, they opened the door, the brakes came on, and
off they went after grabbing their outfits.

The bus would eventually run out of air, you'd hear a "click" as

the brakes released and if the bus was the first one in the rank, off
she would roll. There was an Armco railing the full width of the
front of the yard to keep the buses from rolling into Buckley Street.

I was walking back to pay in one night after filling out

the "grizzle sheet" and heard that click and a bus started to roll.
It was slow enough for me to run around and jump in the door and pull
on the handbrake, but...

Twenty minutes later I heard a bang and went outside and another

bus back in the rank had let go and bashed the one in front of it.

All modern buses have fail safe parking brakes. They come on when

the air pressure drops.

Footscray Depot could be a lot of fun in the old days because the

place was so tacky and run down that no prissy people went there. And
you didn't see people from Head Office there, often.

I bought AEC Regal Mk III No. 350 which was my favourite bus at the

depot and used to drive it to work on rainy days (otherwise bicycle).
I had to park it up the top with the other Mk IIIs because it
couldn't fit in the employees car park. Funny thing. I never had to
fuel or wash that bus. And it only got used for a transport bus to
the Footscray relief point half a dozen times by other drivers who
didn't look closely before they drove away.

The day before I took it to Sydney with my then wife and kids, two

44 gallon drums full of fuel magically appeared inside, and the bus
got a full service. I liked the mechanics at Footscray.

And some North Fitzroy Mk IV that ventured to Footscray for

the "female wash" pull-in lost its 12 cfm compressor to 350 and got a
9 cfm in return. I didn't even know they fitted on the same mounts.

Bob Murphy


----- Original Message -----
From: Malcolm Miles
To: TramsDownUnder@y...
Sent: Thursday, March 07, 2002 12:00 AM
Subject: Re: [TramsDownUnder] Footscray pix


On Wed, 6 Mar 2002 21:23:02 +1100 (EST), you wrote:

>The pic of the depot was taken in '64.
>I can hear the AEC half cab fraternity breathing
>heavily already!

Is the depot building still standing?

--
Best wishes,
Malcolm

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