vintage

[billyboy]

not exactly vintage, But some of the busses running on service over here have to be seen to be believed. Bald tyres and no handbrake are common. running at night with no tail lights, indicators or brake lights. Busses with large holes in the side where the rust won the day.
passengers riding on the roof. I have even seen a large live Goat with all four feet tethered to a roof rack on one bus. standing there like the lord of the glen he was.
Must try to get some pictures for you

[G-CPTN]

Again not quite the right location, but about twenty years ago a work colleague was sent 'out East' to investigate brake 'failures' on buses supplied by our company (CKD).
On his return we were keen to hear of his findings. For a couple of hours he sat speechless, shaking his head. Eventually we learned that the terrain was 'severe' with extremely long steep gradients. The passenger (and freight) loads greatly exceeded the design specification, but, in addition, because the operator had experienced brake-fade (not surprising given the overload and extended steep downgradients) he had fitted tanks to carry water which was piped to each wheel and discharged onto the brake drums in an attempt to cool the overheating brakes.

My colleague admitted that he just didn't know where to start as the logic involved by the operator was difficult to fault except that it resulted in the vehicle being grossly overloaded, even before the manner of driving (high speed and out of gear of course) was taken into consideration. How do you persuade the operator to half his GVW?

[billyboy]

On my last bus ride here, from Cagayan-de-oro to davao city, the bus would stop at some isolated spots for a while where children would place boulders under the wheels and coll the brake drums with a hose for a few pesos. the familys living that was. I noticed a small building to one of the shack and headed for it. when i came out there was a little girl waiting with her hand out so i gave her some money. that meant the rest of the queue would have to do the same. the little girl started to cry because she had too many coins to hold. I pointed to her house and she ran in and dumped the money on the table and hurried back out to collect more. think her family did well that day! Some of the other passengers gave me an odd look though