Thursday 9 March 2017

Over she goes?

 

With double-decker buses increasingly appearing on Auckland streets, this famous picture seems topical again: British engineers proving to worried passengers that these new-fangled and very much narrower buses than ours were not a tipping hazard.

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[Hat tip British Life in Pictures 1940 to 1980]

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

While the old buses like this had terrific stability, I'm not sure that the modern buses do. The Routemaster, for instance, had specifically designed lightweight horsehair seating, and special thing light handrails etc, meaning that the upper floor really was very light - but now, steel sections etc are much more bulky and likely to adversely affect the weight of the upper floor. I reckon that modern double deckers might fall off the scales well before the angle shown above....

MarkT said...

That picture's not very convincing for me. Stationary is one thing, moving at speed is another. Higher centre of gravity must mean it tips over easier. Statistics even show the tipping risk is significantly higher for an SUV over a sedan.

Anonymous said...

Methinks the tautness of the rear rope might have helped stability in this case