| Re: Bus in flames in central London - Great Portland Street, 31 July 2025 Posted by GBM at 05:33, 1st August 2025 |     |
petroleum & oil leaks....
Bus drivers don't look under the bonnet/boot lid.Not permitted to do so.
Yes, we check for detritus on the ground, and if seen, find the duty engineer/supervisor and report it.
We had a few busses which might (or usually might not) start from the cab. Daytime was an engineer callout.
They finished early evening, we then started the engine from the boot, and just logged it on the sheet.
Nothing was ever repaired/replaced.
| Re: Bus in flames in central London - Great Portland Street, 31 July 2025 Posted by grahame at 22:10, 31st July 2025 | |
petroleum & oil leaks....
Do buses run on petroleum? Thought most were diesel or, increasingly, electric.
Is diesel not a petroleum product?
However it's defined, I'm pretty sure the bus was running on a fossil fuel based fuel, and this is not the first time one of them has caught fire nor will it be the last.
Any vehicle which carries its own fuel store is going to be a fire risk - the fuel store is pent up energy waiting to get out in a controlled way, and if that control goes wrong you have a problem. Electric, petrol, diesel, gas, biogas, hydrogen, nuclear, duckweed. The method of providing the power is mentioned in the press if it is one of the less common fuels, thus creating an illusion in the public reading the articles that the alternative fuel is inherently more dangerous.
| Re: Bus in flames in central London - Great Portland Street, 31 July 2025 Posted by ChrisB at 20:07, 31st July 2025 | |
Is diesel not a petroleum product?
| Re: Bus in flames in central London - Great Portland Street, 31 July 2025 Posted by bobm at 20:02, 31st July 2025 | |
petroleum & oil leaks....
Do buses run on petroleum? Thought most were diesel or, increasingly, electric.
| Re: Bus in flames in central London - Great Portland Street, 31 July 2025 Posted by Chris from Nailsea at 19:47, 31st July 2025 | |
Daily 'start of shift' checks should identify any of those.
I know: I used to have to do them, every day for eleven years, until I retired.
| Re: Bus in flames in central London - Great Portland Street, 31 July 2025 Posted by ChrisB at 19:39, 31st July 2025 | |
petroleum & oil leaks....
| Bus in flames in central London - Great Portland Street, 31 July 2025 Posted by Chris from Nailsea at 18:27, 31st July 2025 | |
From the BBC:
Footage captured by the BBC London team shows a double decker bus on fire outside the Portland Hospital on Great Portland Street.
The number 88 bus was safely evacuated and there were no reported injuries. The cause of the fire is unknown.
London Fire Brigade brought the blaze, near Great Portland Street Tube station, under control by 07:00.
I have posed the question before, but how is it that buses are apparently so ... erm ... combustible?
