Yeah, I know that the Edinburgh red buses are not strictly red in colour more like maroon, but if ye live in Edinburgh, everybody calls them red buses. This distinguishes them from the green buses, which tend to travel to more outlying rural areas.
Oot o aw the red buses, the one that I have the fondest memories o is the number 42 bus. This was a braw bus. Bobrob & me could catch this bus just at the corner o oor street & it took us aw where. We normally walked doon tae Alien Orders bit to muck aboot wi him, but sometimes we just hopped on the 42 & for a few pence got a wee run doon the road.
Then me & bobrob used tae get the 42 oan a Saturday doon to ma Gran's at Craigentinny. Once there we mucked aboot wi ma cousins, going doon tae Porty, Seafield, the Golfy, Porty Dump, The George Picturehoose & plenty o other places.
A good thing aboot the 42 was that it's route was a circle. This meant that if it was a cold or rainy day, if ye kept yer eyes open when ye were waiting oan the 42, if one wasnae coming from one direction you could sometimes git it goin the other way. So if you left Porty near the Toon Hall you could git it going roond Duddingston, doon past the Kings Buildings & then up Causewayside, rather than up Marionville Road, along London Road, roond St Andrews Square & then up the Mound & hame.
Also, on yon auld red buses, wi the driver & the conductor, you could sometimes skive yer fare & spend the cash oan sweeties or comics. Braw!
Aye, I have fond memories of the auld red buses. They were our way of getting a wee bit of freedom to cross the city & explore other remote (or so it seemed to us back in the day) areas. And the 42 bus was only one of many. The 41 was a great bus too, but yon's another tale for another day!
Bobrob & me tried to get a 42 bus aboot a year or so ago to revisit auld haunts. We stood for ages at the 42 bus stop, till we discovered that it still existed, but it didnae go anywhere near the auld route it used tae take. So we ended up having to take another bus tae Porty instead. Just no the same!
Cheers!
Arkos
