Although I live only three miles outside of the city limits of Wiesbaden.....there's only two city bus routes that run through my village. I'm kind of familiar with both....knowing the limitations of getting into town, and catching the right bus back to my village.
From Monday of this week....one of these bus lines had a bus making the trip out of the city, and was almost at the city limits (leaving town), when an strange event happened. Somewhere around 5PM.....this bus that I would normally take.....oddly enough....smoke is filling the back of the bus. Yeah....I'm guessing that some folks yelled at the driver, and he gazes back. He's probably looking back and forth, and then some burning smell reaches his noise.
The driver then makes this decision....getting it to a safe point, throwing all the doors opening and yelling 'evacuation' to everyone. The later buses in the day are usually packed, and there's probably at least sixty people on the double-bus.
They all get out, and the bus is engulfed in flames shortly after that. The fire department arrives and puts some foam over it but the bus has mostly burned up on the interior, and it's not ever going to return to service. Couple of folks end up at the hospital with smoke issues, but overall.....they were pretty lucky at the reaction by the driver.
So by Thursday afternoon.....the Lord Mayor of Wiesbaden and the Chief of the bus company met up with the driver, and presented him with 'thanks' and some flowers.
Yeah.....'thanks' and some flowers. That's it.
No gold watch. No fancy French pen. No week of extra leave. Just some 'thanks' and flowers.
Maybe I'm thinking more of the old days and how you'd normally try to honor some guy.....and maybe in this case.....the guy just did his duty, and this hearty handshake is sufficient. Plus it means there's one less bus in the depot, and the guy might be worried on downsizing. It's hard to say.
On the positive side? At least the guy pulled over. In a number of countries....which I won't name.....it would have taken another three minutes before the smoke was bad enough and driver would finally stop.
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