For many persons born in Guyana within the last three decades, the concept of riding in a big yellow bus is a foreign one and if you were to ask if they knew about the blue buses that traversed the rural routes, they would stare at you agog.
Long before the 70s, yellow buses were all the rage and many persons who would have been on them can fondly recollect on their presence at the Stabroek Market and throughout Georgetown.
One such person is Albert Bacchus who actually dealt with the big buses hands-on during his time with Motor Transport. Bacchus began working with the company in 1969 and left in 1985. During his time, he worked his way up from a mechanic to a senior mechanic, then a foreman to an assistant superintendent and finally superintendent.
He explained to Stabroek News that, as a foreman, he had to have a licence to drive the buses and had attended to breakdowns and repairs countless times as part of his job.
For Bacchus, the yellow bus service was the ‘golden age’ for public transportation in Guyana.
“In those days there were scheduled runs,” he stated. “In different areas there would be a route and the route would have timings. That way you know for sure every hour in a particular area you would get a bus passing through there,” he added.
Though most of his time was spent under the buses doing maintenance work, Bacchus fondly remembered the times he would spend on the bus – well, something like that.
“Being a staff, we never used to pay to go into the vehicles; we would just ride on the foothold so