Among all the fascinating facts regarding London’s famous public transportation, one particular instance appears a bit too extraordinary to be believable.
A few days post-Christmas 1952, a London bus leapt the chasm between the two halves of the roadway on Tower Bridge as it began to ascend.
If a similar occurrence happened today, it could easily be misconstrued as a marketing ploy.
However, for driver Albert Gunter, it was essentially a question of survival.
His number 78 bus was heading north on the southern bascule of the bridge when it began to rise.
‘It felt like the roadway in front of me was vanishing,’ Mr. Gunter recounted later.
In those times, a gatekeeper was expected to sound a warning bell to indicate the bridge was clear, after which another guard would instruct its elevation.
However, on December 30th, 1952, this procedure malfunctioned, leaving Mr. Gunter with a daunting dilemma: halt the bus and trust that someone would notice before it began to slide backward, or proceed onward.
‘I realized the section we were on was ascending. It was terrifying,’ he stated in a discussion a few weeks after the event.
‘I believed we had to continue onward, or we might be thrown into the river. So I pressed the accelerator.’
His rapid decision-making enabled the bus to reach the northern bascule, despite achieving a speed of only 12 mph.
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The horizontal gap was not particularly wide since the northern bascule had not yet started to rise, yet the vertical drop was around six feet.
Twelve of the twenty passengers aboard sustained minor injuries, while Mr. Gunter sustained a leg fracture.
Meanwhile, the bus experienced no significant damage aside from a broken suspension spring.
Peter Dunn, a boy who was on the bus, noted he hadn’t sensed anything unusual until ‘there was a loud crashing noise and I was thrown to the ground,’ according to a statement published by the City Bridge Foundation.
According to Peter, Mr. Gunter told the astonished passengers that his background as a wartime tank driver gave him the assurance that the bus could make the leap.
Mr. Gunter was compensated with a day off and £10 (equivalent to about £360 today).
When asked how he would spend the money, he responded: ‘Five for me, and five for the wife.’
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