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As Richard licks away on his ice cream... DaC driver’s TX2 catches fire! |
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 Richard’s cab alight on the A13 |
 Richard a few days later talking to Call Sign |
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Richard Payne
(O80) is a very lucky man. While bowling
merrily along the A13 recently in his ‘55’ plated TX2, he suddenly
noticed smoke pouring through the dash air vents! "I knew it wasn’t good news," Richard told Call Sign, recalling the hair-raising experience in a remarkably calm tone of voice. "I had some extensive (and expensive) work done on the engine after the long rubber belt that drives the alternator and power steering pump broke apart and penetrated the timing chain case on the front of the engine. That caused the timing chain to jump two teeth on its sprockets, meaning that the inlet and exhaust valves hit things inside the engine that they were not meant to hit!" Still calm and matter of fact, Richard went on to tell this magazine that the damage required a reconditioned cylinder head, valves, timing chain and all that goes with that. "I took the cab out of the garage on the Friday evening with all the repairs apparently completed and worked over that weekend and throughout the following week. All was going well up till then. But on the Saturday evening - a week and a day from when the engine was repaired - I was travelling eastwards along the A13 when smoke suddenly billowed out of the dash air vents. I managed to pull over onto the hard shoulder, grabbed what personal effects I could and literally escaped from the burning cab, which was by now well and truly on fire. I tried to use the cab fire extinguisher, but it had no effect whatsoever. I phoned the fire brigade and then, while waiting for them to arrive, the LTDA’s Steve McNamara was passing with a baby in the back, closely followed an ice cream van!" A smile crossed Richard’s face as he continued his |
story. "They both stopped and the ice cream man said I looked rather stressed and offered me a free ice cream complete with a ‘99’ Cadbury’s Flake! By then the fire guys came in force and put out the fire in minutes while closing off the traffic lane. They told me that a cab can catch fire quickly because of the inflammable materials used in its manufacture, but I guess you can say that about many cars that are built nowadays as well," Richard added. "Eventually four police cars attended the scene, took details and arranged for my wrecked cab to be towed away somewhere. I still do not know exactly where in Essex it is. My insurers are awaiting an engineer’s report before I can be paid out, as the cab is quite obviously a burned-out write-off." At the time Richard spoke to Call Sign, no one had any idea why the cab caught fire, or why it was so completely destroyed in less than four minutes, although it seems to be very unlikely that it had any connection to the TX4 fires in 2008. Richard ended by saying that he knows how lucky he was to have got out of that inferno without a scratch or a mark, and for that alone he was grateful. Then he drove off in his rented Fairway. Call Sign also spoke to Steve McNamara later that evening. He wasn’t working at the time he stopped, but told us what he saw. "To see someone’s taxi engulfed in flames like that is truly awful, but to see the driver standing there watching his cab go up like that while calmly eating an ice cream was astonishing and almost made me laugh!" He also managed to take a photo and our thanks go to Steve for sending it to Call Sign. © Call Sign Magazine MMX |
