Well done Sir! Imagine this today with all the safety and insurance BS ?? Thanks for the ride and as usual. very informative and entertaining! CHeers Gregg.
You are probably right about BS preventing such fun today. The VDVA still exists and will be visiting a couple of places this summer. I have a friend who goes on these and could advise whether tour participants still get the chance to drive, but getting an answer from emails to him tends often to be wishful thinking.
For me, it was probably the best fun I ever had when unofficially driving a tram. If you mean more video of Leipzig from those days, yes I do have more but so far nobody else has mentioned it. If a few of your friends also request it, I will process and publish it. However I would need help from somebody living locally to identify locations and streets for me. Interested?
Kudos to you if you could understand anything at all! The Saxon dialect is pretty harsh even when people try to water it down to sound more "standard".
Actually my ability with German is quite weak as I never studied it, but listening to their voices when editing the video it did sound to me that the instructors were speaking with a rather strong dialect. Probably circumstances at the time assisted me to guess what they were talking about.
@@tressteleg1 yeah, my parents speak Saxon, I personally don't but I understand it all. Impossible to repeat, the sounds are plain mean. It's actually impossible for any foreigner to pick up standard German outside of metropolitan areas where people might speak half decent German. I was so surprised to see a Melburnian driving trams in Leipzig lol. good on ya. I grew up in Australia myself, but NSW. Fun video, thank you for sharing!
@@theflipsidestory Thanks for your interesting reply. If you have the time, I would be interested to hear a translation of what they are saying at different time points of the video.
Thank you for your kind offer! There is no need to translate any chit-chat between crew members or anybody else, unless it has something to do with my driving. But I did get the impression that maybe they were a bit surprised that a foreigner from the other side of the world could manage their trams OK. Anyway there is a little talking around 1:20. Then go to 2:10 > 2:25. Maybe they say something around 6:37. Around 6:48, something about a Haltestelle… Do they say anything of relevance at 7:45? Anyway there is no rush with this. Anything you can glean will be much appreciated. 😊👍
@@TatraFreak5002 I do have plenty more, but will only publish it if somebody there helps identify place names for me. It includes the last ever running of a staff transport tram from the workshops… All is 1992 or a few years earlier.
Yes. Another viewer did listen intently to the conversations and translated everything that he could hear clearly. He stated that it was is a fairly unusual accent.
It had its moments. Some of it was fun, but some jobs could not end fast enough, like 66 Table at night which did 5 Cities and 4 StKilda Beaches (the 16) racing the clock on the buggered track the full length of St Kilda Rd making the ride noisy and rough. West Preston was always fun, and the St Kilda and Port Melbourne Light Rail were pleasant. I never intended staying in Melbourne until I dropped, but certainly have no regrets working at the best time ever for Melbourne. I drove every type of tram in normal use as well as a number of vintage trams for a few summers. 1988 - 1994.
