Skip to main content

Bus record

A methane-powered bus has set a speed record of nearly 124km/h at a test track in the UK. The bus, from the southern city of Reading, was converted to run on compressed methane from cow manure and was painted black and white like a Friesian cow. Mechanics removed the bus’s engine governor that restricted the vehicle’s speed to 90km/h. The bus then broke the record on the banked high-speed circuit at Millbrook Proving Ground, near the city of Bedford. The cow waste was broken down by anaerobic digestion to p
August 21, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
A methane-powered bus has set a speed record of nearly 124km/h at a test track in the UK. The bus, from the southern city of Reading, was converted to run on compressed methane from cow manure and was painted black and white like a Friesian cow. Mechanics removed the bus’s engine governor that restricted the vehicle’s speed to 90km/h. The bus then broke the record on the banked high-speed circuit at Millbrook Proving Ground, near the city of Bedford. The cow waste was broken down by anaerobic digestion to produce biogas, which was then liquefied and stored in several fuel tanks within the expanded roof of the bus. The bus’s speed would not be a Guinness World Record because it failed to exceed 241km/h. But the vehicle did make an appealing sound as it swept past on the track.

Related Content

  • Dynavis achieves high productivity in the Sub Continent
    April 10, 2018
    Dynavis, the hydraulic fluid technology business of Evonik, is highlighting an Indian quarry case study that recorded 12% more material moved per litre of fuel. In the quarry, owned by a major Indian energy company near the city of Ranchi, hydraulic mining excavators are extracting coal and removing slate for roofing tiles. The excavator weighed 111 tonnes and has an engine output of 567kW. Around 1,100 litres of hydraulic fluid circulated in its hydraulic system and the unit was operated 24 hours a day.
  • Young Driver Risk
    April 16, 2018
    Police in the US state of Ohio recently found themselves in a high-speed pursuit involving a vehicle taken without its owner’s consent. The chase lasted for around one hour and the vehicle hit speeds of up to 160km/h during the pursuit, which covered a distance of around 72km in all between Cleveland and Milan. Officers managed to box the car in and bring it to a halt, without anyone being injured. The driver was a 10-year-old boy who took his mother’s car, the second time that the lad had done this in just
  • Get it right with WheelRight for safer transport
    July 19, 2017
    WheelRight’s cloud-based technology is one of the new generation of applications that support the use of Internet of Things (IoT) in transport infrastructures, explains Catling. New technology such as this is about to play a huge role in the smart city revolution, helping to reduce accidents and fuel bills as well as harmful carbon and nitrous oxide emissions.
  • A special smooth road surface
    August 12, 2022
    Contractor Tarmac has delivered a high- quality finish for a novel underground automotive test track.