Posted by admin on Mar 19, 2010 in
Bus / Coach,
Where Am I? Finally got a job scheduled for today… haven’t worked all week which makes the paychecks thin, but oh well. Taking the Bates woman’s Lacrosse team to Williams College for a Noon game tomorrow. Leave out at 1700hrs tonight.
Sunday have back to back, late evening, shuttle runs from PWM (Jetport) to Bates, first one is at 1715hrs, the second one is at 2145hrs. Short work week, but better than the alternative!
Posted by admin on Mar 7, 2010 in
Bus / Coach,
Where Am I? The only constant thing in the universe is change. No where is that more apparent than in charter bus jobs.
Was supposed to take the short bus (literally!) to Colby for a run to PWM… got a call about an hour before-hand that I was being redirected… apparently a friendly competitor had gotten tagged by DOT down to Foxwoods and his bus was put out of service… so I was redirected to take the short bus back to the garage (I had brought it home over-night) and grab a big bus and head down to Foxwoods to get his load and bring them back to Dexter, ME.
3.5 hours later, I’m in Ledyard, CT… a.k.a. Foxwoods. We moved everyone’s stuff from his bus to mine, then we loaded up and headed North. The good news was that he had his other bus meet us in Auburn where everyone transferred for the final leg, and I was released… getting back to the shop exactly 12 hours after I started!
Finally got home around 0200hrs with a good full day’s work done… I’m off today and tomorrow at least.
Oh…BTW… for those “in the know”… still no word from that other thing…
Posted by admin on Mar 5, 2010 in
Where Am I? There’s an old adage; “Before putting your mouth in motion, make sure your brain is in gear”. Well for a bus driver, that saying is a little different; “Before putting your mouth in motion, make sure your bus will go INTO gear!”
Grabbed my bus for the run from PWM to Colby college yesterday… it wasn’t a “short-bus” in the classic sense, but one of the shorter big busses (Setra 215 for those inquisitive minds)… drove it down to Portland, got off the highway at PWM… and the transmission is stuck in first gear, won’t shift!
I was planning on stopping at the near-by Citgo for a soda, and I was running about 15 – 20 minutes early anyways, so I pulled in and shut her off. This has happened to me before with this particular bus, and you just have to shut the bus off.
So I did the usual shut-down routine and go get my soda… come back out. Nut-uh, she won’t go back into gear once started! Try the “reboot” a couple more times with just as much (lack of) success. Call the garage, they send another bus and the trip continued as normal without incident… I even made it back to the garage at the regularly scheduled time!
Today I’m playing the part of a brain surgeon. Well, no, but I AM going to a Holiday Inn Express! Got a Corporate Retreat group I’m picking up in Lewiston and taking down to the Express in Saco for the day, then back. Nice “9 – 5” run for today!
Got a repeat / reverse run for tomorrow… Colby to PWM. More on that later…