northwesterner

On 6/28/2020 at 7:53 PM, Matt Dunlop said:

I've only seen 1 driver wear a mask, and that's because he had a cold and didn't want to spread it around. Yes, he probably should have stayed home but with transit, you don't show up, you don't get paid. I don't wear a mask myself, they are way too uncomfortable. 

Are you saying the union contract for Victoria's operators does not have a provision for paid sick time? That their only choice is time off without pay?

I find that hard to believe.

12 hours ago, traildriver said:

Thanks for your response.   I understand it is 100% GLI operated, but are you also sure there are zero Vancouver based driver's on that run...Vancouver based GLI, not GLC? 

Correct - they've never had Vancouver based GLI operators.

On 7/8/2020 at 10:41 AM, traildriver said:

  I can't say for certain, but I would guess the same rule applies at Vancouver...some of GLI's driver's on the Seattle run may be Canadian GLI driver's, not GLC  (lucky for them!)...

Historically this has been 100% GLI operated with Seattle and Portland based drivers.

33 minutes ago, roeco said:

First Made many poor decisions in Canada especially in the West. And not asking for input from people who were around many moons before First came into the picture didnt help either. Alot of runs could of done much better if they had reacted to the market better and had a sustainable model, they should of applied back years ago to drop all bc runs to 1 trip per week giving them the flexibility they needed too and getting rid of some agency buildings should of happened years ago and downsized to 3rd party agency locations.

 

This is just objectively false.

I've had this argument with you before.

I've outlined my case based on the business model. 

Operating government mandated routes in Western Canada is a tough model. Not only was GCTC unable to do it, but the numbers for Saskatoon Transportation were beyond abysmal. Greyhound wasn't the only one absolutely struggling out west.

But go ahead and keep saying that if only they'd done these five or six small things, they would have been successful. It's just not true.

On 6/28/2020 at 6:58 PM, traildriver said:

As far as their stewardship of Greyhound, IMHO, at first they made a positive impact infusing large sorely needed capital to purchase a lot of new equipment.  But after a while, they continued the long slide downhill, that in fairness, started long before they acquired Laidlaw, and the rest of the properties.  They just couldn't seem to turn it around, like many hoped they would.

This is an accurate take. Greyhound got better for many years and First made much needed improvements. But it started to slide about six years ago and has been snowballing lately.

4 hours ago, Shaun said:

So why wouldn't greyhound put into place these types of rules? I took the greyhound once and at Scarborough town centre their was a requirement for a wheel chair but the door wouldn't open. 

Took them over an hour to get a replacement.  If the driver had done his pre-trip inspection I bet he would have known that the door was jammed. And usually wheel chair users need to book in advance, so if the foreman knew this he should have made sure that the door opens and the lift works before deploying the bus. 

Not to mention not having overflow runs available, when you know that you have sold X amount of tickets for a full bus. Causing issues down the route with people not being able to board the bus because it's full.  

These small things add up to bad customer service and people stop taking the bus. Find other ways to travel. 

I guess it's all about saving a penny and not understanding their whole business.  Penny pinchers running a company with no vision resulted in their demise. 

It's harder to have this kind of set-up with a nationwide over the rode system, as the bus does not return home to the same terminal every night. 

 

At one point, GLI had the vast majority of their buses in a nationwide fleet, with the assumption being that the regional shops were all capable of maintaining the coaches that passed through to the same standard.

They had issues with these shops sending these coaches down the road, never to be seen again, and to be some one else's problem. Why tear apart and fully rebuilt the front suspension when you can patch it up at the shop in DC and send it out on a through schedule to the west coast? 

They eventually regionalized their vehicle pools, and assigned each bus to a "home shop." In theory, the coach would be sent out on a schedule, and at the conclusion of that schedule would be re-dispatched back to its home shop. Thus, a coach assigned to Seattle would go to LA, and then be sent back to Seattle. 

Of course, being Greyhound, it didn't work that way and a good running coach from Seattle would end up in Dallas, and then they'd have to work it back. 

On 5/23/2020 at 8:27 AM, traildriver said:

Exactly.   Even a large company like Academy...the driver's working out of their Hoboken, NJ garage are assigned buses by seniority and merit  (non-union).   The best and seniormost driver's get the newest and best equipment.   New driver's get the oldest.   When a driver keeps a bus for a year or more, you can be assured that every last light bulb, or other item, will be in fine working order.

Their 'top' driver's also get the "plum" assignments, such as carrying the professional sports teams around, etc..

Buses that are relayed between driver's are not cared for in the same way.   A driver that knows he is not likely to drive that bus again soon, may not bother seeing that minor issues are corrected.

This!!

When I was ops manager at a charter bus company, I got so tired of the following vicious cycle:

1. Maintenance would not make timely repairs to write ups.
2. Drivers, knowing the shop was not responsive, wouldn't bother to write up their coach, knowing they wouldn't see it again for a while.
3. Finally, someone would turn the bus down in the yard, or bring it back due to an unrepaired and often time unreported defect.
4. Customer would be irate due to late bus at charter spot.
5. Start over at #1. Multiply by 45 coaches in the fleet.

I had a mixed fleet of 40 and 45ft equipment.

I decided that if these guys had to drive the same bus every day, they'd make some noise to get the repairs done. And if they knew they parked it in the yard last night and that it was fine, they'd get it out of the yard on time today. 

I took a two step approach to breaking the cycle:

1. I worked with the shop foreman to overhaul their review and sign off procedure. We were out of compliance anyways but "we've always done it this way" was a tough nut to crack.
2. I assigned all of my full time drivers, and part timers who worked on average more than 25 hrs a week, two buses. One bus would be their primary bus, and one would be their back up. One was a 40, the other was a 45. 
   1. If the operator had a 40ft coach as their primary, and the charter required a 45ftr, they'd get their backup.
   2. If the operator had a 45ft coach as their primary, and the charter order was for a 40ft coach, and we had enough 45ftrs to meet all requirements, they'd get their primary coach. 
   3. If their primary coach was scheduled out for maintenance, they'd get their backup.

It took a couple of months to fully break the cycle I outlined above, but we did it. Pretty soon, I'd see my operators with their bus down at the shop, showing the foreman what exactly the issue was. They'd come up and tell me what was going on, and why they wanted it fixed before their three day trip out of town the next weekend and could they get another bus today so their bus would be good to go for the over the road trip. 

They took ownership of what they were driving.

And the shop was being held to account for reviewing all defects, every day, and either repairing on deferring on a daily basis with our new processes down there.

Suddenly, we were a reliable, functional company regaining market share based on our quality performance. The days of angry phone calls about late buses, and side of the road breakdowns had come to an end. 

Its such a simple thing to do and it makes such a difference.

4 hours ago, ns8401 said:

That’s nice. Please stop harassing me now. You’re becoming a little unhinged over nothing and it’s getting tiresome. This isn’t the associated press.. it’s a forum. I don’t have a responsibility to do anything around verbatim quoting and you can change the word I use in your head if you wish. If I was writing an article for the Wiki that would be a different story. I thought we settled this yesterday?
 

The reality is that Greyhound is using PR nicities to gloss over the situation. If you can’t connect the dots a little bit I can’t help you. I’m done with you unless you want to discuss the effects of the cuts going forward. And yes they are cuts. What comes back won’t be identical and you’ll be able to identify a pre and post pandemic Greyhound by what was running where and at what times. The reality is you need only compare what’s being adjusted and the times from February to see that the old times and connections that were suspended don’t work with the new adjustments. It can’t just come right back. I give up.

Please keep posting as you have been. 

Your updates have been appreciated, and I have found no confusion in the terminology you're using.

13 hours ago, CATMAN MEDIA GROUP said:

I Am WELL Aware I Made That Statement, Thanks Alot.  I KNOW People Who Do. I Am Making A QUESTION, Wondering How They FULLY Commute. Theres Your Answer.

 

 

 

 

If you know people who make this commute, why don't you ask them?

If you're going to make a statement, then subsequently question it, it is helpful for those following the thread if you could provide some context.

19 hours ago, CATMAN MEDIA GROUP said:

I Have No Idea How They "Commute" Though. Because It Comes Back At 10:00 PM Which Means It Arrives In Daytona Around 11:00PM/11:30PM

You're the one who made the original statement that the schedule is full of commuters. 

So is it? Or not?

3 hours ago, Matt Dunlop said:

These layoffs are definitely unfortunate. I was talking to a driver on Facebook from Surrey and he said the top 30% of seniority stay working while the lower 70% of seniority are temporarily laid off. 

Your numbers are off.

It might be helpful for the discussion here if you made statements based on publicly info, especially ones that can easily be sense checked.

If they were to lay off 70% of the operators, they would have to cut service by 70%. That is not what has been announced. 

Here's a note from the Vancouver Sun: https://vancouversun.com/news/covid-19-service-reductions-layoffs-executive-pay-cuts-begin-this-week-at-translink/
"McGarrigle said there are about 3,800 transit operators, and 997 of them received layoff notices — or about 25 per cent of the workforce. Of the approximately 1,100 maintenance staff, 200 were laid off." 

If 70% of 3800 operators were laid off that would be 2660 employees - a number larger than the total number of announced lay offs (1500).

Perhaps the news media would be a better source than "a driver on Facebook."

3 hours ago, roamer said:

BTW, as I said in my post of 21 February, I'm so angry at TriMet.  They still use a huge left mirror despite what happened in 2010.  Evidently, on their Xcelsiors, they use a mirror of the same dimensions and mounting position as Edmonton ...example HERE.

They only have a couple of those NFIs... and I suspect they are based off of someone else's specs. Their Gillig LFs, which are the majority of their fleet, have a different mirror set-up.

14 hours ago, roamer said:

Thanks for posting.  I can't tell you how much it hurts to see these accidents continue to happen especially when discovering that an agency continues to use the exact mirror and mounting position that just increases the chances of a driver not seeing a pedestrian crossing the street.

The bus involved in this accident was Edmonton Transit System coach 4790, an NFI D40LFR.  Edmonton Transit continues to use one of the longer/ taller left mirrors and some are mounted where they can block the vision of a driver seeing a pedestrian crossing the street as the bus is making a left turn.    

This is the classic example:  a lady innocently crossing the street with a green light inside a crosswalk.  The driver did not hit this pedestrian on purpose.  I'm certain that his/her report will state something similar to "I just didn't see the pedestrian in time to stop."  Transit agencies can help their bus drivers by using a smaller left mirror and mounting it in a lower position so it doesn't block vision while making a left turn but some just don't see the necessity for doing so.

Particularly bad on an LFR, which has a larger corner pillar than older D40LFs, and newer X40s.

15 hours ago, MCIBUS said:

I can't comment on all terminals, but depending on where the terminal is located in the city, the land may be worth more then its worth running the terminal.

 

Example if when first built not much was around the terminal, but at the present time you got Residential(condo's/apartment buildings) and commercial retail(shopping malls) the land could be worth millions of $$$.

 

I know of a few places where bus terminals when first built where out in the out skirts of the city, but with city expansion there in the city now and with res/commercial establishments around them the land is worth millions.

 

It comes down to is Greyhound still willing to keep the terminals the own presently?

As has been mentioned up thread, I'd be surprised if Greyhound owns a single major city bus terminal. There really isn't much to discuss here - if they have a terminal, they're most likely leasing the space.

The First Group annual report for last year notes that Greyhound gained $10.5m (when converted from GBP to USD) through the sale of four properties. There is a footnote in there that they sold the Chicago Maintenance Facility, based on some other notes, this was the majority of those earnings.
 

22 hours ago, roamer said:

Both were signed out yesterday.   I'm monitoring them but I think it's too early to call them officially retired.  Let's at least wait until service levels get back to normal and/or employees or others that know employees can give us information from the inside.

eta:  ...sorry, not yesterday but on Wednesday

Its been reported elsewhere... they're done.

On 3/28/2020 at 9:36 PM, Megabus Rider said:

 The Greyhound Terminals are the main baggage with Greyhound. That's why Megabus was easily sold to private investors, no baggage attached to the operation.

Greyhound owns very few of their terminals nationwide.

The vast majority of them were sold in the wake of the two strikes over thirty years ago. If they're still operating in an old terminal, they're on a long term lease.

The terminals are not baggage. Indeed, the company might actually be worth more if they still owned the terminals, as those are assets that could be sold.

On 3/25/2020 at 3:31 PM, Mitsubishi Fuso 6512 said:

Farewell Charter for Older LACMTA buses. 

What are you referring to? What did you mean when you said "From 1993?"

 

Can you please post in complete sentences?

On 3/19/2020 at 9:22 PM, Mitsubishi Fuso 6512 said:

From 1993

What are you talking about?

5 hours ago, roamer said:

Much later --late 80s? to mid 90s-- was the livery change for both the uniform color (it was so good to get out of those brown pants and yellow shirts!!) and the bus colors when the Phantoms arrived.  Can you remember when the uniform colors were changed?   There were three bus paint-scheme changes, correct?  ...the original white with brown and yellow accents, then the white with the brown and yellow stripe with gray bottom, and the current  ...?

  

Livery changed in 1995, ahead of the delivery of the new Gilligs. 3120 was the first coach repainted. The uniforms changed shortly thereafter though I remember the browns into 1996 for sure.

21 hours ago, roamer said:

 

I've told this story before too but when back in the STS days (pre Metro), internally, they would refer to the routes by name rather than by number.  So when I went to work there in the early/mid-70s much if not all of the day-to-day operation and management was carried over from STS.  It wasn't until 1976-77 when East Base opened that they broke away from lot of the traditional nomenclature and operating procedures of STS.

So for example employees (STS and early Metro) would generally refer to different routes by their name as shown on the map below rather than by number.  So when I went to work there I can remember the "dispatcher" (see below) announcing on the radio, "2- Ballard -U" or "Ballard-U #2" for the second run on the route 30 or "1 Roosevelt" or Roosevelt #1" signifying the first run on the route 22 and we would reply back using the same terminology. 

Or our board assignments would be written on the board as  "Latona/4A"   ...that would signify an "A" run on the fourth run that left the barn on route 26 or "Madison 5R" which would be a night run on the 5th run out of the station on the route 11.

One of the big considerations for the "new look" wayfinding and destination sign changes of 1978 was to simplify all of this. 

A small system like Seattle Transit could operate based on line names. So decent sized urban systems in the United States were exclusively line names well into the 1980s (New Orleans). 

Seattle Transit's nomenclature was Rt Number - Line Name and these two were connected. Thus passengers could refer to their bus by either, and internally, the line name was usable.

The study that culminated in the 1978 New Look plan identified this and specifically called to separate the two as they were redundant. You don't need a route number AND a line name. One or the other, and the system is big enough, that it should just be a route number. And that was that.

23 hours ago, andrethebusman said:

Back in 60s due to a scheduling error there was a trolley bus block that pulled out Sunday morning and pulled in Saturday night. No technical reason a trolley bus could not stay out forever. Just was noticed bus badly needed sweeping when it came in.

Thank you - have heard this anecdote many times over the years, but always from Seattle people. You would have heard this info more contemporaneously, I presume.

On 2/2/2020 at 9:32 AM, Border City Transit said:

 

In theory, could a trolley stay out for an entire 26 hour block? There might be practical constraints (cleaning, etc) but fuel seemingly wouldn't be an issue. Wonder if Atlantic has or had any blocks like that...

 

 

There was a 7 a few years ago that pulled out as a 49 around 0530, and pulled in off an owl trip around 0440 and it was assigned a trolley coach.

On 1/27/2020 at 4:24 PM, roamer said:

As usual, I'm just amazed at the content of your recollections, northwesterner  ...while at the same time surprised at how much detail that I fail to remember.

It seemed to me that the initiation of the Ballard shuttle was after the start of the 200.  It is burned in my recollection that the 200 was the very first time Metro drivers ever drove a van and accepted lower pay by doing so. But as I say, and all here know, I've been wrong so many times before.  The initial shake-up of the 200 preceded the van-base-concept is what I remember as it seemed before they got the van base concept robustly underway, the 200 had been running for at least one shake up.  That's what I seem to remember, at any rate.  

You're right about contracted service, though.  Now that I think on it a bit more, I do seem to remember the "Access" service preceding the 200 but never paid that much attention to it as it was specialized and not fixed route.  

And the detail of your description of the "van base" concept is, again, amazing.  I don't recall a separate van extra board but that doesn't mean that there wasn't one.  I think I was working report at the time and recall that anytime driving a van, it was paid at full-pay.  When artic premium first started, we had to manually submit a request but after the initial shake-up, I seem to remember that artic premium was integrated into the TOPS sheets so that was seamlessly paid.  No matter, it was a bookkeeping nightmare for payroll purposes  ...things like putting in for overtime had to be figured at different pay rates, etc.

The Ballard van shuttle didn't last long ... just one summer as demonstration. I suspect the 200 started shortly afterwards. 

I can remember a discussion with an operator who was either van extra board or van base report. I can't remember which. I also vaguely recall that there was one but not the other - either a picked reportman but no extra board, or extra board but no report ops - which ever one didn't exist came solely from the regular bus operators at the same base - at full pay. 

Thinking about some of the contracted van sized fixed routes that came back in house - what were the two Carnation routes? 922/929? Those two existed long before the 5600s and the van pay contract, but came in house when the ATU agreed to those terms. 

The contract also helped restructure changes like the establishment of the all day 209 between Issaquah and North Bend and getting rid of running full size coaches on the 210/211 all the way to North Bend - including some artics that were needed for the busy Downtown to Eastgate segments. Can you imagine driving an artic around North Bend and Snoqualmie at noon on a weekday with four people onboard because you needed the capacity for a trip leaving Eastgate at 8:15 AM? 

That's the crazy service planning stuff that the van contract helped fix.

On 1/24/2020 at 10:07 PM, roamer said:

A bit of history:  When the 200 was first started in the mid 90's, it used very small cutaway vans that were painted white ...smaller than the Champions that would be used later.  It was mostly funded by the developer of the Issaquah Commons and ran from the Park and Ride to the Issaquah Senior Center by the way of the Commons, down Gilman, up Front Street to the old location of the Senior Center at Memorial Field.  

I remember it more for the controversy that involved the union and Metro at the time.  The Issaquah shuttle was the first Metro route where vans were used.  It was negotiated that Metro was to pay the drivers of vans at a lower rate of pay in exchange for paying a premium for driving artics (it was referred to as artic premium).  Metro at the time wanted to use more vans and the Union wanted to prevent Metro from privatizing that proposed expansion they were planning involving more van routes.  So I remember there was a lot of controversial negotiations going on at that time but it was eventually agreed that our own represented drivers would be paid less for driving vans but paid a bit more for driving artics and mass privatizing was able to be delayed.  Of course, as drivers, we were very much opposed to privatizing where a private company would be contracted that would use non-union workers.  

That pay structure didn't last long, however.  In fact, the way I remember it, it was only in effect for a very short period of time.  Being paid less for driving vans was first to go and then, later, artic premium was dropped.  As drivers, we never understood "artic premium" as generally, it's actually easier to drive an artic than it is a 40-footer.  But the pay structure was based purely on "premium pay for hauling more people and less pay for driving a vehicle that potentially carries fewer people." 

It was really a strange time for awhile during that period.  As usual, my memory isn't always accurate so this is just a little of what I remember and if anybody can add or correct any of my recollections, please feel free to do so.

The white cutaways must have been the 5500-series vans. These were purchased for the Ballard LINC project in 1994 (?) and afterwards Metro kept them and used them as part of the regular fleet for a while, until the larger order of 5600-series vans arrived. They had dashcard holders on the hood for the destination signs ... a couple of them eventually made their way into the ACCESS fleet and you could spot them because of those dashcard holders. 

Keep in mind that Metro had many subcontracted / private van routes in the early 1990s. As part of the contract negotiation with lower pay for van drivers, these routes came back in house (everything but the DART routes). Additionally, as part of the "six year plan" service changes in the mid-1990s, there was a push to cover many of these outlying areas / coverage routes with smaller vehicles that were cheaper to operate. One of two things generally happened to these routes - either they were total losers and carried virtually no one (the 310 Bothell circulator, anyone?) and were whacked after I-695 in 2000, or they were pretty successful and quickly outgrew the vans. 

The overall service plan from that period, though, continues to live on throughout the county and laid the groundwork for today's Metro network. 

One other quirk about "less pay for driving a van" was that each base also had a "Van Base." So if you picked a van, you had to pick a van every day of the week, and there were also "Van extra board" operators. If the van based was tapped out, a regular operator would drive the van route - presumably at full pay as they hadn't picked the "van base." Scheduling also had a "van base scheduler" who did all the van routes, regardless of where they were. 

Dec 2019 Update with a few new plane types in bold...

Air Canada

777-200

Air Canada Jazz

Dash 8-300

Air New Zealand

A320

Alaska Airlines

737-200C

737-400

737-800

737-900ER

A319

A320

American Airlines

737-800

757-200

777-200

787-8

787-9

A319 (ex US)

A320 (ex US)
A321 (ex US)

MD-80

Embraer E-190 (ex US)

Avianca

A318

A319

Asiana Airlines

767-300

777-200

A330

Bangkok Airways

A319

ATR72

Continental

737-800

Delta Airlines

A319

A320

737-800

737-900ER

757-200

MD-80

FinnAir

A350

EasyJet

A320

Mesa

CRJ-900

Frontier

737-300

A320

Hawaiian

DC-10

L1011

Nordic Regional Airlines (Finnair)

E190

Philippine Airlines

A330-300

PAL Express

Dash 8-Q300

Qantas

737-800

Thai 

777-200

777-300ER

SkyWest

CRJ-700

CRJ-900

ERJ-175

United Airlines

737-300

DC-10

A320

757-200

767-300

US Airways (Pre-Merger)

757-200

A319

A320

A321

A330-300

VivaAerobus

A320

Yangon Airways

ATR72