# Greyhound Passengers Endure Bitter Cold Ride to Chicago



## rickycourtney (Feb 19, 2015)

> *Greyhound Passengers Endure Bitter Cold Ride to Chicago*
> 
> _Display inside the bus showed temperature in passenger compartment dipped to just 12 degrees during the trek from Minneapolis to Chicago_
> 
> ...


If the part about Greyhound driving the bus away and bringing it right back to cover up the fact that it was the same bus is true... that's shameful.

Full article at NBC Chicago.


----------



## jebr (Feb 19, 2015)

I hate to say this, because I'm generally in favor of ground transportation, but this definitely makes me glad I decided to go with Spirit Airlines instead of Greyhound for my trip to Chicago next month.

I've never had good luck with Greyhound in Minneapolis. I may have had one trip there go well, but I'm not even sure if that's the case. I had one time where they cancelled the bus down after saying all buses were "go" after the storm (apparently they didn't have a driver...but I would've liked to know that before driving two hours to the Cities...) Another time I got a "spare" bus that smelled like they just emptied the retention tank after it was sitting on the lot for a few days. I was thinking of giving them another try, but now with this...yikes.

Jefferson Lines, on the other hand, has usually been decent.

EDIT: This part is almost the worst of it all...though I'm not at all surprised, given my past experiences.



> No refunds were made immediately available, though one passenger said he was able to get a $50 voucher after filing a complaint in Chicago. A company spokesperson said they were looking into whether other passengers would receive some sort of compensation.


They should have been immediately given full refunds, no questions asked. At minimum. I'd personally say at least a one-way ticket free plus a full refund...though that even seems a bit low.

2ND EDIT: When they couldn't get a bus to Milwaukee to handle the cold, why didn't they just buy tickets for the Hiawatha to get people to Chicago? Probably still not ideal (and still should get refunds) but at least then it would have shown some effort on the part of Greyhound.


----------



## Swadian Hardcore (Feb 19, 2015)

Greyhound should have chartered a Jefferson bus to take the passengers to Chicago. I'm wondering what type of bus it was. I hope someone got the bus number. That would get Greyhound busted big time!

I found out the bus was a Prevost X3-45, as seen in the "temperature" pic here: http://www.wvon.com/2015/02/greyhound-passengers-endure-bitter-cold-ride-to-chicago/.

Now, don't quote me on this, but I _think_ that, if what the passengers say about using the same bus after a turnaround is true, I think what Greyhound did was to the drive the bus to the Jefferson lot in Minneapolis (which is used by Greyhound) to get refueled and cleaned, but there were no other buses available so they simply called up another driver to pick up the bus from the Jefferson lot and drive it back to Chicago, where a Greyhound Maintenance Center exists that could have fixed the HVAC.

The driver would have "just picked up the bus" because he would have gotten it straight from the garage, even if he had known that the bus had just come from Chicago.

Greyhound's only remaining Minneapolis route is Chicago-Minneapolis, and it seems like they would be better off ceding the route to Jefferson just like they did with the other Minneapolis routes and the Chicago-Omaha route which was handed over to Burlington Trailways.

Kit, a regular driver on the Reno-Salt Lake City overnight, complained to me on his first X3-45 drive (which I was travelling on) that he would set the temperature but the HVAC would not obey his inputs and kept getting colder. He said that the driver's temperature is always supposed to be lower than the passengers', which was obviously not the case here.

When I said that the HVAC was working fine before, Kit explained that it's unnoticeable if the weather is sunny because the sun will warm up the bus. Here's the exact dashboard of the bus taken in the daytime: https://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/14830178941/sizes/l.

Greyhound should have gotten the X3-45 fixed at Jefferson in Minneapolis and, again, chartered a Jefferson in its place.


----------



## Swadian Hardcore (Feb 19, 2015)

Greyhound needs to start fixing its operational problems if they want to get rid of their bad reputation. This is not the first time this has happened on a X3-45, and it will not be the last. There seems to be two Greyhound models that frequently suffer these HVAC problems: the X3-45 and the white G4500. The former would fail and get too cold and the latter would fail and get too hot. Greyhound should have prepared themselves for potential mishaps instead of "winging it" and messing up.

And yes, the bus in question here could not have been older than a 2008.


----------



## Bob Dylan (Feb 19, 2015)

This sounds like a job for Superlawyer!

The Government needs to get involved in this also, this is a Life and Death Safety matter that needs to be thoroughly investigated, and if found to be true, Greyhound needs to be held accountable!!


----------



## rickycourtney (Feb 20, 2015)

I just don't get how you could have such little respect for your customers.

If they did nothing else... Greyhound could have at the very least cancelled this run. That would have been more respectful to the customers. Yes they would have been delayed, but at least they would have been stuck inside a warm terminal.

Also, I can confidently tell you that single busload of passengers who had a trip canceled on the coldest night of the year wouldn't have even made it into the newspaper. Instead this story is making national news and Greyhound's battered reputation is taking another hit.


----------



## Swadian Hardcore (Feb 20, 2015)

Oh yes, if it dipped down to 12 degrees F, that would be a serious safety issue. The picture I found showed that it dipped down to 46 degrees F, which is still terrible, but would not be as lethal.

Then again, Greyhound reportedly got away with a G4500 explosion that thankfully killed no one; it was deadheading and the driver jumped out.

I'll have to post this on GTE and see what the Greyhound drivers have to say about it.

I'm seeing Greyhound repeatedly stab themselves in the gut. Every time they try to improve, they stab themselves again with something dumb. Been happening since 1983 and I'm disappointed.


----------



## railiner (Feb 20, 2015)

Terrible story. I know there are times when management is pressured to "work" a bus with certain known defects back toward a location where they have maintenance available, but in this instance, in as mentioned, life-threatening climatic condition, it is unbelievable that they would try to do this....

And I can't believe the driver, didn't abort the trip, after it was clear the heating system failed....he should have stopped at some location where the passenger's could get warm, until a relief coach was sent.

And agreed....this will come back and hurt Greyhound, deservedly, in more ways then one...


----------



## Swadian Hardcore (Feb 20, 2015)

Yep, and like I said, just Greyhound stabbing themselves in the gut.

It looks like Greyhound had been cancelling trips:
http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2015/02/18/greyhound-rider-theyre-treating-us-like-animals/23611451/
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2015/02/16/greyhound-passenger-stranded-in-chicago-im-about-to-lose-it/.

But this is much worse than cancelling trips.


----------



## rickycourtney (Feb 20, 2015)

Again canceling trips during bad weather is normal and accepted. It happens on every form of transportation. It's inconvenient but necessary for safety reasons. I also don't expect Greyhound or any carrier to do anything other than keeping passengers comfortable while they wait. Providing passengers with a meal voucher is the accepted business practice in situations like that.

Of course after this stunt, these passengers deserve a lot more compensation... that $50 travel voucher isn't gonna cut it.


----------



## Swadian Hardcore (Feb 20, 2015)

At this point, I'm a bit confused as to why the driver didn't stop driving at the rest stop after the bus failed to heat up. If the passengers were painful from cold, wouldn't the driver be painful as well? Why didn't he just stop?

The picture shows that the driver temperature was 80 degrees F and the pax temperature was 46 degrees F, but if the AC failed, wouldn't the whole bus be cold? Why was the driver supposedly warm and the passengers cold?


----------



## railiner (Feb 21, 2015)

Swadian Hardcore said:


> At this point, I'm a bit confused as to why the driver didn't stop driving at the rest stop after the bus failed to heat up. If the passengers were painful from cold, wouldn't the driver be painful as well? Why didn't he just stop?
> 
> The picture shows that the driver temperature was 80 degrees F and the pax temperature was 46 degrees F, but if the AC failed, wouldn't the whole bus be cold? Why was the driver supposedly warm and the passengers cold?


Good questions.

I have seen similar situations on both MCI and Prevost coaches, where the driver's AC/Heat unit functioned, and the passenger system either quit, or ran weakly. Sometimes it can be a fan failure on one or both sides, other times it can be a hot water valve malfunction, and other times an electronic malady in the control unit.

Can't say which it was in this case....

And I have seen other situations, where the passenger system worked fine, but the driver's unit malfunctioned. Not as serious, as the coach system can still keep the driver relatively comfortable. The exception is when the defroster blower fails in winter....then it's a 'no-go'.....


----------



## Swadian Hardcore (Feb 21, 2015)

railiner said:


> Swadian Hardcore said:
> 
> 
> > At this point, I'm a bit confused as to why the driver didn't stop driving at the rest stop after the bus failed to heat up. If the passengers were painful from cold, wouldn't the driver be painful as well? Why didn't he just stop?
> ...


What's a "hot water valve malfunction"?

So I'm getting that the HVAC was still working but the passengers didn't get any of it. Then I guess it wasn't a problem with the air compressor.


----------



## rickycourtney (Feb 21, 2015)

Railiner... please correct me if I'm wrong... but I think most coaches have a smaller HVAC system up front (for driver comfort and defroster purposes) and a much larger HVAC system in the rear for passenger climate control.

In this case it sounds like the drivers HVAC system was working well, but the passenger system was broken. It also appears that the driver cranked his system to maximum heat, but it did little to help the passengers in the rear of the coach.


----------



## Swadian Hardcore (Feb 21, 2015)

On GTE, the response has been defense of Prevost and blaming Greyhound for poor maintenance, although Keegan said:

"Bottom line is heating and air conditioning systems in buses are extremely complicated.

I worked at a place where we had a couple of HVAC wizards.

You'd be shocked at the stuff they would fix, done by mechanics at other divisions who just didn't have their level of skill on HVAC.

You'd also be surprised at how much troubleshooting can go into a simple "no heat" or "no a/c" complaint. These systems take time, training, and skill to fix.

Keegan"

It appears that Jefferson didn't have any "HVAC wizard" so Greyhound decided to drive it back to Chicago instead of going to a commercial vehicle repair shop in Minneapolis.


----------



## Swadian Hardcore (Feb 21, 2015)

rickycourtney said:


> Railiner... please correct me if I'm wrong... but I think most coaches have a smaller HVAC system up front (for driver comfort and defroster purposes) and a much larger HVAC system in the rear for passenger climate control.
> 
> In this case it sounds like the drivers HVAC system was working well, but the passenger system was broken. It also appears that the driver cranked his system to maximum heat, but it did little to help the passengers in the rear of the coach.


I guess the driver could have at least told everybody to move as forward as possible. I'm not sure how the bus gets the pax temperature reading. Not sure if it reads at the front or the back of the passenger cabin.

On the white G4500s, which are the other units known for HVAC problems, it seems that the driver HVAC constantly fails while the passenger one usually works, but the driver HVAC sometimes ends up spewing disgusting chemical odors (like burning plastic) that lead to the nickname "Dirty Dog". This is how the White G4500 incites vomiting in most passengers.


----------



## railiner (Feb 21, 2015)

rickycourtney said:


> Railiner... please correct me if I'm wrong... but I think most coaches have a smaller HVAC system up front (for driver comfort and defroster purposes) and a much larger HVAC system in the rear for passenger climate control.
> 
> In this case it sounds like the drivers HVAC system was working well, but the passenger system was broken. It also appears that the driver cranked his system to maximum heat, but it did little to help the passengers in the rear of the coach.


Absolutely correct.

On the Prevost 'H' series, the driver can also open a vent to his left rear, that taps the main passenger HVAC air from the end of the floor duct.


----------



## railiner (Feb 21, 2015)

Swadian Hardcore said:


> railiner said:
> 
> 
> > Swadian Hardcore said:
> ...


There are valves that control the flow of hot water from the radiator that feed both the main and driver's heater core. If hot water doesn't get to the core....no heat.

The HVAC blower's have nothing to do with the air compressor. If the air compressor failed, the coach couldn't move account no brakes...


----------



## railiner (Feb 21, 2015)

Swadian Hardcore said:


> On GTE, the response has been defense of Prevost and blaming Greyhound for poor maintenance, although Keegan said:
> 
> "Bottom line is heating and air conditioning systems in buses are extremely complicated.
> 
> ...


Outside of some bus garage, I don't know of any commercial vehicle (truck) repair shops that would have a mechanic knowledgeable of bus HVAC systems. I suppose if they had a talented mechanic, and he had access to a bus shop manual, he might have a chance in diagnosing and repairing an HVAC defect, but not likely....


----------



## rickycourtney (Feb 21, 2015)

Swadian Hardcore said:


> It appears that Jefferson didn't have any "HVAC wizard" so Greyhound decided to drive it back to Chicago instead of going to a commercial vehicle repair shop in Minneapolis.


An HVAC repair is likely not something that could be done quickly between runs... no matter who Jefferson has on staff.
There was only one right answer in this situation... take this bus out of service. Period.

Even if that means chartering another bus, delaying the trip until another bus arrived or even canceling the run.

No matter what happened... Greyhound's staff made the wrong decision and should be held accountable.


----------



## Swadian Hardcore (Feb 21, 2015)

What I was saying is that the Greyhound should have been held in Minneapolis and a Jefferson chartered in its place. Due to the lack of bus repair shops with HVAC wizards, I'm sure Jefferson would have had such an employee. Greyhound could have gotten the HVAC fixed at Jefferson the next morning before sending it back to Chicago.

It appears that OSC dumped the Jefferson option down the toilet and decided to go ahead with sending the Greyhound back, a big mistake.

Usually Greyhound lays over for 14 or 26 hours between Reno-Salt Lake City runs, enough to get someone to fix the HVAC. I imagine it is similar for the Chicago-Minneapolis, so Greyhound should have stuck to that and chartered a Jefferson. Greyhound management needs to STOP making preventable mistakes!


----------



## railiner (Feb 22, 2015)

Surely Greyhound could have used another of their own buses....they must have a spare or two in Minneapolis. And even if they were "tight" on equipment, they could have waited and short-turned their next arrival from Chicago back instead of sending the defective one....

I can't say for sure, since I don't have full knowledge of what occurred, but I am guessing they just wanted to get the defective bus back to CHM for repair.

Another possibility is that the bus "seemed" to be working when it was dispatched, but for whatever reason, failed again after departure....

Intermittent problems are not that uncommon. Indeed, many times a bus with a defect is brought to maintenance, and the mechanic will not be able to find the defect.

You know this is true if you have had a similar situation with your own car.

It's like if you are feeling ill, and go to a doctor's office, but when you reach it, your symptons will disappear....


----------



## rickycourtney (Feb 22, 2015)

I'm sorry... but I'm not going to give Greyhound the benefit of the doubt here.

The facts as we know them are these:

* A bus had just arrived in Minneapolis from Chicago and the exiting passengers said there was no heat on the bus.

* That bus left the station for the yard.

* Some time later a bus pulled into the station bound for Chicago and the driver said he had just picked up the bus.

* The bus never warmed up and passengers had to endure a painfully cold ride.

One of two things happened:

The first driver took the bus to the yard, wrote up the problem and the bus was replaced with a spare that just so happened to also have a broken heater. It was given to a new driver who, for some unknown reason, didn't find it necessary to stop at a safe, warm spot.

Or the much more likely scenario is... the first driver took the bus to the yard and may or may not have reported the defect and the bus was not taken out of service. It was refueled and given to a new driver who, for some unknown reason, didn't find it necessary to stop at a safe, warm spot.

Either way... lots of huge mistakes here and nobody did anything to correct them.


----------



## Swadian Hardcore (Feb 22, 2015)

This question would be answered if anybody can remember the bus number.

On GTE, I heard that HVAC failures on a motorcoach are either:
1. Lack of warm coolant circulation through the C/H core
2. Lack of air circulation from the core to the cabin

And:
"If the driver was warm this suggest an air circulation problem. Driver air and windshield defrost is through a different core. Wintertime heating is really a very simple system and this is why there are rarely any failures." -Bren

This suggest that it was most likely a mechanical, rather than electronic, problem.

However, Keegan listed 7 other possible causes that he had run into while driving for CUSA out of Seattle:
1) Coach had two interior thermostats and one was malfunctioning, giving conflicting information. HVAC system would not produce heat (I was the driver on that one, company had to deadhead a replacement coach to me four hours away - after I spent an hour on the phone with a mechanic troubleshooting).

2) Engine won't get up to temperature - for a variety of reasons (stuck engine thermostat, engine shutters not working properly, etc etc etc)

3) Bus (MCI) came from division in hot climate. Hot coolant line to A/C manually turned off. When opened back up for cold weather operation, air lock in coolant line, preventing circulation.

4) Contaminated coolant clogging hot-water valve to heater core.

5) Stuck electric hot water valve (the one in the first luggage bin on an MCI) ... valve stuck closed.

6) Driver dashboard controller failure.

7) Coach evaporator motors inoperative.

Some winters with our large fleet I felt like our shop spent as much time chasing "no heat" reports as they did with "no a/c" reports in the summer. I was always surprised, because ultimately coach heat boils down to the two items you outlined below (Bren, above). I guess I shouldn't have been, because every winter we went through the same thing."

#5 seems to be the same hot water valve issue noted by Railiner. #1 and #6 seem like electrical problems. Perhaps #7 is the same as the fan on one side not working.


----------



## Swadian Hardcore (Feb 22, 2015)

Seems like this is what happened:

1. The X3-45 departs Chicago for Minneapolis with working HVAC.

2. The passenger HVAC fails enroute due to air circulation problems.

3. The X3-45 arrives in Minneapolis, where passengers complain about the lack of heating.

4. The driver reports the failure and goes off-duty.

5. A station employee ferries the X3-45 to the Jefferson lot.

6. The X3-45 is refueled and cleaned.

7. Greyhound finds no spare in Minneapolis and dispatches the bus back to Chicago. They are unwilling to charter a Jefferson and unwilling to hold the vehicle overnight in Minneapolis for Jefferson to repair it.

8. The station employee drives the X3-45 back to the station, where a new driver will take it to Chicago.

9. The new driver is not notified of the heating issue by the station employee. He checks the log and find heating problems, but thinks the bus will just heat up.

10. Passengers board and are told the bus will heat up. The new driver just got the bus, so he tells his passengers that.

11. The bus doesn't heat up because it hasn't been repaired.

12. Greyhound tries to find another bus to deadhead and pick up the passengers, but nothing is available.

13. The driver is unwilling to delay himself by stopping, and just drives all the way to Chicago.


----------



## Swadian Hardcore (Feb 23, 2015)

I was told to be more positive on GTE and not to transfer hate from other boards onto that board without using my own judgement. I guess he (the admin) was right. We have agreed that Greyhound knows strategy but not tactics, leading to this issue. However, this does not mean that Greyhound's positive achievements in recent times should be forgotten.

I was told that positivity should at least meet, if not exceed, the negativity about Greyhound due to their honest desire to improve, despite massive mistakes like ordering the wrong seats on their new buses and publishing an inaccurate route map.


----------



## rickycourtney (Feb 23, 2015)

I'm not a fan of that apologist attitude no matter the company or mode of transportation.

I applaud First Group for all the changes they've made and I also applaud them for keeping the Greyhound name. Greyhound has a badly damaged reputation. It may have been much easier to just do a total rebranding of the line.

First Group has made great strides repairing the Greyhound brand but unfortunately one bad headline can wipe out several good ones. Hopefully they will make the necessary changes to prevent this from happening again.

I'm rooting for greyhound, I really am. I would have never said that 3-4 years ago... but I'm impressed by the changes they've made. They have a ways to go still, but America loves a comeback story.


----------



## tp49 (Feb 24, 2015)

Wouldn't driving a bus in the condition this one was in be a violation or work rules or the union contract? I can't imagine a labor representative being very happy hearing about something of this nature and I also can't imagine the drivers' union not making a stink about this too.


----------



## Swadian Hardcore (Feb 24, 2015)

Like I've said before, I have a love/hate relationship with Greyhound. But I'm not willing to get stuck in a fray on GTE or AU if I don't have to. I'm not an apologist, my anger at Greyhound's inaccurate route map and sagging new seats are certainly backing that up. I just don't want to end up being a whiner, either.

Again, I was told to "not be so negative" and warned "not to turn GTE into a bitching board." I was basically told to discuss the problem instead of whining and bitching. To focus on info and not on emo, if you will. That's what I was told, but I will not talk bad about the GTE guys behind their back. After all, they have supplied much useful information to me.

Currently, we are going through a "chill out".

To answer tp49's question, I believe the driver's heating was working fine and he cranked it up to max heat. He could have stopped in a heated rest stop but didn't do so. Perhaps the dispatcher forced him to or perhaps he just wanted to go home, if he was a Chicago driver.


----------



## NorthShore (Feb 25, 2015)

Why were passengers even allowed to board a bus which had not yet heated up? Shouldn't that be a prerequisite?

Why should/did passengers agree to board a bus with no heat?

Whoever told/allowed them to just get on and not worry about it ought to be fired, outright.

And the passengers should be at least a bit ashamed for not standing their ground and insisting upon heat before the bus rolled.


----------



## Swadian Hardcore (Feb 25, 2015)

Whoever let them on would have been the driver.

I'm happy to see more rational brains on GTE countering the apologists and doves.


----------



## rickycourtney (Feb 25, 2015)

NorthShore said:


> Why were passengers even allowed to board a bus which had not yet heated up? Shouldn't that be a prerequisite?
> 
> Why should/did passengers agree to board a bus with no heat?
> 
> ...


No it's not a prerequisite that the bus be warmed up before passengers can board. It's always possible that the bus was pulled out of a yard where it spent all night turned off. It's very much like your car in the morning... it's cold when you get in, but after a while it heats up... but you probably still pull out of your driveway before it gets warm.

I wouldn't place the blame on the passengers.

Some alerted the drivers to their concern that it was cold... but the driver assured them that it would warm up in a few minutes. He's a person in a position of authority... so they took him at his word. Frankly I would have taken him at his word too.

Now once the bus was en route and it was clear it wasn't going to warm up the passengers could have stood their ground and insist the bus be stopped and the passengers allowed to wait somewhere warm... but I think many people would be hesitant. In this post-9/11 world we are taught that if you stand your ground against a person in a position of authority (pilot, flight attendant, conductor or even a bus driver) you can get kicked off or even detained by law enforcement.


----------



## NorthShore (Feb 25, 2015)

Choosing to roll out one's personal vehicle to get a jump on time (and not everyone does that, some warm up the vehicle for a few minutes, first) is an entirely different thing than a common carrier boarding passengers before a vehicle of transportation is customer ready. A cold bus is not a vehicle which passengers ought to be advised to board. Let it warm sufficiently, first, THEN board passengers.


----------



## rickycourtney (Feb 25, 2015)

Also worth noting that when the passengers boarded the bus it wasn't dangerously cold (that happened once the bus was en route) and since the drivers heat was working fine... the driver may have assumed that the system was working.

As an aside... I boarded a turboprop at the Fresno Yosemite International Airport on day with 110 degree heat. The airport doesn't supply preconditioned air and Q400 doesn't have a real AC system. By the time the main cabin door shut it was probably 125 degrees in the passenger cabin. The crew offered up cold water for those who needed it and promised us that once the plane was up in the air the cabin would cool off. Guess what... we trusted the crew and they were right. By the time the plane landed in Seattle it was almost chilly inside.

My point is that when someone in a position of authority tells you something like "it's cold now, but don't worry, it'll warm up" as a passenger... you shouldn't need to question that or demand the bus be warm before you board.


----------



## Swadian Hardcore (Feb 25, 2015)

Here in Reno, Greyhound drivers usually don't start up the bus until 15 minutes before departure to avoid spewing emissions and wasting fuel trying to pre-heat the interior. They will start it earlier if the Webasto engine pre-heater needs to be used in cold weather after the bus has sat overnight or longer. This vehicle would not have required engine pre-heating if it had just come from Chicago.

I thought there was a regulation that puts a limit on 15-minute engine idling. Sometimes, the driver will let us passengers board and then turn off the engine to go to the restroom before starting it up again when he's ready to go. That's what happened in Denver.

I'm giving kudos to Adirondack Trailways. I was riding one of their J4500s when the HVAC failed in the summer. The driver opened the roof hatches and called for a spare. We pulled off at an exit and directly transferred to an old 102C3 with working HVAC without delay.


----------

