Greyhound seats and fleet questions

[mightyjoe1201]

Wow. Not only is that illegal that's dangerous. If it's that important he should have just called the person he was texting. I hope whoever took the video turned it into GLC.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

He did turn it in. GLC responded with a generic letter, similar to the generic response I got from GLI regarding their inaccurate route map. Calling on the phone while driving is also dangerous.

The driver could have waited till he got to his next stop, Thunder Bay or whatever. Seems like he tried to blow off the incident when questioned by the passenger. Notice how he blocked off the front row seats with a package box. Perhaps Greyhound drivers use "safety" as an excuse to block off the front row so that they will not be observed doing disreputable things by passengers. Drivers themselves say they also have a habit of turning off or taping over DriveCam due to deferred maintenance.

Another video here about a DL3 being towed without safety chains: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pltDvECbFFg.

 

[rickycourtney]

So this slipped under my radar... the old Greyhound station in Seattle was demolished last week.

Here's the story from the Seattle Times sketch artist.

 

[mightyjoe1201]

Calling on the phone is fine if it's hands free. And most professional drivers, myself included, use hands free. Usually Bluetooth. Otherwise, yes he should have waited for a stop or pulled over if it was imports enough. Sounds like greyhound is falling away from safety. They should have done more then a basic letter and what sounds like no reprimand of the driver.

 

[mightyjoe1201]

They should have cameras that the driver can't turn off.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

I saw that article about the station being torn down. Same thing happened in Salinas, California, IIRC.

I see what you mean with the cell phone. Could be like talking on the CB for truckers. Not the first time this has happened with Greyhound. The letter did not mention the incident. They probably just forgot about it.

What's even worse, that bus has DriveCam mounted on the right windshield, and it has the green light, which means it appears to be on, yet the driver continues to text. It appears the driver didn't care about being recorded or perhaps had taped over the camera lens. In the case of the former, that means Greyhound does not review DriveCam footage unless an accident has occurred.

 

[Caesar La Rock]

I found this video on this site.

http://thegreyhoundgroup.blogspot.com/2012/10/robert-redden-history-of-grehound.html

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

How come Greyhound has sent so many X3-45s to the West? GLI #86053 is running today's 1439 Portland-Los Angeles. Many other X3-45s have come out here. For example, this morning, #86077 came in from Denver, and it's continuing to San Francisco right now after a 5-hour break.

Furthermore, #86055 is running today's 1343 Denver-Portland after having just arrived from Portland, #86087 was running yesterday's 1300 Portland-Denver, #86229 running today's 1337 Denver-Portland, and #86053 on yesterday's 1337. Everything else is a D4505 except for #7192 which is running today's 1318 Portland-Denver.

So, Denver-Portland and Denver-Reno are pretty much evenly split between X3-45s and D4505s, rather than 90% D4505s. California is still D4505 Domination.

 

[railiner]

So....are you happy about that, or not?

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Hey, at least it's not a D4505, right?

Doesn't really affect me since they're not being deployed on Reno-San Francisco. But I do find it interesting that Greyhound seems to have a sizeable amount of X3-45s based out of Denver now. In fact, I believe the majority of Greyhound units based in Denver are now X3-45s, while the majority out of Los Angeles and Seattle are D4505s and G4500s, respectively. Notice how the 102DL3 is missing, though some Americanos 102DL3s are based out of Los Angeles.

Rumors are that BoltBus plans to buy ten new buses and deploy them on the Los Angeles-Sacramento and Los Angeles-San Diego routes. That may benefit me if I want to visit Los Angeles again. BTW, I loved visiting Los Angeles last Christmas, and only wanted more time.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Ricky, I found the first BoltBus H3-45 ride vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1OaV90I2oY.

And here's the second part: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm3SxQW7CM4.

At 16:07 in the second video, you see at least 13 GLC G4500s in storage. Right after that, you see a bunch of GLC DL3s and a few GLI Blue G's. Two of the GLCs are pulling trailers. It appears that a lot of the ones in the shop area have the aluminum rear bumper, which is GLC-spec.

There is one thing I don't like about this guy's videos: his Backpacker Mentality. Even though he travels a lot and rides tons of buses, he has no clue what model of bus he is riding on, then he pretends to be knowledgeable.

And I'm also shocked to see how often he sits in the back.

 

[rickycourtney]

City wants West Seattle bus yard to be Seattle Public Utilities division’s new home

Seattle is looking to purchase the Horizon Coach Line yard. This is the same yard Greyhound rents space at for storage and maintenance.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

I don't know if Greyhound even still uses that lot in Seattle. Shouldn't be much of a change for Greyhound since maintenance can simply be shifted to GLC's Vancouver Maintenance Center. Buses can be stored at the small Greyhound station since most runs through Seattle are through runs from Los Angeles anyway.

If they need space, they could rent it from someone else. Perhaps they could borrow KCM's Ryerson Base for storage (not for maintenance).

So what do you think about that H3-45?

Edit: OK, what the heck is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8xU9YtQA6g?

I don't see the driver doing anything wrong. Am I missing something?

 

[railiner]

Apparently, the narrator thinks the Greyhound should be in the right lane, since he is not passing anybody, but rather, is being passed himself on the right....

On an eight lane freeway, some driver's think it is better to travel in the second lane from the right, to avoid constant merger's at each entrance ramp. Or, the bus is behind another vehicle in his lane, that is slowing him down, and he doesn't want to pass on the right...not sure in this case. The narrator I suppose is technically correct, but a bit unreasonable, as he has two additional lanes to the left available to him to pass the bus. Oftentimes, buses are restricted from using the left lanes on multilane freeways...

 

[rickycourtney]

They most certainly do use that lot. I'd guess that there are 10 Greyhound coaches and 5 BoltBus coaches sitting in that lot at any time.

You're forgetting about the Seattle-Missoula/Stanfield runs. You need to have a few coaches based in Seattle for that and even if you rotate all of the coaches through Vancouver (which would be difficult) you still need a place to do light maintenance and coach cleaning. Portland does that at the station, but there are only four slips in Seattle. There's no way they could pull it off there.

The idea of leasing space from King County Metro is good, but those bus bases will be full come early next year. I don't think they have any space to spare.

It's a tough situation… I think most of the charter companies based in Seattle have pretty full lots (certainly not enough room for 15 coaches to be stored) and considering Greyhound got a deal on the plot of land they built their new Seattle station on, I'm not exactly sure they're in a financial position to just purchase a nearby plot of land in SoDo (which would be much more efficient than deadheading buses all the way to West Seattle).

Oh and about those H3-45 coaches, what little of the interior we saw was nice. Looks like the seats got leather covers. It's a nice coach to help with Bolt's expansion.

 

[mightyjoe1201]

Got a question for you guys. I'm looking to move probably next spring to Ohio. If I were to apply to greyhound, does anyone know how often their drivers get home? Especially new hires. I'd prefer not being gone more then a day or two at a time given that my girlfriend is not in the greatest of health. Or if you can direct me somewhere or to someone that can let me know. Thanks

 

[railiner]

Got a question for you guys. I'm looking to move probably next spring to Ohio. If I were to apply to greyhound, does anyone know how often their drivers get home? Especially new hires. I'd prefer not being gone more then a day or two at a time given that my girlfriend is not in the greatest of health. Or if you can direct me somewhere or to someone that can let me know. Thanks

I would contact Greyhound's Human Resources for their answer....and perhaps the Greyhound Amalgamated Transit Union office, for their opinion. I believe there is also a Greyhound Yahoo group forum, where several driver's can give you their input.

As far as I know, unassigned "Extra Board" driver's will generally be home at least every other night...although at times, they may be held away from home for a longer period.

Some regularly assigned drivers are home every night, but it usually takes higher seniority to hold those runs...

Then they have what is known as "supplemental driver's". I believe that is a voluntary program where driver's from places where there may be an abundance of driver's will be temporarily reassigned to a location like New York City, which is perennially short of driver's. In this case, a driver lives on the expense account for the duration, and can bank his paychecks. Lucrative for a single driver, but not a good thing for a family person....these can last for weeks at a time.

If it is necessary to be 'close to home' to care for someone, I don't believe driving for Greyhound is the best career choice....even when at home, you are always subject to reporting for duty, as soon as rested, with a two hour call time.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Lots of topics here, so I'll discuss one by one.

In the video of #7195 driving on the middle lane, I think the narrator is simply annoyed and having a bad day. I don't think the Greyhound driver has done anything wrong in that case, because he is not travelling in a passing lane.

Regarding Seattle, I doubt Greyhound has to store as many as 15 buses in the lot on a regular basis. No, I didn't forget about the Stanfield/Missoula runs, as those are important to me in personal ways, but those two routes only requite 7 buses in total, at least half of which are on the road at any given time. BoltBus doesn't need to store anything as their schedules go to Portland and Vancouver, both of which have plenty of space, and the latter has a fully-equipped Maintenance Center. Same goes for the Greyhound through runs from Los Angeles.

In a pinch, Greyhound could store no more than 5 buses at a time in Seattle. Hopefully KCM has the space. Everything else could be moved to Portland and Vancouver.

I'm not a Greyhound driver, but I understand that new drivers enter the Extra Board, where they drive On Call and get at least 1 day off per week. The other 6 days, they drive 7-10 hours per day, with a minimal of 8 hours rest between each turn of driving. However, the Extra Board means they only drive when they are needed, so a driver could get no work for days, then have to work 6 days in a row before getting a break. Greyhound drivers seem disgruntled and eager to leave the company, so I would not recommend driving for Greyhound.

It is presumably better in loosely-populated areas, where long distances and low frequencies mean even a new driver can have a relatively normal life. I've heard that Salt Lake City can be one of the best bases for drivers, if you don't mind carrying lots of suspicious passengers (due to the large number of homeless in SLC) and driving smelly D4505s.

 

[rickycourtney]

BoltBus now operates 10 round trips between Seattle and Portland on Saturday, but as few as 6 on Tuesday and Wednesday. You need a place to store some of those coaches in Seattle on the less busy days.

The other issue is that BoltBus only runs 5 round trips between Vancouver and Seattle on Friday and Sunday and 4 round trips the other days of the week. That means there will be some serious planning required to make sure that coaches are traveling to Vancouver for maintenance.

Impossible? No, but questionable given Greyhound's track record on maintenance.

As far as King County Metro allowing Greyhound to rent out space at the Atlantic, Central or Ryerson bases... don't hold your breath. Those bases are packed to the walls with buses.

It'll be interesting to see what happens if that old Horizon lot gets sold.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

We're in agreement here. Greyhound's deferred maintenance isn't going to help, but, in a pinch, Greyhound could pull it off. It may involve some reworking of timetables, though. OTOH, since Greyhound motorcoaches don't require round-the-clock maintenance anyway, one could say that it wouldn't be so difficult to rotate buses into Vancouver as long as they don't all go at the same time, which requires synchronization.

Perhaps some other transit agencies in the area has spare space, or maybe another charter line, though Horizon itself has shrunken greatly and has dumped equipment into the used market. KCM might have space in more remote garages.

 

[railiner]

Here's a thought....isn't there a FirstStudent operation in the Seattle area? Perhaps GL could utilize the facilities of their Corporate-mate? Even if they would have to build additional facilities at their location, such as a lav-dump......?

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

I'm wondering if the lavatory can be dumped at the Greyhound station in Downtown Seattle. I'm sure the station has a sewage system, and perhaps it would not be so difficult.

GLC transferred some buses to FirstCanada, and used Greyhound buses are listed on FirstStudent Buses for Sale. So I'm guessing there is a tight relationship between these companies.

 

[mightyjoe1201]

Thanks for the info guys. Doesn't look like I'm going to apply to greyhound then. I'm just looking at options for when I do move.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Hey guys, I was on BusTracker today, and was surprised to see #6971, a second-hand 1998 DL3 from Coach USA, running the 1439 Portland-Los Angeles. I'm not sure why this bus is running this route today. Also, deja vu Blue G #7191 is running 1446 Los Angeles-Portland.

Seems that Reno-Salt Lake City is not the only Greyhound route that recently met the axe. Greyhound has cut service across the board. One of the Dallas-Los Angeles schedules has been discontinued and rerouted to San Antonio-Los Angeles, replacing a San Antonio-El Paso schedule. This represents an overall loss of service on the Dallas-El Paso segment.

Also, two of the Richmond-Atlanta schedules have been discontinued. Both Nashville-Montgomery southbounds have been cut, as well as one northbound. New York City-Indianapolis discontinued. One pair Richmond-Tampa cut. Atlanta-Orlando has apparently suffered cuts as well. Through service remains.

Bad news for GLC. One pair Toronto-Calgary discontinued, leaving only a single daily between Sudbury and Calgary. Calgary-Lethbridge reduced from daily to 3x weekly. Calgary-Cranbrook discontinued. Vancouver-Nanaimo discontinued. Victoria-Campbell River discontinued. Victoria-Port Hardy discontinued. No more GLC service north of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, though service was picked up by Tofino Bus. Thank God the Dawson Creek-Whitehorse remains.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Big news from the rumor mill! It has been said that a G4500 failed CA Emissions Standards and was presumably booted out of the state. It is now possible that Greyhound never installed DPFs on the G4500s and simply ran them into California, hoping they wouldn't have their cover blown. Either that, or they did install DPFs but the particular example on that G4500 was out of order or disabled for some reason.

The G4500s that ran into California were mostly BC-plate units based out of Seattle and operated all international schedules to/from Vancouver. These often ran through to Los Angeles on the Vancouver-Los Angeles route. After this incident, it has been rumored that GLI is planning to withdraw all G4500s from the West and redeploy them to Chicago. BC-plate X3-45s are being redeployed to Los Angeles from Richmond and other X3-45 bases.

It has been further said that, effective January 1st, 2016, G4500s will no longer operate in California whatsoever, and one can further assume that this means no G4500s will operate in the West (and will be redeployed) by that date.