Greyhound Passengers Endure Bitter Cold Ride to Chicago

[Swadian Hardcore]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

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]

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]

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]

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.