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Frustrating ride in a seated coach
I’m taking a machining course at the technical school in West Bend (WI). Last Monday the entire machine tool program students and instructors took a field trip to the International Manufacturing Technology Show at McCormick Place on the lakefront in Chicago. We road in a seated coach; Van Hool. It was an interesting day in the coach.
First off, just as the loaded coach is about to pull away from the front door of the school the driver asks “where exactly are we going, I know McCormick Place in Chicago … but where exactly?” The instructors were a little unsure. So off we went. I was in the third row from the front on the drivers side. Driver was sitting lower than me (link in a Prevost H), I couldn’t see a GPS.
We head south of West Bend on US 45 @ 7am which takes us to Milwaukee. Somewhat to my surprise, the driver exits US 45 at STH 145/Fond du Lac Avenue. This is a four lane highway which led us into Milwaukee in a southeasterly direction. I hear the driver explaining to one of the instructors that he is taking this route to avoid going through the “Zoo Interchange” which is the busiest interchange in Wisconsin, is undergoing a billion dollar rebuilding, and is always backed up during morning and evening rush hour. I think “OK”, this guy probably knows what he is doing.
At this point Geo and Corey are reading with their mouths wide open in misbelief.
After a while FDL Ave turns into four lanes of surface streets with lights. Now its about 7:30/7:45am and its busy. Suddenly I realize that half of FDL Ave is under construction and we are only one lane in each direction. Now we’re crawling along.
Eventually we turn onto 60th Street and head south. More stop and go. Now a slight left turn onto Appleton Avenue which puts us a mile or two away from Sherman Park where the rioting and burning of cars and six buildings occurred just two weeks ago. A two or three block ride on Appleton to Lisbon then we finally turn south onto STH 175 (aka Miller Park Way). At Miller Park we get onto I-94 which we take to the Marquette Interchange in downtown Milwaukee (moderate traffic) and turn south for Chicago.
Did the diversion through Milwaukee’s now infamous inner city save us any time? Not sure. I trust the pro driver knows what he is doing. Although for a while I thought the older coach had a manual transmission as every time the trans shifted the coach jerked. Another student thought the driver was lifting the throttle everytime there was a trans gear shift at low speeds.
We take an exit well south of downtown Chicago into the Museum Campus, Soldier Field, and McCormick Place. Lots of discussion up front about where to do. I heard “there should be signs for bus drop off and bus parking”. Finally after circling McCormick Place once and Soldier Field twice we go under McCormick Place, find a spot by a door (apparently “any door”), and we’re dropped off. Originally back in West Bend we were told the pickup would be at 4:45pm and this is reinforced as we get off the coach and to meet at “Gate 33” where we were dropped off.
Enmasse we head for credentials. The instructors get theirs first and then give the students ours. Now we’re told to meet at McDonalds at 3:30pm! We just lost an hour and 15 minutes of show time PLUS 15 to 20 minutes for the tour of Soldier Field and the Museum Campus. Buimmer. Less time to look at stuff I’m very unlikely to ever use let alone buy.
3:30pm we meet at McDonalds. We’re discouraged from buying food at McDonalds because we don’t want to keep the bus waiting. Which was a moot point because the coach didn’t arrive until 4:50pm to pick us up.
The ride through The Loop and out the Kennedy on I-90/94 to the junction where I-94 splits to head for Milwaukee wasn’t too bad. I woke up just south of Milwaukee’s General Mitchell Airport. We took I-894 around the south side of Milwaukee and up to the Zoo Interchange where we connected with US 45 for the trip back to West Bend.
As we drove under the Watertown Plank Road bridge I heard what sounded like a .300 Weatherby Magnum go off behind me. I heard a bunch of the students in the back of the coach in unison say “HOLY SHIT!!!!!!”. The driver guided the coach to the shoulder. I heard a student say, “We must have blown a tire, the whole side of bus came off!”. The driver exited the coach. I looked out my window towards the rear of the coach and could see a HUGE piece of bus fiberglass or plastic laying in the traffic lane plus a long piece of what looked like aluminum channel or angle.
A few minutes later the driver returned and announced that we’d blown a tire. He sat in his seat and was on the phone for a long time. I presumed to call the company, get a tire and mechanic, and hopefully another bus. It appeared from the discussion that the driver’s side tag blew.
While this went on the semi’s in the traffic lane destroyed bus parts laying on the highway and the remnants disappeared. I also realized that we were really, really close to the traffic lane and not far onto the “shoulder”. I noticed there was also some traffic on our right and realized that was the ramp onto US 45 from Watertown Plank Road!!!!! We were in the “no man’s land” island between three or four lanes of US 45 just north of the busiest interchange in Wisconsin and the onramp from a major feeder road … and deep into the “island”. Its about 6:45, almost 7pm now.
The driver spent quite a bit of time on the phone, lots more than if he was just getting us another bus. After a while (probably 15 minutes) the instructor in the seat in front of me turned around and we started talking. He mentioned that one of the first things he would have done is called 911 and asked for a squad car to sit behind us. I mentioned to him that by law (I think its the law) that the driver has 10 minutes from the time he stops the coach to when the triangles should be out and he hadn’t made an attempt to do that. But in his defense I said they are probably in a bay below and they are hard to get at with the traffic on either side. The instructor asked how I knew that and I told him I had a 45′ coach similar to this one.
The instructor said, “He can’t start the bus. That is why he’s on the phone”. HUH????? So I went forward and told the driver I have considerable recent experience with a 1999 Prevost and if there was anything I could help him with. The driver said, “we’re dead. When the tire blew the engine immediately stopped and I had to pull over.” We went through a reasonable start procedure … trans in neutral, parking brake set, key on, push the starter button and nothing happened. We both said that for some reason its like the computer won’t let the engine fire up.
I suggested that he turn off the chassis batteries at the main cutoff, both the 12 volt and 24 volt and maybe the chassis computer restarting might allow the bus to start so we could pull off to a more safe location. I don’t think the driver understood what I wanted to do nor do I think he knew where to find the master cutoff switches. He did say another coach was coming that we’d transfer to and proceed to West Bend while the mechanic would change the tire and get the bus started. I heard him later say to an instructor, “I’m not a mechanic, I just drive them.”
Somewhere along the time a sheriff’s deputy pulled in behind us with his lights on. Some of us wanted to leave the bus and have family members pick us up. But because of the dangerous position we were in, the deputy would NOT allow anyone to leave the bus. Fortunately it wasn’t too hot in Milwaukee that day and the sun was going down. But it get pretty hot in the back of the bus. The driver had to be asked to turn on vent fan in the bathroom which helped a little bit. The replacement bus was coming from Fond du Lac which MORE than an hour away.
Not once did the driver use the PA system in the bus to explain to everyone what was happening. He’d tell the instructors in the front and they’d try to relay the information to those in the back.
Eventually the replacement coach arrived, missed the most expeditious exit and had to go through the Zoo Interchange to the next exit, turn around and then received an escort from a second sheriff’s deputy and we made the transfer.
We finally got back to West Bend about 10pm … almost three hours later than we should have.
We’ll probably never know why the tire blew, why the engine shut down and wouldn’t refire, what was done to restart the bus, or in my mind most importantly … HOW OLD WERE THE TIRES!!!!!!!
Fortunately it wasn’t 90 degrees in the middle of the afternoon with a clear blue sky or 10 degrees at night.
Although I felt sorry for the driver (as he seemed like a nice, personable fellow), I shouldn’t have. He didn’t do a very good job of “driving” the coach from start to finish.
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2 Replies
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He sounds like he is a very nice steering wheel holder.
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We went on a Vanhool from San Fransisco to Carmel and back many years ago on a tour. That thing had so many air leaks that the the air dryer was popping off about every 45 seconds. I asked the driver if he knew about it and he told me that all he did was driver the bus and didn’t have time to look at the gauges or worry about air leaks.
He was worthless in the driving department as well. He couldn’t stay in his lane very well, and was on and off the gas all the time.
I don’t think the charter companies can get any decent drivers these days either. Steering wheel holder just about covers it.
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