From Moncton, New Brunswick: a bus story from Bill Jarvis

Bill Jarvis drove a bus for 25 years in Moncton, New Brunswick. He shared this bus story with me in a recent email, and when I asked, gave me permission to post it in This Week’s Featured Story. It came just in time for Christmas.


It was a Saturday evening about 20 years ago, a couple of weeks before Christmas. I was just finishing supper when the phone rang. On the line was the general manager of Tours to Remember Inc., for whom I drove on a casual, part-time basis. “Air Canada just diverted a plane from Saint John to Moncton because of the weather. Could you take 232 to Moncton Airport and deliver the passengers to their hotels in Saint John?” I agreed, then looked out the window to see that a heavy snowstorm had just started.

Fleet number 232 was a 1977 GMC P8M-4905A, a 47-passenger coach, with a 4-speed standard transmission. If I had to be on the highway on a stormy evening, I knew from experience that there was no model of bus that handled better in snow. (Previously, one of the company’s senior drivers had told me, “They’ll plow snow to the headlights.”)

When the passengers and their luggage were loaded, and we were under way, I picked up the microphone. “Your plane overshot the Saint John runway by about 170 kilometres. Now it’s up to bus people to get you safely to your destination. This trip usually should take about 1¾ hours, but with tonight’s driving conditions I expect we’ll need 2½ hours. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the Christmas lights on homes we’ll pass.” 

As the trip progressed, I occasionally let the passengers know how we were doing, and made a few more comments hoping to make the trip more pleasant.

Once in Saint John, the passengers were taken to three or four hotels. The last passenger to get off at the last hotel was an elderly lady. To my surprise, as I gave her her luggage, she handed me a $5.00 bill and said, “Sir, you are the first good thing that has happened in a very long and very bad day.”

I was thanked many times over 25 years of bus driving, but I don’t remember many times where it was for helping someone’s bad day get better.