From Moncton, New Brunswick: Bus Story # 2 from Bill Jarvis

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


At Tours to Remember Inc./Metro School Bus Service, Moncton, New Brunswick, the 5 highway coaches lived in the heated garage when not on the road. The 45 school buses were kept outdoors in a fenced and locked compound.

Len was a driver for many years. He had a regular school bus route carrying special needs children, and drove charters as well.

One bitterly cold, windy Sunday morning (temperature about minus 30ºC) Len had a charter with a school bus. When he tried to open the padlock on the gate, the key would not turn. Thinking the lock was frozen, he tried warming it in his bare hands, then tried turning the key harder. It broke off.

Next, he went in the garage. The door the drivers used was next to the bus entrance, with the wash-bay immediately inside it. Len got a hacksaw from the tool room, and went back to cut the lock. With a hardened Viro padlock, that was slow work. Len never wore a hat, and he was very  cold. By the time he got the lock cut, he was late for his charter. He returned the hacksaw to the toolroom.  As he was leaving the garage, he glanced at a school bus sitting in the wash bay. It was the bus he had been assigned for the charter. The cleaners had left it there for him, so it would be warm and easy to start. This was the fourth time he had walked by it.

 The next day at home, Len found out why the key broke. It was the key to his shed.

From Toronto: “Bus(ted),” by an anonymous bus driver for the website Not Always Right

(A woman enters the bus with her son.)

Me: “Excuse me, ma’am. Your son didn’t pay the fare.”

Customer: “But children are free!”

(Read more here.)

From NYC: "Finding the Bus With the Backpack," by Julia E. Whitworth for the New York Times

Dear Diary:

Today, I win at urban parenting.

I realize at preschool drop-off that my 3-year-old has left her backpack with her most beloved stuffed animal on the city bus we took to get there. (Read more here.)

From Seattle: "Let Us Not Judge, That We Might Not be Judged Ourselves," by Nathan Voss

These two were not students attending accredited universities. They were not educated businessmen. They were street people...(Read the whole story here.)

Busboy's Annual Pass: Was It Worth It? Spreadsheet for December.

35 boardings marks my lowest monthly total rides for the year. We had grandchildren (and their parents) in for the last 12 days of the month. We had two possible bus trips planned with the grandkids, but time knocked out one, and very nasty weather the other. Still, I ended up in the black, with a $4.75 “profit.” See below for the cumulative totals since January 1 last year.

You can find out what this is all about here.

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.

From Richmond, Virginia: Driving Richmond: Stories and Portraits of GRTC Operators

A multimedia project— photographic portraits by Michael Lease, text panels based on interviews conducted by Laura Browder, and sound portraits by Benjamin Thorp—that draws on the experiences of Greater Richmond Transit Authority bus operators.

The stories they told us changed the way we looked at the city. (Read, see, and hear more here.)