Murphy's Law

Murphy's Law states, "If something can go wrong, it will." Well, it goes something like that. I have no idea who Murphy was or is, but I hate his law. Yesterday was a day that pretty closely followed his law.

I went into work yesterday at 8:30am, which would give me plenty of time to do my pre-trip inspection of the coach and get to the Captain Cook Hotel for a 9:30 departure to the Alaska Native Heritage Center. After the ANHC, we would be going to Whittier, to deliver the guests to their ship, the Island Princess. Normally an inspection takes a fairly short amount of time, fifteen minutes could be considered a nice leasurely pace. It is about a 375 point inspection, but after doing it every day, you develop a method, which makes it very quick, yet very effective.

I went out to my assigned coach, #132, and began the usual inspection. I got part of the way through, and found that the hazard lights do not work. That would be needed many times throughout the day, so I could not take the coach out, knowing that they did not work. I went back into the office to explain the situation. The reassigned me to coach #183. I went back outside, and began the inspection on that one, but was again stopped short. I tried to turn the engine over and start it, but nothing happened. I looked at all the guages, and everything seemed to be good, so I tried again. I made sure my transmission was in neutral, but nothing could get it to start. Then I noticed that the battery voltage was at zero. The batteries were dead. By this time, it was about 9:15am, so I only had fifteen minutes to get another coach, inspect it, and get downtown. That was not much time. I ran back into the office and was reassigned to coach #124. Someone helped with the inspection, and I was headed out of the yard in five minutes. The coach passed, there was nothing wrong.

I got to the Captain Cook Hotel, picked up my 23 passengers, and we headed out to the Alaska Native Heritage Center. We had about two hours there, and from there we drove to Whittier. We had to make one short stop before getting out of town, because someone shouted out that the baggage compartment was open. I stopped when I could, and checked on it. The baggage compartments were all closed, but the battery compartment had mysteriously flown open. Other than that minor delay, the trip to Whittier was uneventful. As I was heading back though, the coach seemed to be falling apart around me. First, a rattle started when I was accelerating. I could feel it in the gas pedal, it sent a vibration there, but it sounded like it was coming from the front axle. That continued for the rest of the day. A little while later, I would get a loud grinding noise as I accelerated through 50 mph. I have no idea what that was, but it sounded like it was coming from the engine. Then, periodically, I heard a rubbing noise coming from the right side of the caoch. It sounded like the tire was hitting the splash guard, but there was no marks on it, so I do not know what it was.

When I got back into town, they had me go to railroad hill. They told me I would be the 6:00pm airport shuttle., but that ended up being given to someone else instead. I sat on railroad hill for a few hours waiting for that, but never actually did it. At 6:00pm, the let me know they did not need me, and I headed back to the yard. That was the end of my day. By then the coach had lost about all of its air, which was a little fast! I returned the coach to the yard, and called it a day.

Today we have a very brief training meeting on a service called Park Connection. That lasted about 45 minutes, but they are paying us for two hours. It was just a meeting to help us know what to do and the schedule we will follow if we are assigned to that run. Drivers typically call it the "Denali turn and burn." It is a round trip to Denali with a stop in Talkeetna.