This year, things have been a little bit different. I have never been stranded, but I have had quite a few random issues with coaches this year. In fact I have something come up just about once a week since the start of the season. It all started at the end of May with the inaugural arrival of the Amsterdam, right in Anchorage. Since then, it has felt like almost every coach I touch has something break!
When the Amsterdam came to Anchorage, I was assigned to drive one of the Explorer coaches. These coaches have a leveling system in them, which constantly adjusts the ride of the coach. Once in a while, when it is sitting at a curb, the coach will decide it is not level, and it will adjust itself. While I was at the Westmark, the coach decided it to level itself, which caused a problem. The road there has a bit of a crown, so the coaches typically lean a bit toward the curb. This one leveled itself, but when it did, the front end lowered. It lowered rather suddenly and smashed the door on the curb, breaking off one of the plastic trim pieces along the bottom of the door. I reported the incident, and they later glued the plastic piece back on. It was minor, but rather frustrating.
A week later, I was at Kenai Princess Lodge, in Cooper Landing. This did not occur with my coach, but I still got to deal with it. Some of the coaches have a kneeling feature. When this feature is activated, the front end of the coach drops several inches, to make the bottom step smaller and easier to get on and off the coach. One of the other drivers had activated this feature on his coach to board the guests. Once everyone was aboard, he tried to deactivate it, so he could drive again. It did not deactivate, and his coach was stuck in the kneeling position. I ended up switching coaches with him, so he could get going. We moved the guests to my coach and transferred their luggage, and he took off. That left me with his stuck coach to try to trouble shoot and get running. I had my own guests to pick up just an hour later. I did end up getting around the problem, and getting the coach back into the normal position. Once there, I completely disconnected the kneeling system so that it would not get stuck again.
Just a week after the kneeling adventure, I was again at Kenai Princess Lodge. I was in a different coach, and things were going well. The coach was old, but it was operating pretty well despite nearly a million miles. On the last day of the trip, we got going, and the coach began to heat up, even with the air conditioner running. It was warm, but easily bearable. After lunch was another story. As we got going, the coach began to heat up again. By the time we were in Wasilla, it was quite uncomfortable, and I had a light on my dashboard which said, "A/C Malfunc." I was able to stop just as we were getting into Houston, and I opened the roof vents to help get air into the coach. By the time I stopped to do this however, the thermometer read that the coach was 90 degrees inside the coach. Once the vents were open, it was a lot more comfortable in the coach. Despite the air conditioner breaking on me, it still was a great run.
One week later again, also on a Kenai trip, I had a coach which did not like going faster than 55mph. The engine would surge forward, and then it felt like it would begin to stall, then surge forward again. It would go as fast as 65mph, but it lurched pretty badly at that speed. With passengers on board, I did not drive over 55mph, even though it made getting everywhere a bit slower. By myself, I drove it faster and just accepted the fact that it was quite uncomfortable. I do not know why the coach did that. Although the mechanics seem to think that the reason it did that had to do with low fuel. I had driven the coach over 600 miles without refueling by the time I got back to the shop, at the end of the trip. Supposedly those coaches can only go 500 miles on a tank. I guess I was lucky!
Today, just about a week after the shaky coach, I had a coach where everything was going well. I was driving empty to McKinley Princess Lodge, where I would be picking up a group headed to Anchorage. As I was driving, just about an hour from the lodge, I heard a very loud crack. Shortly after, I noticed a new rock chip in the windshield. As I continued driving, the chip began to grow into a crack. It began growing so quickly that I could watch it getting bigger as I drove. By the time I got to the lodge it was about six inches long, so I called dispatch to see if it was even safe to keep driving the coach. Ultimately it was decided that it would be safe to drive it back to Anchorage, where it would be removed from service. It is laminated glass, so shattering was not a big concern. When the coach got back to Anchorage, it was taken out of service until the windshield can be replaced. Also on that trip, the only wildlife we saw was a dead moose and two vehicles on the Glenn Highway. Maybe wildlife is not the right word...
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