First day out of “Classroom Training”

Today is my first day driving with Senior drivers with C-Tran. On July 3rd my class and I graduated from our 5 week classroom/basic training in driving a 40ft bus. Today I’m going to be driving to Portland on the #134 Salmon Creek Express, and doing a run the #37/71 Mill Plain/Hwy 99. This afternoon I will be returning to Portland on the #164 Fischer’s Landing Express.

This is a big step in the learning process for me. 15 days from now of driving with Senior Operators, I will be on my own. I started my training with 6 other drivers, but graduated with 4 of them. It’s funny, kids and people make fun of bus drivers, but they don’t really understand the stress and pressure we are under. We need to make sure that we are safe, and get our passengers to their stops on time. Which it is hard to do at times, some of the customers are not so friendly and they feel that we are making them late on purpose, but we are actually getting them there on time.

So far I love my job, hopefully I still feel that way in 5 or more years. I feel I will.