SoSpectacular

If you already handed in the pre-employment packet, you'll have to do them again, but they will give you your old one back to copy off of it/add more information should things had changed

DCAS states list number of the last person appointed was 805

The medical exam is pretty much a routine physical. First you'll have your vitals checked, blood pressure, heart beat. They'll tell you to take a few deep breaths. Then they'll have you pee in a cup again and they'll test your urine for any chemical imbalances. After that you'll do the EKG, vision and hearing test. Then it's back to the doctor who first saw you when you were called in.

I was one of those kids who got a half-price student card when I was in high school. It didn't serve me much purpose as I'd have to walk to a bus stop that's halfway through the walk to school (More like entirely out of my way). I never wound up using it despite getting them every year.

I'm currently line training at my depot and yes it is perfectly fine to keep a note pad on you. Hell, even my superintendent from Day 1-7 suggested it while we were road test training at Eastchester. Once you get to your depot the union or whoever you meet on your first day there they should get you accommodated with all the routes the depot has. Then whoever you mentor with will guide you along the way. You'll do alright man.

Heh those depots were open when it was our turn to pick. I'm surprised Gun Hill or Kingsbridge didn't pop up, they had a lot of openings for our class

For our Day 7, we were taken along the B13 route and the surrounding side streets, going from Ridgewood all the way to Spring Creek and back. We did everything from acute left turns to right hooks. Basically utilizing all our skills in a sense. Best thing I could tell you is to never make the same mistake each day. Days 1-5 are for you to learn. Use the notes your instructor writes on your task sheets and think about what you can do to remedy that situation. Every slip-up I made from Days 1-5 never happened again. On my first day I had the bus veering off too close to my right because it felt a little overwhelming at first. It took some getting used to. Day 2 I offered to go first on making turns. I veered too close to a car on my right making a right turn. Got trolley braked. Took that experience, went home and thought back. Day 3 we learned bus stops. I did not notice my instructor had put his leg in the door while I tried to close it. Whoops. Wasn't paying enough attention. Didn't happen again! Day 4 I nearly veered into an el pillar because I got confused as to which mirror I was supposed to find the pillar on my right and lost it. Day 5 I was finally feeling more comfortable behind the wheel so driving in upper Manhattan wasn't as bad. Still got trolley braked because I did not utilize some extra space at a strange intersection. I also forgot to utilize a hook turn because I wasn't paying attention to how close I was to a curb. Had to be backed up and complete the turn. Day 6 I mistimed a turn signal and instantly had to go to Day 8 and 9. But! My Day 7 was flawless. My instructor was impressed. "Why couldn't you do that the days before?!" He'd said after I made a fairly difficult turn. It was hard but I got it done.

No I passed it today. I go to my depot Tuesday.

You'll be seeing me on Tuesday! I feel great today!

Yeah... Right when you pass the entrance ramp after 8C you can use that lane to get to 8A, just have to be mindful of the merging traffic.

Yeah we did all that after the examiner left! We we warned that the guy you had yesterday was a tricky bastard!

Didn't see you afterwards but congrats! The remaining two of us to Gleason are up Monday morning!

I had to go to day 9 because of a mistake I nearly made on day 6. While I did really good on day 7 I couldn't qualify because you have to be near perfect on day 6 along with 7.

My instructor at Grand Avenue did the entirety of our training along the B13 route and the surrounding streets. The route has it all, acute/obtuse turns, hook turns, tight streets where you literally are 2 feet from hitting a car probably so it was the perfect stage for day 7.

You'll pick depots sometime in the next week during either General Instruction/Customer Service and/or Vision Zero classes. And yes, you and your Day 7 classmates will spend the day driving around and taking turns. Those that qualify on Day 9 will do it on Monday and pick up those who pass on that day which will be Day 10 and drive around.

You're going to do equipment training. You're going to get familiar with the Nova LFS and New Flyer XD40 models. Word of advice: When you get behind the wheel of the New Flyer, don't be surprised at how the brake pedal reacts when you come to a stop. It's some type of self-applying interlock that allows you to rest your foot in between stops. You will feel it sink after about 2-3 seconds of idling and you'll have to tap the gas pedal to get the bus going. It won't roll on its own. I got behind the wheel of it and was confused after I released the parking brake. The superintendent in charge had to tell me to hit the gas.

Nope, with the new testing standards as of December 2017 the three parts of the road test require more space- the skills test especially. Eastchester has the room for it so it's done there now.

The road test is administered by the NYS DMV at Eastchester Depot.

Also, to add on to that, the instructor won't make you pre-trip the entire bus! He or she may point out various locations or tell you to begin from a certain side of the vehicle (They may try to trip you up in the middle of the air brake test by asking you to abruptly stop in between steps and move on to the next thing. DO NOT allow this to happen. Instant failure.). Although certain parts of the vehicle are not accessible, you still need to mention them. Next Monday's my road test, by the way.

You only have to report any pending moving violation tickets, such as the ones that get you points or your license suspended. Camera tickets are a gray area because those go to whoever owns the car and not the driver so they don't really go on your abstract. If they're not pending, then you're good. I didn't have to mention a ticket I got back in May 2017 because it was already taken care of by the time I got to pre-employment.

You should learn the exterior and interior pre-trip on Day 1 and practice it until about Day 4 or so. We got handouts for the engine compartment and the area within the front wheel wells. The ALSAPS (air brake test) is a MUST. Yeah, the route was more or less the same.

Yes you can't drive without an actual Class B commercial license. The hardest part about it is knowing what and where you're looking at when doing the pre-trip. I've got the exterior and interior parts down pat including the air brake test. I'm hoping I don't have to do the engine compartment but I'll have to keep looking at the important parts around the engine more to learn this

A majority of us that were in the 4/15 class had list numbers in the 500s and whoever they pulled from the previous exam so your time should be coming relatively soon. Just hold on in there man

I will be seeing you guys on Monday for equipment training! On a side note, I don't have to travel out too far now! So I'm very pleased!

This is true. We stayed mainly along the B13 route. Some real nasty turns along the way. That's what I call a proving ground loool