Edmonton city bus driver retires after 50 years behind the wheel

He wasn't planning to spend 50 years on the job, but Edmonton bus driver David Tiedemann is finally putting his career in park.

The City of Edmonton says Tiedeman is the only transit operator to reach the five-decade milestone.

"I was quite ready actually to depart about 35 years into it, but circumstances in our life changed things as one of my granddaughters came to live with me, and she was only eight years old at the time, so I thought maybe I'd better stay on for a little while and get benefits for her while I was working," Tiedemann told CTV News Edmonton Friday afternoon after completing his final shift operating the 747 route.

After starting with Edmonton Transit on Aug. 27, 1973, Tiedemann clocked more than 18,000 days on the job. He would wake up at 2:30 a.m. every morning for work, meaning he kept a relatively early bedtime, something his family — particularly Maureen, his wife of 51 years — had to work around.

"It wasn't the easiest to be a wife to a bus driver, either, when I would say, 'Well, it's time to go to bed' at six o'clock in the evening and leave your wife there watching TV or playing solitaire," Tiedemann said. "I couldn't have done it without the proper wife and family, so I want to say thank you to them."

Tiedemann said he had been working at the Chateau Lacombe as a cook when he decided to apply to become a city policeman all those years ago.

"I was writing some tests for them when I saw an ad for Edmonton Transit, and I thought, 'Wow, I might as well put my name in there,'" said Tiedemann, at the time 22 years old, of the job posting that paid $4.60 an hour, $1.60 an hour more than what he was making at the downtown hotel. "They immediately called me and wanted me to come in like two days later."

And in the 50 years since, Tiedemann enjoyed seeing the sunrise each morning and watching people getting their days started — "I like driving. The scenes were always changing. You never had the same scene" — and also special events driving buses for Heritage Days, sporting events, as well as major spectacles held in the city such as the 1978 Commonwealth Games and the 1983 World University Games.

"Those special times, football games, hockey games, such like that, they were a lot of fun," he said. "The pressure wasn't there from the traffic, so to speak ... I was the traffic."

For his final day Friday, he took on a few additional passengers on his route — including Maureen, two daughters, a daughter-in-law, two grandsons aged two and five, his two brothers and a former colleague from his early years as a driver — to help him mark the occasion.

"He’s pleasant and personable and makes the day for everybody who gets on his bus," Maureen said of what made David a durable, venerable driver for so long.

She's glad he's finally retiring, however, so he can spend more time with her and the family, so he can enjoy other things in life, and so she doesn't have to conjure up his lunch.

The last one she packed for him contained a salami sandwich, an apple, a hard-boiled egg and a caramel chocolate bar.

"I'm glad that I'm through with it," said a smiling Maureen. "I made my last lunch last night for him. I don't have to do that anymore."

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Jessica Robb