Old Metro Transit buses
 

That was the original intent of this topic, but feel free to share your knowledge about buses from other transit agencies, school buses, highway coaches, just about anything goes. I would prefer to talk about older buses though.

Many bus enthusiasts prefer the GM "New Look" bus, like those used in Speed. I was really into our 1983 GM TC40-102N "Classic" buses, which were assigned fleet numbers 870-881, the last of which were retired in December 2009, boo. They were the last buses in Metro Transit's fleet to use the Detoit Diesel 6V71 engine and display their destination on a rollsign. They were also the only Classics in this fleet in which the enclosures above the driver's window and the doors and the paneling above the windscreen were painted white. These were refinished in black on 873 and 877, and 871 eventually had only the paneling above the windscreen painted black. It was rusting and had a black patch panel on the driver's side before. 876-879 were fitted with Luminator MAX electronic destination signs eventually, this being done to 876 about a year before the end of its service life. 878 had the distinction of being the only '83 Classic, and one of only four buses altogether, whose stripes weren't made smaller when the 1999 livery was applied along with the painting of the then-new (and fire-prone) Nova LFS buses. I liked the 1983-88 GM/MCI Classic buses, but the '83s were my absolute favorites. The fleet numbers for all of them went from 870-940. At last check, only 934 and 937 remain, both 1988 MCI Classics. 937 was rebuilt last year, probably before the decision came to retire all of the Classics in 2015. A couple of Interesting videos:

A ride on 871:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jimXEpRiQGk

A 1983 commercial for Metro Transit, featuring bus 874, one of the last 1983 Classics to be retired:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8fjpqotMFM

Hi All;
The ones I liked and fondly remember was the about 1950's Round Corner Buses, they were white..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZLqAdR705s
They were replaced by the Aluminium siding buses in the 1960's.. I don't know who made them, but I suspose they were GM..
THANK YOU Marty

The replacements probably were GM buses. The "New Look" came out for 1959 and was very widely used. We had those too, the last ones going down with the 1983 Classics. The last of those were 1981-82 T6H-5307N models, purchased used from out west in 2003. Our fleet now is mostly New Flyer D40LFs and Nova LFS articulated buses, nothing to sneeze at. I heard a New Flyer go by a few minutes ago. Quite far from the roar of an '83 Classic going by here on a peak hour route, which is mostly what they did during their last few years. Another kind of bus we had was the 1992-93 MCI/NovaBus TA60-102N articulated buses. I'm only mentioning these because we had 14 of only 16 ever made, and none of ours were saved. They were assigned fleet numbers 701-714. Many, if not all of the Classics I mentioned before used Allison V731 transmissions that varied in their number of forward gears. The Classic artics used the Allison VR731, with retarder. The last one on the road was 706, which made its last run on January 18th.

Chad Hauris needs to chime in here. He collects TVs....and school buses too. And you thought YOUR stuff took up a lot of space! ;)

I always liked the KMB (Kowloon Motor Bus) coaches in Hong Kong...especially the old double-deck light yellow ones. I know NOTHING about them, but I find myself waxing nostalgic about the sometimes TERRIFYING experience of catching one and sometimes hanging off the side (this was the 70s and 80s). I still believe HK has the best mass transit I have ever seen...and is MUCH more efficient than owning any car.

San Diego and L.A. are so weird and complicated. I've only tried to brave mass transit here in the states a couple times.....and it's MUCH too complicated to work.

I have seen diecast models of them...but refrained from buying even ONE, or it would become a collection as well :)

Unknown private coach having a bad day. NOT affiliated with any of our public transit agencies with excellent safety records and great drivers:

http://www.myconfinedspace.com/2011/...tle-bus-crash/

Ha, yeah, I saw his YouTube channel a long time ago. ;) I really like the design of his '83 RCA ColorTrak 2000 Digital Command console. I haven't been on a whole lot of school buses, much of the time I was either within walking distance or used transit. The school buses I have been on, for class trips and such, I preferred those with stick shift of course.

Whoa, no way a driver here would allow that. I heard tell of a visiting Brit who was complaining about how many bus stops there are here. Perhaps a similar system to that in Hong Kong is used in the U.K.

I remember the Twin Coach and Flxible buses that were all over Chicago in the 1960s and 1970s, plus a few GM "fishbowl" buses there, too.

I live a few miles from the Gillig bus manufacturing company, so I see buses on the road from various cities here when they are being test-driven.

Ah yes, "fishbowl", a popular nick for the GM New Look series. A Flxible appears twice in Napoleon Dynamite.

NEWS FLASH: The axe has fallen on 934 and 937. I recently checked the flickr photostream of a Metro Transit driver who posts a lot of bus pictures. That's it, all of the buses I actually liked are now gone. 937 gets rebuilt last year, marked for scrap this year. One job requirement for management there must be a lobotomy. R.I.P. 934 and 937.

I would like to collect buses that where used in Romanian cities, but I don't have any money for that :cry: And from 1990 to 2009 in Municipiu of Mirecurea Ciuc where in service 3 1965!!! "F.B.W." B71U Swiss Made buses!
I also miss the '90's "D.A.F." buses (in fact, only the chassie, the steering and the things on which wheels are staying where made by "D.A.F."... the motor and the gear box where German, the body work Spanish or Greek, and the seats - execept for #205 (1st bought) wehere Romanian).

Hehehehehe..I was at a Truckstops of America several years ago, up past Abindon, Virginia, about at the I-81/I-77 interchange, & there was one of those GINORMOUS "Motor Coaches" trying to get a drink of Diesel. The ANCIENT wife was trying to maneuver it into the pumps, but she got it into a big concrete planter/barrier instead. And she obviously had NO idea what she was doing, the more she tried to extricate her likely half-a-million dollar "Palace On Wheels" AWAY from the planter, the worse she'd GRIND it into it... It was PAINFUL to hear. People were yelling, waving their arms, TRYING to help, but she was either VERY flummoxed, or stubborn, or maybe both...We finished up filling up my Dad's Ram Diesel, & left, so I NEVER knew how that story ended up..

A ride on Metro Transit 928, the last of the 1987 Classics to get the axe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP1P3f7Sn7M

Ride video starts at Sackville Terminal, ends on the approach to Cobequid Terminal, which is where 937 was photographed. The video then cuts to a shot of 928 leaving Scotia Square, far away from where the filmed part of the ride ended, probably on the return trip, as route 80 ends on the other side of the road. Also, 1992 MCI articulated Classic 703 is seen passing by at the end of the video.

Warning: deadly poison at 4:50.

Is there any love for the swoopy GM buses that came out in the eighties, the ones w/the curved blackout windows ? They always kinda looked like toys to me.

I remember first seeing those articulated busses. They reminded me of a REAL cheesy movie I saw as a kid called "The Big Bus"....which I have here somewhere. They were so novel when I first saw them, but now those things SNARL up traffic with their ass-end still HANGING out into traffic when they stop. Those will make left turns and then there will be a STOP close to the corner. Once again...the ass-end of the thing sitting out in traffic, or worse....TWO of them will gridlock an intersection.

205, that's within the equipment number range of our long-gone 1984 Scanias. They were numbered 201-212.

I hear that a lot of our drivers don't like the new Nova artics. Confusing controls, dome lights that flood out the interior (I have seen them switched off completely on one side), and doors that open way too slowly. Sometimes one has to bolt through the rear doors because they close so fast on many of these. I have been caught between them before. Just like the 1999-2000 40-foot Novas, these use an annoying motion sensor that one has to wave a hand under to get the doors to open.