Some neat pic's from the other day.
not fishbowls...

fishbowls...














Next time....the future of the city bus. Stay tuned.

Fishies! Nice.

Woodstock still has these in active service!

SHIT I'M BECOMING A TRANSIT FAN!

aye a couple of transit properties still run Fishbowls but they're dying off fast. I believe Brantford Transit owns the oldest Fishbowl (a 1973 I think).

Whitby Transit (before they got merged to form Durham Region Transit) had like 2 fishbowl buses. I got stuck on a rather poorly maintained on the day in August of 2005 when the freak thunderstorm dropped buckets of water on Southern Ontario. Lets just say the windows are not correctly sealed anymore

Nice shots of retired horses! the engine looks like it's in very good external condition. you darn Cannucks got nice drivers areas!!! one of the ones that we (Cincinnati Transit Historical Association) own is a '78 model and still has the early-model steering wheel and column... the one on that '76 you shot looks like they pulled it from a GM/MCI/Nova Classic...

And what is your last shot of? New Flyer or Orion maybe? Very modern looking, and I dont recognize the layout (I've only seen Gillig, GM, AMG, and Flxible cockpits)

-Cody

It's a new flyer E40LF...we have a large trolly system up here....pic's on the way

We recently retired all our Fishbowls, I was the last Transit Fan to spot one on the road. I'll put up pics later as I am not on my computer at home right now.

i think RTD might have a few old Grumman Flxibles plying the roads...but i haven't seen one for a while. the oldest i've seen recently are some older model Gillig Phantoms.

Posted by HypnoToad It's a new flyer E40LF...we have a large trolly system up here....pic's on the way

Hehe actually only 2101 is a E40LF, the rest are E40LFRs. Builder plates. Also all of them have arrived and now the E60LFRs are arriving.

Any pics of the E60LFR's? Are they basically the same as the DE60LFR in terms of styling?

I was actually wondering last week if the E60LFR even existed. Don't think I've seen an artic trolley before.

speaking of E60LFR, did you guys ever see the Novabus LFS articulated?

it's quite nice.



I would really like to see NF's here in Quebec, but I doubt that day is near...

but to get back on topic, long live the newlooks! I havant seen one in years... last one was taken out of service in 2004.











i could go on all day.

Posted by OCInfiltrator Hehe actually only 2101 is a E40LF, the rest are E40LFRs. Builder plates. Also all of them have arrived and now the E60LFRs are arriving.

Right! Most of the new E60LFR's are here. There are problems with testing them. It would seem a few moar transformer sub-stations are in order. They were load tested with water filled barrels on another shift, and they were bucking like bronco's. CMBC had to pay for a lot of R$D into this 600V DC system, and one (not sure what #), is on loan to Edmonton for road trials, as they are also looking at an order.

What is the dif between LF and LFR?? I noticed 2101, (I hated the com's pre-install, most of the "pre-installed" wires were missing), had alum rims, and see-through electrical boxes behind some panels.
It seems like the quality control on the 60's is a bit better as well, except for the pinch points on the artic joint handrails. NF sent out a warranty refit for the pinch point...and of course underestimated the time needed to complete the task. Are the 60's put together in Winnie as well?

As for the Novabus 40LFS...damn good bus. Built better, and better quality control. They are also much quieter (I live on the uphill side of a bus stop). The schematic's can be a little tricky, (they are usually in french). I really like to work on these. the elec tie in's are layed out better, and the circuits we tie into actually work most of the time!!! The most recent order has is now just been put in service. Another order has just been placed..Hydrogen.

Both New Flyer, and Nova are good. I just like things that get people away from cars, and poor people, like myself, around. I am damn lucky to be able to work on these.

Posted by Stewie Any pics of the E60LFR's? Are they basically the same as the DE60LFR in terms of styling? I was actually wondering last week if the E60LFR even existed. Don't think I've seen an artic trolley before.

San Francisco has articulated trolleys since 1994 built by New Flyer. First in North America. They got more from Skoda in 2004 if I remember correctly.

Posted by HypnoToad Right! Most of the new E60LFR's are here. There are problems with testing them. It would seem a few moar transformer sub-stations are in order. They were load tested with water filled barrels on another shift, and they were bucking like bronco's. CMBC had to pay for a lot of R$D into this 600V DC system, and one (not sure what #), is on loan to Edmonton for road trials, as they are also looking at an order. What is the dif between LF and LFR?? I noticed 2101, (I hated the com's pre-install, most of the "pre-installed" wires were missing), had alum rims, and see-through electrical boxes behind some panels. It seems like the quality control on the 60's is a bit better as well, except for the pinch points on the artic joint handrails. NF sent out a warranty refit for the pinch point...and of course underestimated the time needed to complete the task. Are the 60's put together in Winnie as well? As for the Novabus 40LFS...damn good bus. Built better, and better quality control. They are also much quieter (I live on the uphill side of a bus stop). The schematic's can be a little tricky, (they are usually in french). I really like to work on these. the elec tie in's are layed out better, and the circuits we tie into actually work most of the time!!! The most recent order has is now just been put in service. Another order has just been placed..Hydrogen. Both New Flyer, and Nova are good. I just like things that get people away from cars, and poor people, like myself, around. I am damn lucky to be able to work on these.

Your calling the NovaBus LFS a damn good bus? Are you joking? That is one of the crappiest buses built. After a couple weeks in service the ride on them becomes so bumpy that it will rattle your bones and after a year of service, they become so unreliable that the mechanics hate them.

I went to STO which operates a fleet made up of 50%+ of LFSs and the mechanics there hate them cause of the computer system that freak out if they remove a part without checking with the computer. He showed me what he has to do to remove a part and man is it time consuming. The engine placement on the side makes the bus slide towards the left in snow and STM in Montreal is like retiring all of their first gen LFSs.

LFSs are not better, they are annoying as hell, they are noisy with that annoying interlock at the rear door, they makes too much noise when opening the doors and the drivers seat placement hurts your neck after a while when checking bus passes.

At OC Transpo we have a problem with people kicking the rear door, it ends up breaking the door and sending it into the shop to be fixed which is time consuming and it is taking mechanics away from fixing buses that actually need fixing.

Also NovaBus leaves their body outside when being built to be exposed to the elements and those Glued Panels on the sides have a tendency to fall off on the highway causing accidents. We've had a couple of those cases in STO.

I stand strongly on my position.

BTW All of STOs LFSs are 2002 and above.

As your LFSs are pretty new in Vancouver, give them another year, they will start decaying then, all LFSs do. STOs start decaying majorly after a month in service. Already STOs brand new 2007 LFSs are in pretty poor conditions. They haven't been in service for a year yet.

I hate how NovaBus canceled the Classic and RTS because the LFS was not as successful as they were.

Anyway back to the original topic of the quoted post, the different between most LFs and LFRs are exterior looks. There is no real difference except those you noted. Really 2101 is a LFR but it was the first LFR and New Flyer couldn't decide what to call their Redesigned models at that time so they decided on putting a R after the LF. So think of 2101 more as a LFR then a LF.

If it was a true E40LF, it would look like all your pre-2005 D40LFs but with trolley bus features.

I hate how OC Transpo keeps retiring buses that still got loads of life left in them. Our Fishbowls when we retired them had 7 years of life left in them (now would be 6 if they are still running) yet they decided to retire them anyway. No kidding we have such high fares as they keep wasting money.

Posted by Professor Chaos speaking of E60LFR, did you guys ever see the Novabus LFS articulated? it's quite nice. http://img167.imag...83/71997398qi0.jpg I would really like to see NF's here in Quebec, but I doubt that day is near...

They are now building the LFS Articulated but it won't look like that. They only offer it to look like this:

Well the first generations were really shitty, yeah, that I agree, I remember in particular that the breaks were really horrible and noisy, and the RTC over here are putting them on smaller runs (all the 96 and 98 ones).

However, I can't really picture the newer ones being that bad? It's almost all we have here (there are still some classics, but fewer and fewer, mainly the NB classics, MCIs are getting rare), but I've never seen or heard of the panel accident. I also find them not that noisy. The newer ones (01 and up) are normal IMO as far as noise goes. And as for the decaying of the buses, again, over here, even with out extremely shitty winters, they seem to be holding up just fine. I can't talk about servicing though, because I don't do any of that. I just ride them...

anyways, im no expert, im just a fan.

The HSR '97 Nova's are a pretty awesome example of how horrible the first gen nova's are. The brakes squeal, the suspension is always shot, the engine is incredibly loud and sluggish and for some reason they attract dirt and vandalism more than any other model. I suppose because there's so many nooks and cranny's where you can write things or otherwise damage the vehicle where you aren't seen.

Horrible pieces of shit, just like the Orion VI.

http://ca.youtube....atch?v=xtDkHI29qOE

did you shoot that?

Yep.

Yep, VIs are crappy also. But OC Transpos are actually not that bad, but I've ridden a Hamilton VI, I agree that it is a peice of shit. Our super padded seats make up for the crappyness. But they are fairly reliable except in deep snow. At least they are more reliable then our LFSs.

We put our VIs on local suburban routes because that is what we ordered them for so that is what their specs are. That is why they got a modern verson of the bench seats. I will get a picture of the interior for you guys later.

They are our only low floors to have good seats. The rest have either those hard seats with no padding or those hard seats with a tiny bit of padding.