Official Bus thread

[jwhite07]

I saw Flyer ETB #4007 dewired on the 73 today... one of the trolley poles broke somehow. The trolley shoe and retriever rope were lying in the street, while the rest of the broken pole was sticking straight up in the air.

The other pole was still intact, but the motorman (I guess you can refer to ETB drivers as such) had already lowered and hooked it, and was waiting for a tow. Thankfully he didn't take the wire down with him when that pole broke!

By the time I came back inbound a couple of trips later, the disabled ETB had been moved and service was back to normal.

[octr202]

I've seen that happen a couple times to the TT's. One of the TT service trucks is a pickup with ladder racks on it. In the racks are usually a couple to a few complete trolley poles. I suppose the easiest method to handle the disabled bus is to simply climb up and replace the pole in the field. I've seen this being done once...at least I suspect it was. The truck was behind a bus with a couple men on the roof.

Any time a TT is disabled, they'll pull the pole(s) down. Its the only way to let the rest of the buses operate.

As a final note, was this in the afternoon? I got to harvard at 7, and there were big crowds waiting for the 71 ad 73. The 71 driver was in one heck of a hurry to get us all on when she showed up a couple minutes later, and we drove so fast I thought we might break one of our poles.

[jwhite07]

Yeah, it was about 1:30pm when I saw it. Cleared up by the time I went back through the area about an hour later. It was somewhere along Belmont Street... not sure exactly where as I'm not very familiar with that area.

[octr202]

There apparently was more trouble on the trackless routes. Around 5:45 this evening there was a line truck at Mt. Auburn and Fresh Pond Pkwy., as well as a couple supervisor's Suburbans. I had also seen four (4!!) RTS's inbound on the 71 and 73 while I was heading outbound on the 71. Finally, as I was getting off, I heard chatter over the radio about momentary power loss at the same spot at Fresh Pond. Anyone know what was going on out there today?

[efin98]

A bit off topic...
But at another transportation forum, I stumbled upon pictures of the old Fields Corner Busway just before they started construction, currently going on.


http://www.geocities.com/hannity_colmes ... orner.html

The young man who created that site and took those pictures(of which I was the first to see!) is the guy is my source for alot of information regarding the MBTA buses. He knows his stuff and knows alot of people "in the know".

CS, he will be glad for the compliment from you and the link from this site :D

[Spenbald]

I've seen that happen a couple times to the TT's. One of the TT service trucks is a pickup with ladder racks on it. In the racks are usually a couple to a few complete trolley poles. I suppose the easiest method to handle the disabled bus is to simply climb up and replace the pole in the field. I've seen this being done once...at least I suspect it was. The truck was behind a bus with a couple men on the roof.

I saw one of these service trucks going down Concord Street just out of Harvard Square several weeks ago. There were two men riding in a (makeshift) bucket, and one was tapping on the "dead" wire with some device. What was this all about?

Also, I saw a number of problems with the TT's "derailing" as it were. At least two or three right in row at the switch at Mt. Auburn and Belmont. Any chance the newer vehicles will be less prone to this?

[jwhite07]

Unless the design of the pickup shoe is radically different, any trackless trolley will dewire on a defect. What's really needed is for the wire crews to go out there and fix what's wrong!

In other bus news, I noted from the NETransit website that the upcoming Neoplan 35' and 40' diesels may end up being numbered right behind the 1994/1995 RTS orders... 0401-0575 instead of 2301-2475. What do we call 'em now, Zero Series II?

I actually like the logic behind it... 0xxx for diesel buses, 1xxx for articulated buses (no matter how they're fueled) and 2xxx for CNG buses.

[efin98]

great differentiation there, and finally some logic from the T :D

I got word from a good friend that the first 0-series has arrived in Lynn! Only a matter of time before we can dump our 84s and 85s :D

[Robert Paniagua]

That's good Ed, and hoepfully the Quincy Garage (even though I drive now) can have the other 0-series buses in our backyard, some even going south running side-by-side with their identical BAT 95-96 counterparts on the 230 and 240 routes! .

However, Ed, based on recent news articles, all oldest buses and the newest will still continue to run thru this summer for the DNC Convention, so that way, the T can have extra equipment (not counting those that are in Billerica or reserved for Linskey's Towing or NIMCO destruction services, those are off-line and cannot be reactivated).

[Xplorer2000]

I will also confirm this. On Sunday,I rode a very refurbushed 0109 (Orange LED sign, new exterior paint , and an interior that shined like almost brand new...somebody used a lot of Armor-All on that one.....) running on the 426W route to Wonderland. A pleasant change from the one-foot-in-the-grave clunkers we're used to here.

[jwhite07]

0109 now has LED destination signs, huh? Good! Hope it's going to be standard on the rebuilds. So far those buses that have gone in for bodywork and paint at Everett seem to have kept their often-broken Luminator flip-dot signs, and there's evidence of returning body rust around the wheel wells on many of them. I'm not sure if that kind of quick work is actually Everett's version of the full rehab that Midwest is doing, or if it's just minor "give it some bondo and paint to keep it together until we actually completely rebuild it" work. I hope it's not indicative of Everett's best effort - and I certainly know Everett can do some very good work indeed! But the Midwest rebuilds now coming back are quite striking... they literally look like brand-new buses. They sure set the bar high for Everett to meet.

For those who don't know, Midwest Bus Inc. in Michigan essentially competes against the MBTA's own in-house talent at Everett Shops for work when the T puts major bus rehabilitation programs together. As happened with the rehab of the 8000-series RTS fleet in the 1990s, the contract for the "zero series" rehab program was split between the two, with Midwest getting a contract to rehab 250 buses and Everett Shops doing the remaining 146.

I saw newly rebuilt 0002 yesterday at Sullivan... it was one of a few (three, I believe) RTS buses that had LED destination signs installed a few years ago as a test, and yes, 0002 still has them. They even work again!

[octr202]

I saw 0109 on out on 1A in Lynn on Saturday (not sure which route it was running -- didn't manage to catch that as I was driving. Those orange LED's really show up -- nice to see the changes starting to filter out to all parts of the system...

[apodino]

Boston Herald today reported the neoplan trackless trolleys will begin entering service on Friday.

[CJ]

Ive noticed (getting real lucky with the 2000's on the 19/23 in the am) that the "automated stop" voice sounds really eerie... and i figured it out, its the SAME exact voice from the PC game Half-Life.. eerie stuff!

Few months ago, most of the 0xxx's (that i rode on) were upgraded and repainted with the whole stop request/automated stop voice things , and the T, not taking care of them, there very dirty, and all the sinage stopped working again!

I just hope they keep up with the new CNG's and TT's, and not let them fall apart!

[trigonalmayhem]

What's up with the 57?

Ok, so I just moved to Brighton and I was wondering why the 57 always come in "packs" and then do some kind of weird leapfrogging service where one will stop at a particular stop and the ones behind it will continue ahead and stop at those stops (or when someone rings the stop request) and then the bus previously passed will go whizzing back by again, and so on and so forth.

Why can't they just space them out and keep service regular so the crowds don't build up at the stops?


I almost always see 2-3 57s go by outbound to Watertown and usually 2-3 65s in each direction before the angry pack of 57s bears down on the stop.



Do they just get bunched up because of traffic between Watertown and Brighton Center or something or do they do this dilberately?