Vancouver Technical School students showing their appreciation for bus operators.

Starting in the early hours this morning, students at Vancouver Technical School handed out hot chocolate to bus drivers as part of their 15^th annual Bus Driver Appreciation Day. Every year on the last day of school before Christmas holidays, the students make hot chocolate and serve it to bus operators as they pull up at their stop on Broadway outside the school.

Hot chocolate and goodies for one of the bus operators.

The event was the brainchild of Rod McNeill, a now-retired geography teacher, who noticed that transit plays a particularly important role in the lives of Vancouver Tech students. The school has an odd catchment area – students tend to live along the Broadway corridor from Boundary to Main and a lot of them take the bus to get to school (it’s not unusual to see a full bus roll up and drop off 40 or 50 students at a time). So Rod pitched the idea of students doing something to show their appreciation for bus operators, and Bus Driver Appreciation Day was born. Rod is now retired, but Terry Stanway, another teacher at the school, is the new teacher-sponsor continuing the tradition.

Vancouver Technical students stir a vat of piping hot chocolate!

The students arrived at 6 a.m. and started boiling water for hot chocolate. There was initially a bit of panic because a power outage in the area last night knocked out the school’s power and, when it came back up, the boiler switched on and blew a circuit breaker. The students had to heat the water in pots on the gas range in the school’s cafeteria kitchen. By 7:30, the hot chocolate was ready and the kids started handing out the goodies in Vancouver Tech mugs, while serenading the operators with Christmas songs.

What a great event! Thanks to the Vancouver Technical students who keep this annual event going to show their appreciation to the bus operators who get them to school each day.

And, although I’m not a student of Vancouver Tech, I’m going to take this opportunity to give a shout out to the operator of the #20 bus on the afternoon of December 1st: You waited for me at my stop until the light changed and I could walk safely across the street to board – thanks for making my day!

Happy holidays from the ReindeerBus!

You may have noticed the ReindeerBus over the last few weeks, making its rounds of the Lower Mainland. After paying special visits to Canuck Place and Ronald McDonald House (along with Mr. and Mrs. Claus of course), it’s been stopping by TransLink operations, collecting toys donated by employees for our Toys for Tots program. All the toys go to the Lower Mainland Christmas Bureau to distribute.

The ReindeerBus popped by TransLink head office yesterday to pick up donations from staff here and, as you can see in the photo below, it was already well on its way to being packed with toys.

John Strachan, Head Elf during the holiday season (and a CMBC operator instructor the rest of the year), says that the bus has collected more than 2,700 toys this year.

You can read more about the origins of the ReindeerBus in this 2008 post, and see some amazing photos of the bus and its community shuttle sibling in this post from last year.

The ReindeerBus filling up with toys.

I remember the first time I took my bike on the bus. It was years ago. I was on the 99 B-Line, and a lot of people were watching me and waiting for me to load the bike so we could get on with the journey.

I could see the general concept of how it worked, but the bike just didn’t seem to sit right. The bus operator was nice enough to give me some helpful visual bike miming with his hands through the windshield. It turned out that I didn’t pull the support arm high enough so the bike was sitting too loose in the rack. Once I pulled up the arm and moved it so it almost touched the neck of my bike frame, it was snug. The anxiety of the moment soon drifted away after I boarded the bus and we moved along to the next stop.

If you haven’t had a change to try a bike rack on a bus before, TransLink has just posted this video on the TransLink YouTube account on how to do this.

Besides this video, text on all you need to know about how to load your bike on the bus can be found on the TransLink website. For convenience, I’ve taken the vital info and posted it below.

Besides these pointers, my only additional tip is to always keep one hand on your bike until you’ve properly secured your bike with the support arm. This will make sure your bike can never fall back on you.

Restrictions

• To fit in the rack, bikes must have a minimum of a 40 cm (16”) diameter wheel.
• Motor-assisted bikes of any kind are not permitted.

Loading and Unloading Your Bike

Here’s how to load and unload your bike:

• Before the bus arrives, remove loose items such as water bottles, pumps, and panniers.
• Tell the driver you want to load your bike, and then lower the bike rack by pulling on the handle.
• Lift your bike onto the rack.
• Lift the support arm up and over the front tire.
• Sit at the front of the bus and keep an eye on your bike.
• When leaving the bus, please tell the driver that you need to remove your bike. Exit from the front door.
• Remove your bike and raise the rack to the upright position.

Currently, bus racks require bike wheels that are a minimum of a 40 cm (16”) in diameter. Buses can take a maximum of two bikes at a time. So be prepared to potentially wait for a bus with space available to take your bike.

If you have any additional tips on taking your bike on the bus, please share them!

The BYD electric bus

****This event has just been cancelled due to a mechanical problem with the bus. :( It may be rescheduled for tomorrow. I’ll update this post as soon as more information is available.****

This is a little late notice (sorry, I just heard about it myself!), but I thought I’d let everyone know about the BYD Electric Bus demo at Metrotown today. The Coast Mountain Bus Company regularly tests different buses and this one seems pretty cool! It will be at the Metrotown Bus Loop between 3p.m. and 3:30p.m today. It would be great to see Buzzer blog readers there! I’ll be there taking a few photos of the bus. Here’s the specs:

39’4” long
100” wide
Maximum 60 passengers
100% electric drive, in-wheel motors, proprietary “iron phosphate” (Fe) batteries.
Range: 250-300km.
Top speed: 96km/h.
Charge time: a full charge takes 6 hours.
Air Conditioning
Front, center, and rear passenger doors.
Solar panels are integrated on the roof to generate some electricity.

I’ve been told that BYD is located in Shenzhen, China, and started business in 1995 as a battery manufacturer. They are currently one of the world’s top four battery manufacturers and are #4 in Chinese car sales. Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway owns 9.9% of BYD. Also of note, the bus is currently configured to a Chinese specification, and has some missing equipment: no bike rack, no wheelchair ramp, inadequate space for wheelchairs. It is equipped with window curtains!

The back of the BYD electric bus

Seniors and young kids often have special needs when it comes to transit

Access Awareness Day Saturday, June 4th from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

This Saturday, June 4, 2011, is Access Awareness Day. If you haven’t heard of it before, it’s a comprehensive provincial campaign led by SPARC BC to raise awareness about disabilities, accessibility barriers and social inclusion. TransLink and Coast Mountain Bus Company will be promoting accessibility through various. For the public,

TransLink will be hosting an accessible bus trial at Metrotown on June 8, 2011, from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. This bus will provide wheelchairs for interested persons to try boarding a bus in a wheelchair. Both TransLink staff and the community are welcome to try out the accessible boarding features on a conventional bus as well as using the bike rack. For more information, please call the Access Transit Office at 604-453-4619.

TravelSmart For Seniors pilot program

Transit can be a challenge for the elderly. That’s why TransLink’s Access Transit Secretariat has partnered with the Burnaby Fall Prevention Society and Voices of Burnaby Seniors to launch TravelSmart for Seniors: a pilot project in which seniors train other seniors to use the public transportation system. The sessions cover fare zones; using ticket vending machines; security features on SkyTrain, buses and SeaBus; how to use the TransLink Trip Planner and the responsibilities of front-line customer service staff.Participants will also go on a transit field trip, which provides a hands-on opportunity to explore many facets of public transportation.

To help develop the training, members of Voices of Burnaby Seniors went on five different transit field trips, going from Burnaby to locations such as Lonsdale Quay and the Vancouver International Airport.

The first of four TravelSmart for Seniors sessions was held today at Confederation 55+ Centre in Burnaby. If you didn’t get a chance to attend today, you have three other opportunities:

TravelSmart for Seniors sessions will be held:

• Thurs, June 2, 2011
  Edmonds 55+ Centre
  7282 Kingsway
  Burnaby BC

• Thurs, June 9, 2011
  Cameron Complex
  9523 Cameron St.
  Burnaby BC

• Thurs, June 16, 2011
  Bonsor 55+ Centre
  6550 Bonsor Ave.
  Burnaby BC

*All sessions will run from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m.To register, please call or email Julie Rogal at 604-453-4587 or julie.rogal@translink.ca

A Brill trolley with the BC Hydro colours, operating as the 14 Hastings in 1967.

Note: This is a scheduled post as I’m away this week, returning Monday April 11, 2011. If you need to reach TransLink info or staff, see this post!

As part of our April 2011 service changes, we are bringing back the 14 Hastings trolley route—an iconic former bus route that ran through Vancouver’s downtown for many years!

The 14—which even had a famous play named after it—makes its triumphant return to the streets due to optimization changes for the 10 and 17 trolley routes.

Here to tell us more about the 14’s history and its current incarnation is Peter Klitz, one of TransLink’s planners involved in the project. Read on for more insights and some classic photos of the 14 through time!

Hastings streetcar #369 travelling east from Cambie with ads for the BC Lions and radio station CKWX.

Why is the 14 such an iconic route?

The 14 used to be an old streetcar route that ran along Hastings Street. The street car was discontinued in April 1955 and in June 1955 the trolley bus service started. That’s the era when a number of cities in North America were converting old streetcar routes to bus. In Vancouver we took a different path and converted some of our streetcar routes to overhead-based trolley service on rubber wheels instead of rails. I’m sure some people wished that we had kept the streetcars, but that’s a topic for another day.

The 14 actually ran from 1955 to 1997 when the #14 number was retired. The service wasn’t discontinued, it was just changed to a different route number. But the #14 is forever linked to Hastings Street, which is such an integral corridor in the City of Vancouver. Hastings Street runs along the waterfront where goods were unloaded from ships and transferred to the railway. Because Hastings Street was a streetcar route, it helped shape the development of the city along that corridor. A lot of people travelled on the 14, and it brings back a lot of fond memories of their childhood, growing up in Vancouver as a developing city. That’s probably why it’s so iconic.

Five Brill trolleys cross Hastings Street near Renfrew during the Pacific National Exhibition, August 1955. The middle trolley, #2040, has been restored to its original BC Electric colours.

It’s sort of arbitrary what number we put on a bus. So is it safe to assume that there was some advocacy within TransLink or CMBC planning to bring the 14 back?

I think so. Planners have a soft spot for historic bus route numbers. So there was definitely a lot of support when the idea was floated to bring back the old #14.

The 14 Hastings, this time running with New Flyer trolleys from the 1980s, on Hastings Street.

Why is the 14 needed again? Can you talk a bit about the 10 and the 17 routes, and why changes to those routes are required?

Well, every once in a while, we review the performance of our system and look at ways that we can optimize our service. Every corridor in Vancouver generates a different ridership demand, and we endeavour to supply a level of service that meets that demand.

Trolley routes are a little bit unique from diesel bus routes: they are more permanent because of the overhead trolley infrastructure. They are also less flexible in terms of interlining, the linking of one route with a different route. Diesel buses are much more flexible—a diesel bus can come into an exchange from one route and leave as another. At UBC, for example, a bus can come in as a 99 B-Line and leave as a 44 Downtown or a 43 Joyce Station. But with trolley routes an interline is more permanent, almost like a marriage between two corridors in a city. In some cases, that pairing lasts for a really long time and in some cases we take a look and that see that the ridership isn’t well between the corridors anymore. So we look and see if there’s any other corridors in the city that are a better match.

In this case, with the change in travel patterns that resulted from the introduction of the Canada Line, we took a closer at the trolley routes in the city and saw that the 17 was out of balance. The 17 currently goes all the way from Oak Street, through downtown, on Broadway to UBC and through Hastings, essentially a pairing of the Oak Street corridor and the Broadway corridor to UBC. We recognized that those pairings weren’t really working anymore. We need to provide more service on the Oak Street portion than on the Broadway section, because there’s so much other service on Broadway. The ridership demand was unbalanced. So this adjustment is our way of better matching ridership demand with service levels.

We saw the ridership demand on Hastings matched well with the demand on Broadway to UBC. So Hastings St has been hooked up to UBC. All the services that exist today still continue to operate, and that route pairing will be known as the 14. The 17 stays on Oak Street, the 10 stays on Granville Street and everyone gets a service level that matches ridership. This also helps simplify the network, for customer legibility, so people can understand the individual routes and overall network better.

A 14 Hastings streetcar, on Hastings at Clark Drive in 1955. The type of vehicle is called a Presidents Conference Car.

Does the 14 take in a bit of the historic 14 route?

Absolutely. The new #14 will operate on Hastings Street from Downtown to Kootenay Loop, same as it used to in the past. It follows the same trolley wires the old #14 did.

The 14 Hastings streetcar: looking north on Granville from Robson, 1950. Photo by Vic Sharman.

How do you personally feel about seeing the 14 back on the streets? Do you have any personal experience with the route?

I think it’s great. I never drove the 14, it was discontinued before my time, but I pulled many trips on Hastings Street in my days as a transit operator. I have a love for history, and it’s such a historic, iconic route, one of the oldest trolley routes in the system. I think, whenever possible, we should celebrate the history of our city and remind ourselves of how we’ve grown.

The 14 Hastings streetcar passes alongside a motorbus at Kootenay Loop, on the last day of streetcar service in Vancouver, 1955.

And last but not least, because I’m sure someone wants to know: what about the 34 Hastings Express, which is another historic route that used to run on Hastings Street? What are the odds of that coming back?

I don’t know if we’re going to be able to bring that one back. It was an express route and used the express wires on Hastings Street, but I think we’re probably going to go in a different direction and any express service or limited stop service in the future will probably be a B-Line type service. Right now we have the 135, they provide a limited stop service with articulated buses on that corridor. I think the next step in the evolution of the service would be some sort of B-Line and then maybe some rapid transit. But that’s also a topic for another discussion.

Streetcars on Hastings (including the 14) seen from Hamilton Street. A variety of streetcars are visible, including Canadian Car and Foundry Co steel streetcars, wooden cars, a Presidents Conference Car, and buses.

And what’s the difference between a B-Line and a limited stop service?

Limited stop service is really just a specific stopping procedure; those services could operate anywhere with a wide variety of service levels, hours of operation and vehicle types. A B-Line, however, is more of a service brand. People have an expectation that B-Line service will be above and beyond regular services with respect to frequency, capacity and extended hours of operation. B-Lines operate on our busiest corridors and are often a precursor to rapid transit, for example the 98 B-Line/Canada Line, the 97 B-Line/Evergreen Line, and the 99 B-Line/future rapid transit on the Broadway corridor. They also often have some sort of transit priority measures to help with speed and reliability. I think there’s still a lot of life left in the B-Line brand. It’s very recognizable within our region. Right now we’re working on bringing B-Line service to the South of Fraser, on King George Boulevard, for example.

Thanks so much Peter!

Our old and new trolleybuses at an event in 2007 --- you can clearly see their differing bus numbers!

For this Friday fun post, Michael Taylor-Noonan, the editor of the Transit Museum Society‘s newsletter has kindly contributed a piece on the history of bus numbering! Read on for a deep dive into the numbers we see today.

For this first guest blog, I’ve decided to write about bus numbers – not the ones on the front that tell you where your bus is headed, but the ones on the side, back and front that distinguish one bus from hundreds of identical vehicles. For years this was known as a ‘unit’ number, but now it can be called an asset number, fleet number, or bus number, depending on who you are talking to.

In the beginning….

Back in the beginning when public transit came to B.C—in this case Victoria in February 1890—the transit company merely purchased some streetcars: the first one was numbered ‘1’, the second ‘2’, and so on.

Four months later, Vancouver got its streetcar service, and also numbered them consecutively, but with a twist. The local transit company had six cars, but numbered them 10 – 15. Apparently, such a ruse to inflate importance of a transit operation was well known – other cities numbered with only even or odd numbers, doubling the size of their system (footnote 1).

In 1897 the Victoria and Vancouver systems passed to a new company, B.C. Electric Railway Co. Thanks to that early decision about numbers, both fleets merged together quite well, without need for much renumbering. As new streetcars were purchased, they were numbered consecutively, with no allowance made for the location (Victoria, Vancouver, and then New Westminster and North Vancouver).

Buses, then trolleybuses, would be introduced. But this common administration and operation would continue for another 102 years until 1999. That’s when TransLink began overseeing the Lower Mainland’s transit. All other transit systems remained with BC Transit, one of the modern day successors of the B.C. Electric Railway Co. But like ‘children of a common mother’, bus numbering in the 21st century can be traced back to this common ancestry.

Early bus numbering during the streetcar days

When BC Electric introduced motorbuses in 1923, it was something of an experiment. Expanding streetcar service to new and sparsely populated areas was a very expensive proposition. Using buses was cheaper, but the company had historically only operated railed vehicles.

The new vehicles were numbered beginning at ‘1’ , though this time an ‘M’ (for ‘Motor’) was added before the number to identify a bus rather than a streetcar: ‘M1’,’ M2’ etc. As well, all service vehicles carried letter prefixes to show their function.

The vehicles were numbered consecutively with no internal structure to identify such things as manufacturer, vehicle type, location etc. It wasn’t long before somebody decided that was too simple, and some order must be placed on the apparent randomness of the numbers. One can readily appreciate this in those pre-computer days.

The BCER’s first attempt at order was the classification of its streetcar and interurban fleets. While the streetcar fleet was by-and-large numbered without any subgrouping, the interurbans (those big streetcars running out to Richmond & Chilliwack) had their own numbering system starting at 1000. (Interestingly, the first three were named rather than numbered! According to Brian’s Kelly’s book, they were named “Richmond”, “Steveston” and “Eburne.”) As different types of interurban entered the fleet, different series were allocated, from 1100 to 1800. (footnote 2)

Rails to rubber: trolleybus numbering

In 1947, the ‘rails-to-rubber’ trolleybus conversion program commenced. The replacement trolleybuses may have had had rubber tires, but they were not motor vehicles. As recently-retired long-time transit operator Angus McIntyre explains, because they did not have their own fuel source, they were considered as railway vehicles. This meant that the vehicles did not need licence plates (until 1973 when the regulations were changed), nor did operators need driver’s licences!

At first, the trolleybuses even followed the streetcar tracks and intending passengers had to walk out into the middle of the street to board. Because of their legal standing, the BCER extended its streetcar numbering system, rather than place them in the ‘M’ series. 1900 was free, but one suspects it was skipped so the new mode of transportation could be numbered in a new 2000 series.

A rails-to-rubber illustration from the May 7, 1953 Buzzer.

When the second order of buses arrived in 1949, they were at first numbered continuing on from the where the first buses had stopped (2083). A few months later it was decided to separate the new buses and they were renumbered into a new series – 2100. Similarly as each new delivery of buses arrived, a new series was used, 2200 , then 2300 and finally 2400. The last batch contained just 16 vehicles, but when some second-hand buses from Birmingham, Alabama were purchased they were numbered in a 2500 series.

In 1975/6, the first Flyer trolleys arrived. Numbered 2601 – 50, they used reconditioned electrical components in newly constructed bodies. The next delivery of Flyers in 1983 were totally new buses, numbered 2701-2947. Of course, the ‘third-generation’ trolleys reverted back to 2100 numbers with the articulated units numbered 2500. Again, a nod to tradition.

Back to the motorbus. The fleet went from strength to strength. It was so successful that, in 1936/7, the BCER decided to replace streetcars in New Westminster entirely by buses. A new garage was opened equipped with 16 new buses plus a few draftees from Vancouver. Again, it was decided to isolate these vehicles in their own series. M200 and above was reserved for them.

In 1946/7, a similar thing happened in North Vancouver, and replacement buses were numbered above M800. Meanwhile in Vancouver, new deliveries of buses presented the problem of any ‘series’-related scheme— no more vacant numbers for new buses. The solution: renumber the New Westminster buses to above M900. (footnote 3)

Life after BC Electric

The last new Brill trolley acquired by B.C. Electric, now in the livery of B.C. Hydro, and residing in the Transit Museum Society's fleet of historic buses. Photo from the Transit Museum Society -- click to view more info on their website.

And this was how things stayed until the ‘provincialisation’ of the BC Electric Co in 1961/2, when BC Hydro was created. A new numbering scheme replaced the ‘M’ by a garage digit – 3 for Oakridge, 4 for North Vancouver and 5 for Burnaby (New Westminster having relocated in 1968.) Thus, in the 1964 renumbering, buses numbered in the 3000s operated along Vancouver streets from Oakridge. Over the years this would expand as new garages opened: 7000 – Surrey, and 9000 Port Coquitlam.

What about 6000 and 8000! Well, 6000 was reserved for the buses of BC Hydro’s inter-city line, Pacific Stage Lines. In 1984, the company was privatised, but almost twenty years later it was still numbering its coaches in the 6000 series! 8000 was reserved for BC Hydro (and later successor BC Transit) buses in Victoria. Though it wasn’t until 1991 you would actually see a Victoria bus numbered as such: until then, the ‘8’ was for accounting and maintenance purposes only.

Later in 1998, low-floor buses arrived with a new numbering scheme – the first two digits represented the year. West Vancouver originally numbered its buses in a random fashion, but it also adopted the same system: for example, nine Orions delivered in 1992 were numbered 921- 929.

You may think a system based on thousands left lots of room for expansion – one thousand vehicles in each group. Well, two things complicated the issue. The second digit of the unit number specified the type of vehicle, suburban or urban seating, highway transmissions and axles and so on. Some codes I know of include ‘5’ for a 35 foot long bus, ‘6’ for 102″ width, ‘8’ for 96″ width, and ‘9’ denoted deluxe bucket seating. I’m sure that there are others. Again, this system was developed to aid fleet administrators make sure that the type of bus suited the routes it worked upon. So the actual bus number was limited to 1 – 99.

No bus was numbered ending in ‘00’. John Day, a former transit planner, explains that older computer software systems were very limited. In tracking the transit fleet for such purposes of mileage balancing and battery and tire leasing, a way was needed to monitor a whole class of vehicles. The ‘phantom’ vehicle ending in ‘00’ was created to hold data for all the vehicles in that class. Of course, there are exceptions to everything, and for some reason bus 7200 is in service, but many years later trolleybus 2200 was renumbered 2289 before it began earning its keep.

It’s a fact of transit life that it’s best to balance mileage between buses. It’s awkward to have some similar aged vehicles with low mileage while others have millions of miles on them. One way to do this is to transfer buses between depots. Other reasons for transfers could be shifting demand. But either way, transferring buses around had an impact on bus numbering.

As John Day says, “BC Hydro and successors were constantly renumbering their buses. The reason had to do with the way vehicle maintenance was [tracked] by the accounting system — each garage’s
superintendent had an overall budget which was based upon the fleets under his control. Each fleet had a unique two-digit number which corresponded to the first two digits of the bus number. So when a North Vancouver [bus] was transferred to Oakridge, it couldn’t keep its 4600 series number, it had to become a 3500. Transfer the same bus to Kensington and it became a 5600, etc.”

Some buses spent only weeks at their new depot before heading back from where they came. In a perfect world, the bus could get its old number back, but sometimes things didn’t work out that way, and a new number was assigned. Some vehicles from the seventies and eighties have had six or seven different numbers applied: a system that could be confusing.

Today’s system

The reindeer bus, sporting its V for Vancouver before its bus number! Photo by David Lam: click the picture to go to David's photo site!

And so in 1996, the current ‘prefix’ system was introduced. The garage prefixes were V for Vancouver, B for Burnaby, N for North Vancouver, P for Port Coquitlam, S for Surrey, and later, R for Richmond. (The eagle-eyed amongst you may have seen ‘T’ and ‘H’. These are not depots, but the Training Department, and Heavy Overhaul respectively.)

Under this system the bus unit number will remain the same for the vehicle’s entire life, only the prefix will change with depot transfers. The time and cost to change this is minimal compared to past numbering systems, and most of the tracking of vehicle expenses is done with more sophisticated software programs and accounting practices. But the basic structure remains as it was in 1964, using four digit unit numbers. New Flyer natural-gas powered buses occupy 3xxx, along with, interestingly, those that were converted to diesel. New Flyer low-floor diesels are numbered 7xxx, articulated New Flyers, 8xxx. Newer Novabus vehicles are 9xxxx, and Orion suburbans 92xx.

Deciding to renumber buses is not something to be undertaken lightly. All maintenance and other records pertaining to each bus have to be meticulously cross-referenced to the original number. So too, re-using bus unit numbers can lead to confusion. That’s why the new buses are numbered in the higher ranges. Unlike that first Vancouver transit system, Coast Mountain isn’t trying to impress — make you believe it has 9000 buses. But rather, when buses were renumbered in 1996, older buses occupied the 1100, 1200, 4000, 5000, 6000, 9100 and 9900s. Much better to avoid those numbers in the future.
So you can see, choosing a number for that bus you’re riding in is a complicated process, combining logic, convenience and planning, but retaining a little bit of tradition.

Footnotes

1. Kelly, Transit in British Columbia, Maderia Park: Harbour Publishing, Pg 17
2. The Story of the BC Electric, Henry Ewert, North Vancouver: Whitecap Books, 1986.
3.This information is from an unpublished history of Vancouver’s buses by Peter Cox.

Thanks Michael! Bear in mind that I’m not a numbering expert so I may not have many answers to your questions on this article… Michael or others may chime in though!

One of our trolley buses visited Seattle for a day so King County Metro Transit could try it out on their streets! Click for a larger version. Photo by Klaus Peter Canavan.

One of our trolley buses went a little off its regular route last week—it was roaming the streets of Seattle for a day!

That’s because we were demonstrating new trolley technology for the King County Metro Transit agency in the Seattle area. Two staff from the Coast Mountain Bus Company showcased the bus and fielded technical questions for the Seattle agency. (And if you’re curious: the trolley went down by flat-bed truck and Metro Transit covered all costs. Sadly, there’s no trolley wire between here and Seattle!)

Anyway, just thought you’d enjoy seeing how our region shares knowledge on transit solutions :) You can also check out Seattle Transit Blog for their notes on the trolley trial, with video and way more photos.

Thanks to Klaus Peter Canavan from Vossloh for sending through the photo above as well—read on to see a few more of Klaus’s trolley photos below.

Our trolley in Seattle! Photo by Klaus Peter Canavan.

Climbing those steep hills. Photo by Klaus Peter Canavan.

Another shot of our trolley in Seattle. Photo by Klaus Peter Canavan.

Hello trolley! Photo by Klaus Peter Canavan.

Riders wait for the 99 at Commercial-Broadway Station.

Update, Dec 14, 2010: I’ve just got word that construction has been extended a few days! So the 99 stop will now return to normal on Friday December 17, 2010. Sorry for the inconvenience!

Just in time for Christmas! I’ve just got word that starting Wednesday, December 15, 2010 Friday, December 17, 2010, the 99 B-Line stop at Commercial-Broadway Station will return to its original location (stop #52094) as construction in that portion is complete.

However, the 9 Alma and N9 Downtown will continue to stop at their temporary location until further notice. Here’s the original blog post with the map of the temporary stops.

Spread the word to those who will find this useful :) And thank you to everyone for your patience during this period, and to all our staff at Coast Mountain Bus Company for their assistance during this situation!