Frozen Yogurt

28-089 was on the 171LE this afternoon with passengers stuffed up to the windshield, and people waiting at the stop had difficulty to squeeze into the bus. Not sure what was up with the 171 today but all the buses were crazily full. Took 30-829 on the 121 this morning!

Took 40-013 on the 107 (again) this morning, still not tracking. Also got 30-820 on the 121. Not bad!

Took 40-013 on the 107 and 31-854 on the 121 in the afternoon. The latter has a blue vinyl cushion in the reserved zone. Also took 29-839 on the 121 in the morning. Some 40 series was behind on the last 171SL of the day.

Caught 31-861 on the 121 this morning. My 6th ride on an ISL9 so far this week. Also surprisingly, the 171 this evening was 37-103! Been a while since I grabbed a 37 series... literally rockets compared to those slowass ISL9s.

Took 31-058 twice on the 171 today ? what else to expect from Stinson. 38-082 was on the 124 yesterday however, most unusual thing to see nowadays.

41-115 drove out of CT SN midday, set as ET.

As I came out of Côte-Vertu station yesterday, 39-055 with cameras instead of mirrors drove across the boulevard to do the 64. Took 32-029 on the 124. The interior lights are of banana yellow. 31-074 was on the 121I, not tracking like 30-021 on the 175 and 30-022 on the 171. 39-059 was on the 171SN in the afternoon.

Stopped briefly by Côte-Vertu today and unsurprisingly, didn't see a single 2nd gen there. Lots of "old" stuff though (yes I somehow bothered to write everything down...): 29-822: 121 30-016: 171 30-247: 64 30-251: 170 30-845: 121 31-055: 128 31-061: 128 31-084: 171 31-168: 171 31-851: 121 32-032: 171 33-809: 470 37-057: 215 40-154:177 As one may see, the 128 and 171 were almost exclusively operated by 31/32 series today. The lone 37 series I saw today was on a SL line.

RTL killed all TCV-bound routes with the exception of the 55 using Victoria bridge, so the fate of the exo lines should be similar. The goal of the CDPQi is to make money off the REM, as a result as many lines as possible will end at REM stations. In addition, certain territories (mainly south of the Mt-St-Hilaire train line) cannot have direct lines going to TCV during REM operation hours, as a result of a non-competition clause. In your example though, Ste-Julie is outside of the "origin" zone delimited. Mansfield is, from its inception, a temporary measure, and is a rented space as far as I can remember. The old amt dot qc dot ca website is no longer available, so it's a bit hard to find informations from back then.

26-012 and 020 were both at Laurier this afternoon, on the 47 and 51 respectively! I wasn't expecting to see two 2nd gens out of Mont-Royal on a weekend. I almost missed my (likely only ever) chance to take 26-020, since the bus on the subsequent departure (41-034) pulled up at the platform first. Very thankfully, I actually managed to catch the former.

Not a single 2nd gen (and conversely full of 30-2xx) on both 209 and 215 today... one of the only few times that I actually needed to take something running out of SL... anyway, I ended up at Mont-Royal metro instead and first thing I saw was 30-224 on the 97. Pretty much sums up my luck with the STM: seems like I'm just stuck to those shitty ISL9s. Took 30-882 and 32-809 (NT) on the 121 today. The former sounds like a tractor (very choppy sound from the engine) and this thing couldn't even maintain a steady 30 km/h on Côte-Vertu... 31-218 was on the 171 for the entire day (on a Saturday...) ?.

I guess my previous post wasn't all that clear: airport runners are very common to see on regular (non-747) Stinson lines (in your case, perhaps 103) but mostly in rush hours only. What is rare is to see them on all-day runs, or those in the original 747 Express Bus livery. Back in the days I took lots of what I call "retrofit" runners on the 16 (30-001 to 020; and 31-211 to 220 which I still hate to death with all my guts today). Talking about which, I could have taken 31-212 on the 171 this evening as it was the first 171 to show up. Luckily, I got 29-854 on the 121 instead. exo PI 342 was on the A40 Express midday. My first time seeing a minibus on it so far (usually it's served by coaches). Finally, spotted 30-223 on the 121 midday. It didn't track on the 121 and came between two regular departures, both of which seem to be running properly.

A bunch of 31 series on the 171 again: 31-059, 31-070 and 31-061. Also spotted 30-019 and 39-015 on it for the entire day. Pretty unusual sight now there are less airport runners. 29-803 was on the 121.

Tons of 31 series on the 171 this whole week: for example, on Wednesday night, the only buses on it were 31-059, 31-060 and 32-032. It seems like Stinson sends out their 37 series mostly rush hours only, while the 31/32 series do the long all-day runs... at least on the 171. One'd expect the opposite. While onto Stinson, its oldest bus (29-805) was on the 470 today.

It started to track barely a short while ago, and the tracker is dead again... spotted it today as well. Spotted 30-022 on the 171 as well, also not tracking. Yesterday: 30-024 was on the 171, equally not tracking.

Spotted STL 1308 arriving En Transit at C.-Vertu earlier today, and presumably it did the next 151 to Ste-Rose (since it didn't track). Somehow it never tracks and someone even marked it as retired on the wiki.

It's on page 39 of the PDF. I should have been more specific. On page 48 is the summary table for units received each year. The previous PI had buses planned all the way until 2024, but the current one only goes to 2022.

The budget and capital program for 2022 is out: https://www.stm.info/sites/default/files/pdf/fr/pi_22-31.pdf. To note is that all future hybrid orders (through 2024) have been cancelled due to budgetary constraints: the 42 series we will receive next summer will be our last ever hybrid buses. The fleet may gradually shrink in size, if they cannot afford to keep the oldest buses for longer. It doesn't look very promising with respect to artics: they're getting old and less reliable, and we won't have anything new to replace them in short term. The electric artic acquisition project from last year's PI disappeared as well. The platform screen door project on orange line stations has been cancelled for good as well.

Took 31-828 on the 121 yesterday morning. The driver tried his best to follow the schedule (as the STM understandably does not tolerate buses running early), but there was just way too much run time and we had to idle for several minutes at every single stop along the way. The next 121 caught up to us a few stops before Côte-Vertu metro. Took 37-073 on the 171 today. It's pretty rough for a hybrid: not only are there rattling noises coming from everywhere, it is also quite jerky for a hybrid. The motor was also very loud when the bus decelerates. The driver finishing her shift was complaining to her relief about alarms that do not go away.

I took a look at more pictures again, and it seems like there are no emergency exits on the upper level on our XE40s, just like our LFSes. I do notice the seat edge is aligned with the (rear) wheel well: if the seats are placed closer to the wall, the person sitting above the wheel well will have to either stretch his/her legs out or put them above the wheel well, both of which aren't very nice postures. It seems like somehow the wheel wells on the LFS is narrower than that on the Xcelsiors... Well that's exactly what I was saying in my previous post: they want to cram as many people as possible, but there are other layouts which yield a even higher capacity, which they unfortunately didn't choose. The bonus is the higher capacity layout is actually more comfortable. === Here's the report I was referring to: https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2007/pg/bgrd/backgroundfile-3309.pdf. Note their findings: === First of all, I don't know what you're agreeing with. Most of what MTL66 posted are statements, not opinions, and do not need to be proven in any way. Unless you're talking about the first sentence, where he asserts that the seats are away from the windows because of emergency exits, which I addressed above. This topic is about the 40 series at the STM. I do not have any reason to take the STL nor exo, and do not give a fudge about their seating layout. If they use perimeter seating, sucks for them. Same as the classics. I have never had the chance to step into one of them, so I cannot say anything about those at all. And I can similarly show you many examples of other agencies who spec the exact same models we have, but with all forward seating layouts instead. No, it is not done by design. This is far from the only layout you can put in an XE40, and the STM could have chosen something else. There are places that ordered XE40s with something other than perimeter seatings, such as Toronto (and perhaps soon OC). Googled and found this thumbnail of a video by Ontario transit. It is so clearly noticeable here that the sideways-facing seat will take so much more room once someone settles down on it. It is clearly because of their use of perimeter seating layout that I see 171s passing right in front of my face full to the front almost every single day. Do you notice people are actually reluctant to go to the back section? Because once a few people actually settle down on the seats in the rear section, they inevitable have to put their legs somewhere. Then the passengers boarding the bus will perceive the back as being "full" already and stop moving further back. Anyway, that's the end of discussion about perimeter seating for me. You know what I think already so there's no point beating a dead horse.

Timed myself for 29-835 on the 121 yesterday morning, but ended up on a crowded 31-142 doing renfort instead. My luck to its best (/s). The former got replaced with 31-831, which I spotted twice later in the day. Today. Spotted 28-007 on the 171LE.

That's the entire reason why I'm upset with the layout: contrary to what people think, your OC transpo buses end up having a higher passenger capacity due to their layout, and they're far more comfortable... I think the figure below illustrates my whole point. I drew an LFS in there because that's what we're used to ride here in Montréal. Of course, it is not to scale, but I think gets the point across fairly well... bottom of the line is perimeter seating sucks and reduces the passenger capacity. Not only I say this, the TTC made a lengthy report more than a decade ago trying to make the exact same point that I'm getting across... Here is a pic of the back section of our Flyers. The gap between the seat back and the window is so large, I think even a human can fit in there. Anyway, the STM doesn't want to listen. All they care about is the appearance and the impression (and especially their image in the media), so I gave up trying to think reasonably.

Spotted 36-029 on the 171 over the weekend. Didn't see anything not a 30, 31 or 37 on any Stinson run in a while. 30-011 and 021 were on the 128 today. Also got 39-013 on the 171 at 21:30... as usual very crowded. At least everybody was silent in the bus. The heater strip in the rear was however coming off and was swinging left and right when the bus moves.

When I took the yellow line a few months ago, there were enough people to warrant a full 9-car train (and it was definitely way off-peak). How much money will that save, while making everything more crowded? In addition, the blue line isn't that empty either. === Some tangentially related rants here... pardon me for writing all this... So far the STM has been only chopping and chopping service everywhere... not exactly very helpful in this pandemic situation... and it seems like people here want to see even less service, which I don't understand. First, they're trying to get back to the pre-COVID ridership, so I don't know how making things more crowded than ever will help... you wait for longer for a more crowded vehicle, it's not the most attractive thing ever. I can hardly believe people are proposing this, when people here are struggling to fit in the last square meter in the bus so that they don't need to freeze while waiting for the next one. The ridership is back by a lot, but the service is still far from the pre-COVID level. Plus, there are so much else that can be done other than merely cutting services. To give examples with buses instead... the STM isn't willing to change anything because they want to wait for the new bus system (which is still years away), which means the run times on routes aren't being adjusted anymore, resulting in extremely long layovers at termini and overly generous run time. For example, the 107 and 119 can now spend up to 40 minutes at the terminus... far more than necessary. Then about run time... the 121 I take often in the morning gets an incredibly generous run time... 3 min to go from Lebeau to Elzear-Soucy (one stop) and 3 min from Acadie to Meilleur (one stop)... in reality it takes only 1 minute for each case. That's 4 minutes wasted for 4 stops already... and the 121 isn't an isolated case. Lots of other routes are incredibly inefficient, and could be improved one way or another, but the STM just puts everything on hold now waiting for something years away (assuming everything goes well). That's a lot they could have done to save money instead of just cutting and cutting.

I don't think you need to actually put passengers in the bus to evaluate the above remotely then... anyway, I don't know what exactly they're trying to test with passengers, but certainly not what I was hoping: the seating layout still sucks and the wraps are still blocking the windows. I hope OC buys something more decent than ours.