West Island Transit Fan

I should correct myself. The Ottawa Flixbus stop has moved to 200 Commissioner Street, which is pretty much right in the middle of Pimisi and Lyon O-Train stations. Definitely a less convenient location, but probably more predictable to reach in terms of travel times with all the protests that happen around Rideau and whatnot. Anyway back on topic, this older J4500 was doing Ourbus from Ottawa at 14:45 from the George St stop today. The legals are for Yinh Transportation.

Ah yes I know what you are talking about. Photo taken on March 12 so they still haven't gotten around to fixing it yet lol

Saw 8670 and 8712 on the 512 driving on the ROW near Yonge this afternoon. Was there a change in policy that allow the drivers do so recently?

TTC 8091 was on the 63 tonight.

9020 is doing the first run out of Toronto. The livery looks pretty sharp! This unit looks like it's ex-Préférence 9020. https://carrosseriepreference.com/listing/autocar-prevost-h3-41-2005/

Ontario Northland doesn't do the Toronto - Ottawa run, they only serve Ottawa on the Ottawa - Sudbury run. Rider Express is another company that operates Toronto - Ottawa. Ourbus has 2 stops in Ottawa - one at Pinecrest Mall (2685 Iris St) which is the same as Rider Express' Ottawa West stop. The other is in downtown at 33 George St which is the same spot as the Flixbus stop and just across the street from the Book a Ride stop.

5701 is now a Red Arrow unit in Ontario with a new livery. Pic taken at Ottawa VIA rail on the 11:30 Toronto bound departure.

I saw a unit numbered 221 going the other way on the highway on Saturday, a Prévost H3-45 with the 2002-2008 front. It seems likely that it's ex-McCoy Bus Service 221. Here's a picture of H6544 which has not been repainted into orange yet. As indicated by the paper in the windshield, this is supposed to be numbered H21.

Gallexy Tours out of Toronto has acquired two more units. GT2095 is easily recognized as ex-McCoy 235. GT5371 is more ambiguous, but I believe it could be ex-Autocar Préférence 8041, though probably not original to them. I've seen some of their older/used buses with similar crooked numbering in different fonts.

GTA Crew has been sending lots of oddities on their Fallsview Casino runs lately. I got their Volvo 9700 (#6068) today. The,ey have been sending some of their older H3-45's as well, including 4113, 4517, and 7201. As 4 is an unlucky number in Chinese culture, no Safeway Tours bus is numbered with this number, so it was funny to see those buses doing these runs. Not to mention 4113 being 15 years older than the current oldest Safeway wrapped bus.

TTC: 1218 on the 20 and 1315 on the 113 together at Kennedy Stn around 20:20.

Got off it not too long ago.

They seem to be no stranger to running old things. I've seen 2224, 2519, 2867, 3032, and 4113 (1998-2001 models) so many times in the past year that I've lost count around downtown Toronto doing airline crew shuttles. Moving away from old coaches, Luxury Coach now has a 2024 H3-45 numbered 2436. Looking up the license plate gives a VIN of 2PCH33498RC721600.

GTA Crew Services has two recent purchases: 3869 (ex UC 3869) and 4517 (ex UC 6483).

TTC 1323 on the 62 Mortimer tonight as well.

Here is 737 in Kingston today, renumbered to the Canadian format DD42737. We can see text remnants of "Atlanta" on the side, so it probably originates from around there.

I think Exo La Presqu'Île is good because it has all except your first point and the bus types are concentrated on specific routes. Chinese buses (I assume Grande West Vicinities fall into here) are basically guaranteed on route 35 between Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue and Dorion. Dinky minibuses can be found on almost every local route out of Gare Vaudreuil, go there during peak hours to admire the flood of minibuses that take over the terminal. From there, coaches operate on route 40 back to Montreal as mentioned by @Articulated. For coaches, I always recommend exo Laurentides lines 404, 498, and 499 to Deux Montagnes. There is a huge variety of hand me down buses; for example you may get an E-series MCI with super luxurious leather seats originally running in California. Also, you can get a glimpse of the backyard of the Nova Bus factory on autoroute 640. For MiDi's, best place is what Articulated mentioned in Terrebonne-Mascouche. In addition to the Wiki, the Transit Tracker is an excellent resource to see what is running live at each exo sector and to understand who the contractors for each sector are.

Yes, the unlimited weekend covers zones ABCD, meaning not only does it let you go to Longueuil and Laval, but also further suburbs covered in zones "C" and "D". See here for the list of municipalities in each zone. The three-day pass is only sold as a zone A pass so yes, it will only include bus, metro, and commuter rail transport on the island of Montreal. By Expo islands I assume you mean Île Ste-Hélène and Île Notre-Dame (where Parc Jean Drapeau, LaRonde, and Gilles-Villeneuve racetrack are located). In that case, it is also considered zone "A" so the 3-day pass is valid. This will mainly depend on what you're interested in riding fleet wise, but given you're from the GTA area I can give some pointers to what's unique here. We have a large variety of coach buses running on various suburban exo routes (these serve zones "C" and "D"). The most varied coaches being on routes 404, 496, 498, and 499 from various points on the island of Montreal to Deux Montagnes and St-Eustache (zone "C"). You can get MCI E-series originating from California with extremely comfortable leather seats for example. These only run Monday - Friday with coaches, so your 3-day pass will not work here. On a northbound trip, make sure to sit on the right side as this can give a brief glimpse at the backyard of the Nova bus factory while you're on highway 640. Note that these routes will also disappear once the REM on this side opens, so another reason to ride them. For nice routes that are included in zone A, I can recommend the STM 211 Bord-du-Lac. It runs along the river for much of the length and you can visit the Ste-Anne village a short walk from the western terminus, or visit the Pointe-Claire village (stop Bord-du-Lac / Ste-Anne). If you are interested in older LFS, they are mainly found in the eastern part of the island on Frontenac and Anjou garage routes. You can check Transsee to see what's out and what blocks they're on as our blocks have heavy interlining unlike the TTC. No it's not running and nobody knows when it'll open (they say spring but no date is given). J'espère que cela vous aide et je vous souhaite un très bon voyage! Feel free to DM me if you need anything.

Based on my sightings from the past few months, it seems like Safeway is still using Attridge, GTA Crew Services, Great Canadian Coaches, as well as VBL Bus Lines. VBL does not seem to use any buses with Safeway Tours livery. The departure screens in Fallsview Casino show the fleet numbers (notice how they all say Coach Canada lol). You can see one fleet number for each of the four operators I listed. The picture of the VBL bus attached is #405 and I've also seen #404 in the past. The fleet numbers on the screen are misleading though. I took the 8:00pm departure to Mississauga that day and got Attridge 6635 instead. This is the suggested departure time for the 13:00 inbound trip from Mississauga, which I got Great Canadian 1833 on. So perhaps those fleet numbers are supposed to be the bus you get on the corresponding inbound trip. I've also seen that 6507 is now 143 and 6755 is now 162. 6971 was still running for Safeway when I last saw it on December 10.

On the short turn run from UTM to Square One. Didn't see what the final destination is listed on the sign, but notice how there is no direction (N or S) shown. Also yesterday, MiWay 0307 on the 101.

Brampton Transit 1782 was on the 199 UTM Express today. I've seen Zum artics tracking on this route a few times lately.

I took a round trip on Maheux from Ottawa to Montreal recently: Saturday the 14th at 17:45 from Ottawa St Laurent station with 9626 and Thursday the 19th at 8:15 from Gare d'autocars Montreal with 2704 (wrapped for Busbud). Unfortunately I wasn't able to get the VIN of either, so it remains a mystery whether 2704 is indeed a 2022 model. There were only about 10 people onboard both ways, which surprised me given how cheap the tickets are compared to Orléans Express. I paid the student rate of $26.35+tax going to Montreal and $18.70+tax going back, significantly less than $44.00+tax with Orléans Express Promo. Maheux does seem to change the price based on the day of the week however, so I definitely recommend booking in the middle of the week (Tuesday-Thursday). For the other days, I noticed the price was $31.45+tax. For how much cheaper it is, Maheux definitely doesn't sacrifice on comfort and customer service compared to Orléans, with both of my drivers being very professional and on time. Both buses were very clean as well. You can also use Cartier to save a bit of time since the metro is faster between there and Berri. Of course you'll just have to pay slightly more for an AB pass. Overall, if the schedules work for you and you don't mind taking a slightly longer (but more scenic) route, I would definitely recommend trying this service.

I took Flixbus on Thursday the 19th at 17:45 from Ottawa. There were an additional 15 people who got rebooked onto Flixbus from Book a Ride, whose 16:45 bus was cancelled. So those passengers only left an hour later than they were supposed to. I honestly expected much worse from Book a Ride. Could they have only been running Toronto - Montreal to capitalize on holiday demand? I believe they were only running it between Dec 22 and Jan 8. They probably knew it was illegal and that the less time they run it, the less chance they get caught.

The schedule for Book a Ride seems ridiculously tight as well. It's given the least amount of run time while making the most stops out of all the carriers. Let's look at a Sunday morning trip from downtown Toronto to downtown Ottawa, Ottawa VIA, or St Laurent station on each as an example. Megabus 8:15 via Scarborough and Kingston: 5h45m. Flixbus 8:00 via Scarborough and Kingston: 5h30m. Red Arrow 8:45 via Scarborough and Kingston: 5h15m. Rider Express 9:30 via Scarborough, Belleville, Kingston, Ottawa Pinecrest: 5h15m. Book a Ride 9:30 via Scarborough, Whitby, Belleville, Kingston, Brockville, Ottawa Bayshore: 5h00m.

Took 24 on Toronto-Ottawa today. VIN is 2PCH33494DC712398.