dtwtransit

#551 is running today. The CEO mentioned at last night's meeting that they plan to retire some old buses with the new Gilligs' arrival; and that some of them will be donated to JATA in Jackson at no cost, since they're pretty strapped for cash over there. He also mentioned that Pres. Trump's executive order cancelling federal grants for environmental programs might spell trouble for the hydrogen bus purchase...

AAATA has cancelled the remainder of the Nova order and instead awarded Gillig a contract for the 24 remaining buses. Some of those (including #546-549) are now in service- the Board of Directors documents indicate they likely entered service in December.

Two new wraps debuted this past week. First, a second Detroit Lions wrap was placed over the one that debuted in November on #5-#8; specifically promoting their playoff bid (which didn't end up lasting long ) I had a suspicion that whatever agreement DPM made with the Lions would stipulate that this wrap be removed once the Lions were eliminated from the playoffs- but as of today it was still running in regular service. The other is for Total Wireless. It's so far only appeared on #6 in a mixed set with Priority Waste's #10, but I'd bet we see it on #7 sometime soon too. Definitely an odd departure from DPM historically exclusively advertising MetroPCS and Sprint-aligned wireless carriers. I guess it's possible that #7 turns up in a wrap for another Verizon-owned carrier like Sprint did years ago.

All except #289 are now in the You Can in Michigan wrap.

I got lucky and saw them wrapping #287 in the shop today- so I'd guess this wrap will show up across the whole fleet sooner or later. #291 is still red too.

New wrap debuted in mid-late December for the state's "You Can in Michigan" talent attraction ad campaign. #288 and #290 have so far appeared in this wrap, and it seems like there's a different image on the center section for each tram. #292 is still red as of writing, as is #289, which is out long-term.

They've also added at least a couple of electric Flyers- said to be the first in the state (so older than COTA's).

This year's holiday trains are #183/309 on the Red Line and #809 on light rail. They aren't too decked-out this year, aside from the LED strip lights, they installed some lighted shapes in a few of the windows, wrapped portions of the exteriors, color-tinted the interior lights and called it a day. From pictures I've found of prior GCRTA holiday trains, this seems like a pretty big downgrade from the extravagant decorations they used to do.

Logo has now been switched on all six trams, and on the support trucks. Looks pretty nice on these if you ask me...

#3917 at Oakland also got this new wrap.

It switched back to counter-clockwise in February 2020, just before the COVID-19 shutdown.

The DPM did reopen on the 27th, and a new Detroit Lions livery debuted on #5-8. #2-11, still in the Corewell livery, did some test runs on the guideway Monday and Tuesday. I was lucky enough to also catch the DPM's diesel maintenance tug doing track inspections.

All of the trams are now back in the red wrap, and as part of the RTA takeover, they have now removed the M-1 Rail logo from each one. #290 was the last to operate with the logo, while #291 is the first, and currently only, unit to bear the new RTA logo on the exterior.

Online HTML transit tracker which allows users to search for specific buses, among other things. DDOT and The Rapid are currently available on the site.

The old Flyers are still kicking! D40LFs #630 and #631 and Restyle #586 were running in revenue service yesterday. A friend of mine is in the process of getting CATA added to TransSee- stay tuned for updates.