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I've been looking through schedules for BC Transit's extremely obscure Health Connections services (different from Northern Health Connections). They are almost never included in riders guides, and some operate as infrequently as once a month, but are available for the general public to use. I'm wondering if anyone has either seen or used these services? I have only ever seen a single BC Transit Health Connections bus. While driving past Costco in Kamloops this past summer, I drove past a Community Shuttle with no bike rack on the front that had a digital display that simply simply said "Kamloops." While I can't be a hundred percent certain that this was a health connections bus, and I failed to check the time to see if lined up with the scheduling of any of the services from Kamloops, I am fairly certain this was a health connections bus as there was no number on the board. I'm going to try tracking down a health connections bus next time I'm in either Princeton or Kamloops, as they are fairly frequent in both of those places. The entire service baffles me somewhat - in some cases, the service provided by BC Transit Health Connections operates on the same day as a limited regional service, leaving a mere hour later. For example, South Okanagan-Similkameen Route 50 Princeton-Penticton operates Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, leaving Princeton at 7:15AM is repeated as a Health Connections bus only forty-five minutes later at 8:00AM. This wouldn't be a surprise if Route 50 operated more frequently, but the health connection bus has the exact same route, stops and schedule (other than being offset by 45 minutes). If anyone in the communities served by BC Transit Health Connections knows anything about these bizarre and obscure public buses or has any photos they could share, I would hugely appreciate it.

Although Zack Willhoite's website says that the transmission used on Intercity Transit's (of Olympia, WA) 1986 Orion I's is the Renk-Doromat (MAN Group) 874B automatic transmission (the same kind used in MAN articulated buses), somehow because it sounds uncannily like a Voith transmission, then I wonder how many other Olympians who rode those buses back in the day say the transmission is instead a Voith DIWA D863? The engine is a Detroit Diesel 6V92TA MUI. The buses are numbered 501-510. To get the idea what they would sound like, just listen to an Orion I that was operated by the likes of Brampton Transit, Oshawa Transit, Pickering Transit or Markham Transit. ~Ben