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Victoria Regional Transit System


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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...
So I hear from another group, that Victoria is to purchase 15 MCI's from Vancouver to supplement service expansions in September in Victoria because the new order of Nova's will not arrive in time. Anyone got any more info on this?

They will be split between Kelowna, Sea-to-sky-transit (Whistler / Squamish) and Victoria.........the known fleet numbers (at this point) involved in this deal are B4153, N4133..........possibly these ones as well: S4180, S4178, N4188, B4183, S4140, N4131

On the other hand...........thought I'd like to share a video recorded onboard Kelowna Regional Transit System #0251, one of the 3 Dennis Trident double-deckers running in Kelowna!

Enjoy!

Dave

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The following units are confirmed at Garbally Yard as of last night at 01:54 am, this information straight from a Victoria operator:

S4144, S4140, N4190, N4191, B4153, and P4186.

The others are as yet unconfirmed. From the list above, this leaves us the following:

N4131, N4133, S4178, S4180, B4183, N4188.

This gives us a total of 12 vehicles to date, so there must be a few more to come.

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The following units are confirmed at Garbally Yard as of last night at 01:54 am, this information straight from a Victoria operator:

The others are as yet unconfirmed. From the list above, this leaves us the following:

N4131, N4133, S4178, S4180, B4183, N4188.

This gives us a total of 12 vehicles to date, so there must be a few more to come.

On another board it has been reported that N4132 and 4127 arrived in Victoria yesterday.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I'm out in Victoria for a week so I will be keeping an eye out and getting shots of anything that I spot. Had my first experience of transit here tonight, started with a bus that didn't stop despite the fact there were a half dozen people waiting for that bus, and the driver even looked at us waiting at the stop when he drove by. Finally the next run on that route came, and caught a D40LF (number was in the low 8000's, don't recall it exactly) for a trip out to Oak Bay from downtown. Lots of variety (D40LF's, Classics, double deckers) out tonight so it should be a nice trip for the parts where I will have time to ride around the city.

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Victoria is a very nice city. I hung out by the Empress hotel for a while, and on Douglas Street. Lots of bus traffic there, including coaches. :)

I had a trolley bypass my stop even though there were people waiting there too the other day.

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Yep. I'm out here for the FOSS4G (free and open source software for geospatial) conference, as well as mapping for the OpenStreetMap project so I was out most of today, and will be out a few more days this week yet. Got tons of photo's today, generally any time I see a bus I'm taking a shot of it and will sort them out and throw them on my site once I'm back in Calgary. So far only rode D40LF's on 1 route, but hopefully get to ride a few other types as well this week.

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Yep, we've got enough low floors to cover the work on the weekends without going to the MCIs (usually). Monday morning you'll be sure to see a lot of 'em. (there has been some work canceled due to lack of equipment)

Yep, I saw a number of classics on Friday night. None seem to be around on the weekend, almost solid D40LF's with a couple double deckers on a few routes.
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So far I've seen (and photographed): 8005, 8011, 8019, 8021, 8050, 8052, 8053, 8067, 8075, 8084, 8095, 8096, 8099, 8108, 9028, 9029, 9030, 9031, 9075, 9078. I did see one MCI tonight, running empty and out of service, but it was too dark to grab a photo.

One thing I must say that I do like is the farebox that is used here, especially in regards to the passes in that they have an accounting of exactly how many people are riding, versus the rough counts that are all that can be done in Calgary with the non-electronic fareboxes and just showing the pass to the driver.

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Well I caught one of the MCI's today (didn't remember the #, but it was a 4 digits whereas most of the MCI's are 3 digits), and lets just say it was not that nice a ride. Rattles even worse then the worst fishbowl I've ever ridden with CT, uncomfortable seats and the bell cord on one side was so loose that you had to pull it over a foot down to set off the next stop request. Still haven't caught any of the double deckers, haven't had to take any routes that they are used on yet but I want to take at least one trip on one before I fly back on Friday.

I've also noticed that the bus drivers here tend to take a lot more abuse from a select few riders in comparison to what I've seen in Calgary. They hold their own, but twice today I witnessed an unruly rider literally throw something at the driver. In one case the individual (who I assume was intoxicated) didn't get a transfer when he got on, and came up a few stops before he got off and started demanding a transfer. The driver held her ground and told him at least one what the rule was, and he argued one sidedly for several blocks until he finally got off, at which time he grabbed the waste bucket that sits in the front and threw it at the driver. Not sure if this is one of the reasons why a number of the driver seemed a bit unfriendly, but even in comparison to Calgary or even Edmonton very few even respond if you say thanks as you get off, or hello as you get on.

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Wow, I've never seen a driver get something thrown at them, and never would've thought it would happen in Victoria.

Route 70 goes to Sidney, which is a pretty nice little town. If you're into scenery, that's probably the bus to catch, but that depends on your time constraints too.

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Yeah, thats one that I was considering if I don't get one before the end of Thursday, take the #70 up to Sidney on Friday morning and wander around before making my way to YYJ to catch the flight back to Calgary that afternoon. I went and actually picked up a 10 pack of fares today, the only downside to being 60 minute transfers instead of the 90 I'm used to from Calgary is that I rarely have managed to catch the bus again within that time and keeping a pocket full of change while hiking around doing mapping (I'm up to over 40km mapped on foot since Saturday) isn't that fun.

The throwing surprised me as well. Overall the system seems to be well utilized, and during the day pretty much every run I've been on the bus stops at just about every stop to pick up people.

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Well I caught one of the MCI's today (didn't remember the #, but it was a 4 digits whereas most of the MCI's are 3 digits), and lets just say it was not that nice a ride. Rattles even worse then the worst fishbowl I've ever ridden with CT, uncomfortable seats and the bell cord on one side was so loose that you had to pull it over a foot down to set off the next stop request.

If it was 4 digits, it was definitely an ex-Vancouver unit. The original Victoria units are numbered 920-956 and the ex-Vancouver units are numbered 8901-8915. If the seats were uncomfortable, then you must have had one of the non-suburban buses (I think only two of the ones that went to Vic were suburban), which have the hard-shell seats. The 1988/89 Vic MCIs were delivered with those seats, but they were re-done a number of years ago.

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If it was 4 digits, it was definitely an ex-Vancouver unit. The original Victoria units are numbered 920-956 and the ex-Vancouver units are numbered 8901-8915. If the seats were uncomfortable, then you must have had one of the non-suburban buses (I think only two of the ones that went to Vic were suburban), which have the hard-shell seats. The 1988/89 Vic MCIs were delivered with those seats, but they were re-done a number of years ago.
Victoria's 1988-89 MCI Classic seats were redone several years ago as you said, however, they were not the same as Vancouver's. They had the same type of seat frames and seat insert styles, but they were the cloth seat inserts just like BC Transit - Small Communities 1989 Orion I's. #6784 that was in Vancouver earlier this year still has those cloth seats (Or was that last year now...)

Oh and Ex-Victoria 1982 GM T6H-5307N #871 and Ex-Victoria 1981 T6H-5307N #858 still sit in S.E. Calgary at the National Motor Coach yard. http://www.busdrawings.com/coach/national/t6h5307n.htm . Pics!

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Caught 8906 today, which in comparison to the other MCI is in pretty good shape except for the signboard, which I was told is permanently out of order and was replaced by a sheet of cardboard with the route written on it.

That would be ex-Vancouver 4131, and given that I'm not too surprised it's in better shape as it sat in storage for the past several years. The same is true for 8903 (ex-4191) and 8911 (ex-4178). I'm not sure on exact dates of storage, but my intuition wants to tell me the majority of those that were in storage prior to the 2006/2007 retirements, were out of service already as early as December 2004 or January 2005. So we're talking 2.5 to 3 years.

All of the other ex-Vancouver units served actively in our system up until November 2006 at the earliest, May or June 2007 the latest.

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