Crown-Ikarus Articulated Buses (1980-85)

[Benjamin]

Hi,

Does anyone know anything about the Crown-Ikarus articulated buses, and if anyone here has any audio recordings from back in the day?

All of the Crown-Ikarus 286 artics had Cummins NHHTC Big Cam engines at first.

TriMet in Portland, OR, decided during 1986-87 to change out the original Cummins engines in favor of Detroit Diesel 6L71TA engines (an engine that was used on the related Orion III artics in Toronto and Ottawa), following prior lawsuits it made against the bus manufacturer (among other things, maintenance diagrams whose text was written mainly in Hungarian (Magyar)).

The transmission specified in these buses was usually the Allison HT740 4-speed automatic, but 5 out of 40 buses ran by the Milwaukee County Transit System (MCTS), as well as all of Houston Metro's (MTA of Harris County) artics, used Voith DIWA D864.2 transmissions.

~Ben

Edited May 9, 2012 by Benjamin

[captaintrolley]

I had pics of a Crown Ikarus artic demonstrator that was in Edmonton (back in the day). My photo album is in the hands of another loving transit fan, as it was one of the things I gave away before I moved.

[Benjamin]

I had pics of a Crown Ikarus artic demonstrator that was in Edmonton (back in the day). My photo album is in the hands of another loving transit fan, as it was one of the things I gave away before I moved.

Some of the information I found on the Wikipedia entry of this bus model was taken from back issues of Bus World magazine.

And, as to that photograph, you are mentioning TriMet #781 which was being demoed for Edmonton Transit during 1982. That same year, Edmonton also tried out one 1982 GMDD TA60-102N from Mississauga Transit.

~Ben

Edited October 29, 2013 by Benjamin

[captaintrolley]

That is highly possible. I am not sure of that unit's origin, but the year sounds about right.

[tomsbuspage]

MAJOR BUMP!

I found this short Ikarus documentary on Youtube showing Crown-Ikarus buses being shipped from Hungary, demoed in Los Angeles, and finally in service in Portland.  Of course, it helps if you understand Hungarian...

[MCIBUS]

We had those here in Ottawa OC Tanspo FLT# 85xx(1985), 86XX(1986). 87XX(1987), 88XX(1988) except ours where Orion-Ikarus(Orion III). They where horrible in winter the back end would slide sideways going around corners. You froze sometimes if it was really cold out & roasted if it was really hot out. Ours didn't have the wheel chair lift though. They where also dirty. Some drivers got sick driving them, can't remember why though. I think it had something to do with rubber & heating, I could be mistaken though?

[tomsbuspage]

2 hours ago, MCIBUS said:

We had those here in Ottawa OC Tanspo FLT# 85xx(1985), 86XX(1986). 87XX(1987), 88XX(1988) except ours where Orion-Ikarus(Orion III). They where horrible in winter the back end would slide sideways going around corners. You froze sometimes if it was really cold out & roasted if it was really hot out. Ours didn't have the wheel chair lift though. They where also dirty. Some drivers got sick driving them, can't remember why though. I think it had something to do with rubber & heating, I could be mistaken though?

I read in a newspaper article back in the day that some of the buses had exhaust gases leaking into the interior.  It didn't affect passengers because they weren't on the bus for very long, but a driver doing an eight-hour shift? 

[Glennwood Road Ent.]

19 hours ago, tomsbuspage said:

MAJOR BUMP!

I found this short Ikarus documentary on Youtube showing Crown-Ikarus buses being shipped from Hungary, demoed in Los Angeles, and finally in service in Portland.  Of course, it helps if you understand Hungarian...

Good timing, TriMet had the largest 3-door Artic order in the USA from 1982-99 according to wikipedia. 87 units. Are these still restored in USA and Canada for historical collections to this day yet? 

[tomsbuspage]

23 hours ago, Glennwood Road Ent. said:

Good timing, TriMet had the largest 3-door Artic order in the USA from 1982-99 according to wikipedia. 87 units. Are these still restored in USA and Canada for historical collections to this day yet? 

From what I can tell, one Tri-Met Crown-Ikarus bus is being restored by a couple of private individuals as shown in the video below, but that's it.  OC Transpo had the largest fleet of Orion-Ikarus buses in Canada at 164 purchased between 1985 and 1988, plus another 25 acquired from the TTC in 1998.  The TTC had 90 and St. Catharines Transit had one, and all were out of service by 2003.  AFAIK, not one of the Canadian buses was preserved, though some still exist in junkyards and could be restored with a lot of TLC.

[MCIBUS]

OC TRANSPO did have one(First one purchased 8501) in storage with 8529 for parts, but later it was scraped bty our city council? (Stupid duffess)

[Glennwood Road Ent.]

20 hours ago, MCIBUS said:

OC TRANSPO did have one(First one purchased 8501) in storage with 8529 for parts, but later it was scraped bty our city council? (Stupid duffess)

And there was supposed to be a 8534, but the unit that was supposed to be 8534 (VIN #: 2B1379972G5010034) fell off the ship during delivery. It was never replaced. Unsure if the bus still in underwater to this day. 

On 6/11/2024 at 9:09 AM, tomsbuspage said:

From what I can tell, one Tri-Met Crown-Ikarus bus is being restored by a couple of private individuals as shown in the video below, but that's it.  OC Transpo had the largest fleet of Orion-Ikarus buses in Canada at 164 purchased between 1985 and 1988, plus another 25 acquired from the TTC in 1998.  The TTC had 90 and St. Catharines Transit had one, and all were out of service by 2003.  AFAIK, not one of the Canadian buses was preserved, though some still exist in junkyards and could be restored with a lot of TLC.

That's correct and JTA had them as well. First articulated bus launched in 1983 for Florida. 

[Mind_the_gap]

Since there doesn't seem to be a specific Ikarus thread, I'll put this here...

My favourite European bus of all time was the Ikarus E94:

Source

Such a beauty!!