Jump to content

2001 Orion V Retirement


dover5949

Recommended Posts

51 minutes ago, dover5949 said:

9234 was fired up this afternoon at RTC & had it's 4 ways going which was at the back of the pack on the retirement line. I spotted a service person walking around with a clip board in hand. Not sure what was going on?

They could be preparing it for a second life? 

Maybe with an other transit operator. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, dover5949 said:

9234 was fired up this afternoon at RTC & had it's 4 ways going which was at the back of the pack on the retirement line. I spotted a service person walking around with a clip board in hand. Not sure what was going on?

I don't know, but if you had looked a little further down the line you would have seen an artic being backed up from track 22 onto track 23, driven forward and then backed up from track 23 back onto track 22, multiple times...

?

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, SkyTrain said:

9209 is confirmed retired by an RTC op.

They have already retired 4 Orion Vs but they have only but one Nova Bus suburban in service. 

I’m assuming that a few more will enter service once the holidays are over and frequency has gone back to normal so that the spare ratio stays up.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/21/2018 at 7:47 PM, Thomasw said:

They could be preparing it for a second life? 

Maybe with an other transit operator. 

Suggest it to BC Transit Victoria. We're so short on buses here, I'm sure they'd pay the money to repaint an Orion V and put it in service, as long as the lift works... 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, northwesterner said:

Only in a foamer fantasy. 

Thats what everyone said about the remaining Orion V's for GO Transit. Most ended up at Beaver. If the condition of the 2001 series is good, perhaps a charter company would be interested. CVS in Victoria comes to mind.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also Red Arrow in Calgary could be interested in a handful to replace their non-accessible Classics for Spruce Meadows, or Southland for any additional commuter runs to Okotoks or Cochrane.

They won't go to BC Transit, that much I CAN guarantee. They're too proud of their 100% LOW Floor fleet. 100% accessible was TransLink's goal. BC Transit went even further by having an all low-floor fleet by the end of 2011, province-wide. Nothing will change that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, TTC 9701 said:

Thats what everyone said about the remaining Orion V's for GO Transit. Most ended up at Beaver. If the condition of the 2001 series is good, perhaps a charter company would be interested. CVS in Victoria comes to mind.

Charter company or private owners. Out of all buses, they're the best for RV conversions as they were built for the highway.

2 hours ago, SidneyTransitfan said:

Also Red Arrow in Calgary could be interested in a handful to replace their non-accessible Classics for Spruce Meadows, or Southland for any additional commuter runs to Okotoks or Cochrane.

They won't go to BC Transit, that much I CAN guarantee. They're too proud of their 100% LOW Floor fleet. 100% accessible was TransLink's goal. BC Transit went even further by having an all low-floor fleet by the end of 2011, province-wide. Nothing will change that.

Not true. They still operate high floor international shuttles in some systems and some of those are only 1-2 years old.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Community Shuttle said:

Charter company or private owners. Out of all buses, they're the best for RV conversions as they were built for the highway.

Not true. They still operate high floor international shuttles in some systems and some of those are only 1-2 years old.

Shuttles aren’t real buses. They don’t count. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 hours ago, TTC 9701 said:

Thats what everyone said about the remaining Orion V's for GO Transit. Most ended up at Beaver. If the condition of the 2001 series is good, perhaps a charter company would be interested. CVS in Victoria comes to mind.

CVS already purchased all of GO transit’s enviro 500 8000s. (Mostly for parting out, I suspect)-I think they’re full up for awhile.

11 hours ago, SidneyTransitfan said:

Also Red Arrow in Calgary could be interested in a handful to replace their non-accessible Classics for Spruce Meadows, or Southland for any additional commuter runs to Okotoks or Cochrane.

That may be plausible, should the timing be right...still reaching a little though.

17 hours ago, rulerduler said:

Or. Translink/bc transit applies for the sea to sky route vancouver to whistler or squamish and uses all the orions. 

 

Fare can be 10 at least no transfers. 

 

(Talking about the fate of the orions is allowed in the group)

If such a new service were to start, they would want to have the service as reliable as possible to attract ridership. Gambling with 18 year old vehicles would not be in the cards. They’d purchase new.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

57 minutes ago, TTC 9701 said:

Your term of what's real or not is realistically right. The shuttles are classified as a bus.

Look, if it’s got its own frame and unibody structure and is 30 feet or longer. It’s a real bus. Not some truck chassis, with a bus body that carries 24 passengers. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, translink said:

Look, if it’s got its own frame and unibody structure and is 30 feet or longer. It’s a real bus. Not some truck chassis, with a bus body that carries 24 passengers. 

Yeah.The ministry of transportation are stupid anyway. Merriam- Webster too.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I must admit I had forgotten about the handful of high-floor shuttles, not just the Internationals but the few Polars still in service in the far north.

Still, they are the exception. The only reason they're around is that there's nothing low-floor that's suitable for their jobs. They're all nowhere near Vancouver or Victoria, so most of the province doesn't see them.

 

I stand by what I said though. BC Transit will not buy them. I suggested a return of two 1990 Orion Vs to Chilliwack two years ago when three of their Novabuses went up in flames. The response was 'Cool, but they don't jive with the rest of the fleet any more and we don't really need them'.

Still, that's enough speculating the future. Let's get back to TransLink's fleet of Orion Vs, shall we?

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, translink said:

Shuttles aren’t real buses. They don’t count. 

Only in the eyes of a transit fan and some operators are shuttles not real buses. In the eyes of everyone else, they are. If it's a commercial passenger vehicle with a high seating and/or standing capacity, it falls under the definition of a bus no matter what it's based on. (Of course, this doesn't make a u-haul truck with seats bolted in the back a bus despite it being similar to one of the shuttles I was referring to)

With that out of the way, let's get back to Orion discussion. We'll find out if any go up for sale if we see them pop up in the WC remarketing lot on Van Horne Way in Richmond (visible from the Canada Line).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...