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Vancouver general sightings and notes


Enviro 500

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R9220 is back. This bus has been in the BTC shops for several weeks. It has now re-emerged looking pretty smart; it showed up on a 311 this afternoon (RTC-operated trip off of 56/601 line group). It appears to have had its entire roof replaced, because parts of it bear traces of fresh paint, and also, the infamous damage on the driver's side has finally been repaired. Early in the summer of 2006, 9220 suffered a bit of a mishap, whereby somehow a large gash got torn in the roof on the driver's side, stretching all the way from the very front of the bus to the rear. I happened to be visiting RTC one night in July when the bus was sitting on the BO track, and a serviceperson showed me the damage. The pattern of the gash seemed to indicate to him that perhaps the bus had passed under an overpass just after going over a bump, and something in the overpass ceiling had ripped the metal open, because to me, it quite literally looked like someone had taken a giant can opener to the roof of the bus. Whatever the case was, a marker light had also been broken, so the bus was out of service. It returned to service less than a month later, but still with its roof in the same condition, though the marker light had been replaced and the part of the gash closest to it repaired with blue duct tape. Now, the whole top half of the bus seems to be fresh, and on both sides too, so they must have done some serious bodywork on it while it was in BTC.

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Hi Everyone,

I just wanted to note that this afternoon, I saw a brand new Orion V for Translink, sitting on a Flatbed at Orion's Plant in Mississauga, ON. It was in the regular yellow livery that the older units were delivered in... I will try to get some pictures, and will post them for you guys :)

JAN

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Thanks for the heads up, Jan! The livery comes as a bit of a surprise, as the trend over the past two years has seen most of the "specialty" liveries phased out for new deliveries. The new D60LFRs will be in the regular Sweep-R livery rather than B-Line colours, and the Community Shuttle vans have recently gone Sweep-R as well. I was expecting the Orion Vs to be the same.

Was there a fleet number on it? Our new Vs are to be numbered 9277-9285.

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Thanks for the heads up, Jan! The livery comes as a bit of a surprise, as the trend over the past two years has seen most of the "specialty" liveries phased out for new deliveries. The new D60LFRs will be in the regular Sweep-R livery rather than B-Line colours, and the Community Shuttle vans have recently gone Sweep-R as well. I was expecting the Orion Vs to be the same.

Was there a fleet number on it? Our new Vs are to be numbered 9277-9285.

No number on it George. I saw it from far away (was stuffed at the back - east side of building) but it sure looked like it was for Vancouver. How many you guys getting?

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Well, it looks like at least two more of the BCT-painted D40LFs have been pulled for refurb. 7196 is done, 7197 is being stripped down. I haven't revised my math, but offhand I think we're down to 26 remaining active BCT-scheme low-floor buses.

Therefore, at the rate these buses are being pulled from the road for rebuild, I think that it would be beneficial at this point to track all BCT-scheme D40LFs as part of this thread. There isn't really any need to watch the D40s, as these aren't getting rebuilt anymore. We'll keep detailed track of those next year when they begin to mass-retire.

At this rate, my guess is that all of the BCT-scheme D40LFs will be done by the end of next year, meaning that the last remaining red buses to run in Vancouver will likely be the D40s (assuming all the Classics and old trolleys are gone by then). I'll do a bit more mathematical projections later on, I'm sure we can throw together some refurb statistics from the past 2 years.

To start us off, this morning V7226 was spotted leaving UBC.

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I think it would do fine to keep it here in the general thread. Since it's general stuff anyway.
or don't forget about the checklist available on bustalk-Vancouver! :D Just a little note..........spotted "R3135" today on an unknown route at Richmond CentreDave
No longer a special sighting...PICT0081.jpg
Good work, meaning you're making good use of the general sightings post! :( Dave
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or don't forget about the checklist available on bustalk-Vancouver! :( Just a little note..........spotted "R3135" today on an unknown route at Richmond

Trend spotted! As I was merging onto the Arthur Laing bridge earlier this afternoon, R3151 cut in as a 491 several vehicles behind me.

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R7138 running Run 2 of 351 Crescent Beach. Not sure if that's special or not, but doesn't happen too often. Is that an all day RTC run or a morning tripper only?

N3257 on 44 UBC this morning. Freaked me thinking NVTC was doing 44 runs, but then realized that this was a loaner to RTC, so not a special sighting at all.

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R7138 running Run 2 of 351 Crescent Beach. Not sure if that's special or not, but doesn't happen too often. Is that an all day RTC run or a morning tripper only?

N3257 on 44 UBC this morning. Freaked me thinking NVTC was doing 44 runs, but then realized that this was a loaner to RTC, so not a special sighting at all.

Run-2 on 351 (listed under linegroup "601") is actually an all-day-run!

Dave

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