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Vancouver general sightings and notes


Enviro 500

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Spotted drivers turning off destinations signs when it's sunny out. NO the signs are not broken as when I notified the driver about them they say "I turned them off". Also spotted up to 4 buses with the signs off and I doubt that many signs would have failed in one day as the side, back and front signs were off on all those buses

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Spotted drivers turning of destinations on signs when it's sunny out. NO the signs are not broken as when I notified the driver about them they say "I turned them off". Also spotted up to 4 buses with the signs off and I doubt that many signs would have failed in one day as the side, back and front signs were off on all those buses

How do you 'turn off' the destination sign ?? I can't do it without turning the 'Master' Switch to 'Off' which shuts the engine off ! Or are you referring to when the bus is parked at a terminus ???

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Spotted drivers turning of destinations on signs when it's sunny out. NO the signs are not broken as when I notified the driver about them they say "I turned them off". Also spotted up to 4 buses with the signs off and I doubt that many signs would have failed in one day as the side, back and front signs were off on all those buses

With be sun out today, you probably had trouble seeing the sign through the glare. As NotQuite pointed out, the signs cannot be turned off without shutting the bus down.

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How do you 'turn off' the destination sign ?? I can't do it without turning the 'Master' Switch to 'Off' which shuts the engine off ! Or are you referring to when the bus is parked at a terminus ???

I am referring to when the bus is in service. I've seen at least 12 buses within the last week where drivers have turned the signs off. This includes the rear sign, side sign and front sign. I have spotted up to 4 in one day within the last week. Spotted a NIS bus going into service for the afternoon peak hours with its sign turned off as well. Talking with the drivers I've been told that there is a switch that can turn off the signs. Perhaps this is only on the newer buses or certain fleet of buses?

With be sun out today, you probably had trouble seeing the sign through the glare. As NotQuite pointed out, the signs cannot be turned off without shutting the bus down.

Nope. I am 100% positive that the drivers turned the sign off. It wasn't a glare issue as when the bus was in the shade the signs were still off I've been told by drivers that there is a switch that can turn the signs off. Perhaps this is a feature that's only on the newer buses or a certain fleet of buses?

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Spotted a teenaged Asian male with a female taking photos at UBC loop around 1145. Standing between the 41 and 33 bay

Hello, that was me.

Was 9425 ever transferred to Vancouver for a brief moment? Rode it this morning and it carried the V prefix on the side, but had B on the rear.

25821974346_a5ff37c644_o.jpg

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I am referring to when the bus is in service. I've seen at least 12 buses within the last week where drivers have turned the signs off. This includes the rear sign, side sign and front sign. I have spotted up to 4 in one day within the last week. Spotted a NIS bus going into service for the afternoon peak hours with its sign turned off as well. Talking with the drivers I've been told that there is a switch that can turn off the signs. Perhaps this is only on the newer buses or certain fleet of buses?

Nope. I am 100% positive that the drivers turned the sign off. It wasn't a glare issue as when the bus was in the shade the signs were still off I've been told by drivers that there is a switch that can turn the signs off. Perhaps this is a feature that's only on the newer buses or a certain fleet of buses?

I think the drivers are just joking with you. There is absolutely no way for us to turn off the destination sign other than the master switch to off. There isn't even a power button or anything like that on the destination sign console. I've driven everything from the D40's right up to the XE60's at RTC and even had a look at the XE60's at STC and those destination sign console's have no option to be turned off. It is possible that with the sun glare, it will appear that the sign is off as the auto brightness isn't working properly. Same goes for at night when you might see a bus with an extremely bright destination sign. It is also possible that all those buses happened to have bo destruction signs. It happens.

Sent from my SM-T817W using Tapatalk

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I think the drivers are just joking with you. There is absolutely no way for us to turn off the destination sign other than the master switch to off. There isn't even a power button or anything like that on the destination sign console. I've driven everything from the D40's right up to the XE60's at RTC and even had a look at the XE60's at STC and those destination sign console's have no option to be turned off. It is possible that with the sun glare, it will appear that the sign is off as the auto brightness isn't working properly. Same goes for at night when you might see a bus with an extremely bright destination sign. It is also possible that all those buses happened to have bo destruction signs. It happens.

Sent from my SM-T817W using Tapatalk

If its not possible to turn the signs off then why have I spotted NIS buses that are going into service for the afternoon peak hours where they would go to the starting point with the signs off then once arriving at the starting point the sign suddenly turns on? Also lets say it did happen that so many buses had b/o signs in one day how would the front, side, and back signs all fail on all the buses at once? I've spotted buses with b/o signs but only one of the 3 signs would have been affected.

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We enter the sign code manually into the destination sign control panel. There is no code that I know of that would be a blank sign either.

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Yes. Can be done manually on all buses or automatically via TMAC on the newer ones. Same with the special messages, "EXPRESS" "SKYTRAIN DELAY" "AMBER ALERT" etc... These are all done manually by the operator, sometimes at the request of T-COMM. We can set any destination at any time regardless of where the bus is or where the T-MAC says, but there is no "off" setting without turning off the Master Control Switch which shuts off the bus. And even then, sometimes the signs will stay lit for a few minutes.

HOWEVER, when the signs are switched from "SORRY, NOT IN SERVICE" to the current destination info, there is sometime a lag of several seconds where the signs show nothing during the change.

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So I've been noticing something on the Expo Line on my daily commute...

Back in the fall the segment between 22nd and New West Stations on the Expo Line was easily the loudest on the system when going eastbound. It was rather annoying to pass through constant noise for 4 minutes.

Now that portion is dead silent, in both directions. On both the 1st and 2nd gen Mk IIs it is dead silent - and on a Mk I, while still not completely silent, it is noticeably quieter and smoother.

I ride through this every single day and I am pretty sure that this is the quietest and smoothest I've ever ridden on the (E/M-Line) SkyTrain system, ever. I don't understand how the noise levels were brought down so much and so fast - but whatever BCRTC maintenance ended up doing there, it passed the test with flying colours wink.gif

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  • 2 weeks later...

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