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Vancouver general sightings and notes


Enviro 500

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Feel free to post absolutely anything under this section............this topic is created for those individuals who are absolutely dedicated to transit and would love to share sightings of every single bus spotted throughout the day. Post absolutely anything you want here..........the other reason that I created this topic is simply due to the fact that I am absolutely fed up of the politics within the special-sightings topic and I think this is an effective way to eliminate any arguments or debates over the "true definition" of "special sightings". Again, all I am trying to enforce is that we "stay on topic".....or in other words, criteria of post that matches with headline topic stated.

Have fun posting........and do not hesistate to post under this topic as there are no specific guidelines / topics / themes........in other words ,there are absolutely no limits and boundaries as long as the criteria posted is acceptable to the general public of all ages, cultural and ethnic backgrounds and so on and follows the general theme of "transit sightings" :(

Dave

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I woke up this morning still hammered from last night, if anyone saw my attempt at posting and explaining what happened on the No.2 Road Bridge yesterday, I apologize for that. Remind me NOT to post on CPTDB while drunk.

I came home from school using the 480 -> 401 yesterday. As the westbound 401 passed by No.2 Road, I noticed that police seemed to be occupying all the southbound lanes, and I could tell there had been a serious MVA there. At least two cars were sitting perpendicular to the street in awkward positions, and it looked as though another car had been run right off the road and into a house. It didn't look like any southbound traffic was coming through at all. Now, I was planning to go back into Vancouver later on, I didn't know for sure whether I'd make the last 491, but perhaps I'd have a chance if he was delayed coming southbound due to the closure of the bridge! So I waited for the 491 at sked time at the stop EB Westminster Highway FS No.1 Road. I eventually heard a 6V92 engine coming my way, but couldn't see a bus... until I saw V3154 (now a Richmond bus) sitting waiting to make a left turn from southbound No.1 Road onto EB Westminster! He was empty, but signed up as "491 Burrard Stn" and he pulled up to the stop to pick me and 2 other passengers up. I figure he must have short-turned, perhaps going from WB Westminster to NB Lynas Lane, WB River Rd and SB No.1 Road - meaning that he passed within metres of my house, right along the riverfront. Now THAT is rare. What they were doing about the southbound buses, I don't know, because buses exceed the weight restriction on the Dinsmore bridge. We headed northbound, and good God, traffic was backed up all the way up Russ Baker Way, over the Arthur Laing Bridge and up Granville about as far as 57th. Police were diverting all SB traffic from Russ Baker Way over the Dinsmore, and also directing SB traffic off the Arthur Laing Bridge onto WB Miller Road (where motorists would have the option of turning around to get back on Russ Baker to join the flow of traffic bound for the Dinsmore, or go over the Airport Connector towards No.3 Road). No thru traffic was being allowed SB Russ Baker across Miller. It seems that 3154's short turn put him almost exactly back on schedule, he had about 3 minutes to spare, which was just enough time for him to take a brief layover at Airport Station to use the facilities. (Poor guy was probably sitting in standstill traffic for God knows how long, prior to short-turning!)

That last 491 was pretty much a non-stop express right until I got off at Broadway. When we arrived at Airport Station, there was a huge crush of people waiting for a northbound bus, but the driver parked his bus in the 620 layover area (without stopping first to pick up or drop off) while he was away from his seat. During those few minutes that the driver was gone, a 98 came and picked up the vast majority of that load waiting at the stop, leaving behind only about 4 or 5 for our bus.

All I can say is, I'm glad I took the 480 home from school, and not the 491! What a disaster.

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I woke up this morning still hammered from last night, if anyone saw my attempt at posting and explaining what happened on the No.2 Road Bridge yesterday, I apologize for that. Remind me NOT to post on CPTDB while drunk.

don't worry you actually did pretty well there!

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S7460 as you may have heard went around without a bike rack for a fair bit of time. Well I spotted it with a bike rack reinstalled. It's one of the original LFR ones that is silver.

Without the Bike Rack

http://www.metrovanbuses.fotopic.net/p44988776.html

With the Rack

http://www.metrovanbuses.fotopic.net/p44568122.html

Also on the topic of bike racks. When WV 995 goes back into service watch to see if it gets a new LFS bike rack or what.

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I was trying to get a "nice" photo of a bus...R3161 on route 49...otherwise a totally useless sighting which is perfect for this thread :)

It's a very decent photo, just needs a bit of cropping and you'll get a perfect photo!

What camera do you use? I notice that your photos are kind of "foggy" at various places on your photograph, have you been cleaning the lens lately or perhaps it's an internal problem?

Dave

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I notice that your photos are kind of "foggy" at various places on your photograph, have you been cleaning the lens lately or perhaps it's an internal problem?

Ya I noticed the same thing. I've had this happen to me with my S3 IS turned out to be a fingerprint on the lens. Good thing I didn't end up wrecking to many of my shots.

Just take a good micro fibre cloth and wipe down the lens. It should be as good as new.

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Canon DIGITAL IXUS 50

Ahh.......the same camera which I started out with..........piece of shit, kyboshed after barely one year of "operation"! :)

Dennis: If you need a new camera or micro-fibre-cloth or lens cleaner or whatever.......visit Black's photo at Richmond Centre and look for Mr. David Lam! :lol:

Dave

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Ahh.......the same camera which I started out with..........piece of shit, kyboshed after barely one year of "operation"! :)

Dude you have the S2 not the S3 :lol: ! If it's shit then why do you still have it? Your videos are done with it and your night shots! Well it must be kyboshed after you dropped it a million times!

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I notice that your photos are kind of "foggy" at various places on your photograph, have you been cleaning the lens lately or perhaps it's an internal problem?

It's probably dirty, and probably also because of movement (both me and bus sometimes :o) Actually my lens is almost always dirty...stupid dust!

Ahh.......the same camera which I started out with..........piece of shit, kyboshed after barely one year of "operation"! :)

Dennis: If you need a new camera or micro-fibre-cloth or lens cleaner or whatever.......visit Black's photo at Richmond Centre and look for Mr. David Lam! :lol:

Dave

I got it (as a present) in June 2005...broke the LCD once, fixed it, and learned my lesson to get a LCD protector :)

I'll keep your offer in mind...thanks :P Is there like a CPTDB discount or something? :P;):P j/k

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Lots of Nightbus spottings to report... not really special since they run all the time, but I never get to see them, except for tonight when I actually had to ride the N10 home, it was that late!

B8020 on N35. 9636 on N19 (to Metrotown only). V7181 on N8. P3354 on N9. R7143 and R7145 on N10. Didn't spot any N17, but I'm pretty sure that one of them was R8092 (20/098 which I had ridden earlier in the evening). Also spotted an N24 (D40) and an N6 (E40LFR), but didn't get numbers on the coaches.

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Probably the first community shuttle route using a D40LFR

C74 (S7456) 16:01

http://www.neopas.fotopic.net/p45362974.html

Nice, I got a shot of a classic on that route the first day it began running conventional buses (during peak) again.

http://metrovanbuses.fotopic.net/p44988623.html

Last week I was out with my friend and just happened to find 4271 on the 341. I don't think this will ever happen again.

http://metrovanbuses.fotopic.net/p45362407.html

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A few notes and observations I've made recently, mostly pertaining to transit at UBC (perhaps Kenneth could add to this as well).

I don't know whether I just haven't been seeing as many runs, but I don't think I've noticed very many (if any) 40-foot buses on the 99 since the start of the new sheet. My original observation had been that I had yet to see a Nova on the 99 this sheet, but then I realized I hadn't seen many D40LF/Rs on that route either.

Also worth noting is that in terms of BTC equipment, I see relatively few Novas in general compared to D40LF/Rs. At the best of times there's about a 50/50 split of Nova/NF products there (to run the 43 and 44 during peak hours), but any other times it's mainly New Flyer buses. Not to say that the Novas don't make it out there at all, because they do, but they always seem to be relatively in the minority.

The 44 trip that leaves UBC at 17:05 has also been reconfigured. This trip usually had an artic in the past; now they've changed it around and in fact made it into a double-headed trip with two 40-foot buses. The overload bus definitely comes off of an inbound 43, but I'm not sure whether the regular service is a native 44 or not, because most of the full-day runs use artics. They could have changed the scheduling for that particular run, but I don't know for sure.

And back to the question of artics and 40-footers, I've been noticing changes to the 135. That route seems to have more 40-footers and fewer artics than it used to - and as a matter of fact I see more Novas on that route that I do D40LF/Rs. I'm not sure of the rationale behind this, but over the span of an hour downtown today I saw several 135s leave and only one of them was an artic. The rest were Novas except for one that was B7488.

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