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The Bus (Honolulu, HI)


busfreak99

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Hi my name is Alika Valdez Im new here I also bet everyone been talking about me, but anyways looks like the Kalihi D60LF 2000 will be around a longer but short time than the pearl city ones! And oh also from what I heard from the bus company just 10 minutes ago where my dad works at the pc, not only pc is getting the xd60 Kalihi as well because we now days have to have equal and same buses for each side! He said fair enough right? People agree with having fair buses for town and country? And people says Yes! Well unlike before Kalihi has the better buses than pearl city!

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I checked the area. It was 89. There were two more parked but couldn't get a peek since they were buried in between the other buses.

Looks like 090 and 092 were eliminated from service. The rest of the four buses are running as of today.

Speaking of Hilo, I wonder if Hele-On still keeps the RTS-08 buses in-service to this day. The Norcalbusfans JAlbum had a photo of one. I know that there were two people on this topic that went to Hilo who never saw any of those buses running around. Those buses must've been on a different route at the time.

HeleOnHilo22713APR12.jpg

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Interesting to hear about the change in splitting fleets vs. assigning them to one garage. It seems like a toss up in terms of advantage (less buses per garage means needing to familiarize with each fleet of buses more often...but yes, it does make the fleets more balanced in terms of age...though which garage has better equipment is probably a very, VERY debatable topic lol). Pearl City did not receive any of the super hybrid 60 footers though...will that be balanced with this order?

I don't know if anyone spoke to how 802 looked on camera, but I really like the refurbish (I'm partial to those new seats...made the 200-series Gilligs less desirable in my mind as soon as they shipped with the 600's), and I look forward to riding one when I'm back home.

The last XDE60 I rode on Oahu did not have a driver sun visor on the left side, which definitely affected the driver. Hoping they've fixed that...the lack of sun visor plus the skylight made it pretty bright in the driver's compartment...how many of these buses are there in the XDE60 order?

Seems like a lot of these Xcelsior buses are coming in with issues though...I remember 184 not having a interior front announcement display and the picture above shows the key sign being completely white. I hope that they are continuing to work out these bugs now that they are on the road.

Have there been any sightings since the delivery of those new 600-series Gilligs?

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Guys I have great news! If you guys are ready to hear it then proudly thanks to my dad(RICKY) that he finally..............................................................................ok wait here it comes..............................................................................DISPATCHED MY FAVORITE BUS# 129 TO RUN ON ROUTE 2 THAT EVENING, AND ALSO THANKS TO MY UNCLE(MIKE) DOING HIS JOB ON THE KALIHI ROUTE 2 FOR THE WHOLE NIGHT UNTIL MIDNIGHT JUST FOR MY BIRTHDAY! THIS WAS MY BIGGEST BIRTHDAY WISH OF MY HAPPIEST LIFETIME! THANKS DAD AND UNCLE I APPRECIATE IT!

image.jpeg

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Getting a Pearl City bus to sneak onto Route 2? Goodness. It's like that time where I saw a Kalihi bus (DE60LF) sneak onto Route A. A few hours after that, the bus resumed regular service on Route 1. Happy birthday though.

Just this morning, I saw one of the 500-series Gillig Low-Floor buses having a shell covering the blind area of one camera. I saw Bus 538 and 553 having one of those when I took an express route home.

I'm hearing something about the buses in the 900-series coming in. From what I was told, it's just more Gillig Low-Floors. I wish OTS would purchase some Novabus LFS or some NewFlyer 40' Xcelsior units just for the sake of variety.

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GOOD NEWS Well your right @ROTIDUA we are going to have NEW GILLIGS but in SUPRISINGLY HYBRID!

Here is a picture of the KAILIHI Gillig hybrid back rear! I'll release more pictures. but prior to my dad????, I gotta ask him if I can release more pictures of the whole bus! But this time I'll release one picture today but don't tell share the picture or say anything about it to outsiders, until I say it's ok to share with people who aren't in this discussion board??!

image.jpeg

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Just this morning, I saw one of the 500-series Gillig Low-Floor buses having a shell covering the blind area of one camera. I saw Bus 538 and 553 having one of those when I took an express route home.

I'm hearing something about the buses in the 900-series coming in. From what I was told, it's just more Gillig Low-Floors. I wish OTS would purchase some Novabus LFS or some NewFlyer 40' Xcelsior units just for the sake of variety.

This is the shell covering on the exterior camera on 506. Camera is still visible from the rear. This shell is only on the door side, not on driver's side. Saw a couple of 900 series have the same cover.

506.jpg

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This is the shell covering on the exterior camera on 506. Camera is still visible from the rear. This shell is only on the door side, not on driver's side. Saw a couple of 900 series have the same cover.

I'm aware of that. I'm seeing a few more of these shells being installed on the 2003-2004 and on the 2012-2013 Advantages. I just saw 295 with the shell while I was waiting at the Alapai Transit Center. The artics might get those in the future.

Meanwhile, I saw this particular Handi-Van bus at the Kalihi Transit Center today. This is the vehicle that stood out in the crowd of Aerotech buses. This might also be the bus that I saw running along the Kalanianaole Highway almost a year ago. Seems as though #2902 rings a bell in my memory.

HandiVan 2902.jpg

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This is the shell covering on the exterior camera on 506. Camera is still visible from the rear. This shell is only on the door side, not on driver's side. Saw a couple of 900 series have the same cover.

I wonder how many cameras they lost due to tree branches before they decided to do this...TriMet has them on both sides to protect from curbside debris knocking the camera or scratching the lens.

Dear all, I am in Honolulu this week, where would be the best spot to see most of the Phantoms in action.

Thanks you all.

Best bets would probably be Waipahu Transit Center or Fort Street transit Mall...they still like to use them as workhorses because they have greater capacity. AM/PM rush hours would probably increase your odds tremendously though.

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Dear all, I am in Honolulu this week, where would be the best spot to see most of the Phantoms in action.

Thanks you all.

If anything, you can go to the state capitol building. There's bus stops on the intersections of Beretania/King + Punchbowl. The Alapai Transit Center gets a good amount of them flowing through. Like Jared said, rush hours greatly increase the probability. Just make sure that you're going on the weekdays. If it's on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, the major stops will be less active and the Alapai Transit Center will be nearly or completely empty, save for a parked bus or some passing through.

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Once more question, should I expect all Series 50 Phantoms are retired by now? Or will there be any chances on a weekday rush hours?

Thank you.

The 11 Phantoms (Fleet #785-795) with the DDS50 engines are still running. The time that they'll appear varies heavily, but yes, there's a fair chance that you'll see them. Check http://hea.thebus.org/ for more info.

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I'm going to assume that 099 got terminated a few days ago since there's no GPS signal of it on the HEA.

I heard from a bus operator that either 184 or 186 suffered an electrical failure. I also heard of a small fire that broke out at the rear area, but I'm not sure about that. It's being taken to the Kalihi division's "graveyard" where the stuff in the bus gets salvaged. The bus may get replaced.

Speaking of fire, the Wikipedia article that the Gutenberg site kept as a back-up claimed that one of the 200-series RTS-08 was donated to the fire department of Honolulu. I didn't even bother doing a Google image search until now.

http://www.firenews.org/nonne/hi/HonoluluHIBus.jpg

Lastly, I saw a dent on 166 when I was at Punchbowl. Wonder how that happened.

TheBus 166 Dent.jpg

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