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M. Parsons

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  • 2 weeks later...

Been lurking here for a little, so it's time to post something

I saw in Saturday's paper about Regina Transit's buses failing SGI inspection, mostly 1990 and 1992 Classics getting taken out of service for repairs. The article mentioned about a couple of buses to get taken out of service permanently. Anyone hear which buses those are? Anybody hear anything about the New Flyers from 1997 how those buses did on inspection?

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http://www.leaderpost.com/technology/City+...7085/story.html

The head of the City of Regina's transit department has confirmed an audit by SGI has resulted in numerous buses being taken out of service with the fleet.

David Onodera said that among vehicles inspected by SGI this week, some were determined to require "significant work." He said some buses with problems already have been repaired and returned to the roads, but others have been taken out of service permanently.

Tony Playter, manager of media relations for SGI, said SGI safety officers have taken 13 City of Regina buses out of service for safety inspection reasons.

"SGI's focus is road safety," he said, noting SGI conducts yearly audits on selected buses. He said his understanding is the buses provided by the city for inspection — 26 in total this week — were among the oldest ones in the city's fleet.

Onodera discussed the issues on Friday after the Leader-Post received a tip.

"We know we have fleet challenges," said Onodera, noting that most of the issues SGI identified were with buses from groups purchased in 1990 and 1992 — those vehicles have now reached the ends of the expected lifespans, he said.

Both older buses that have been refurbished and used buses the city recently acquired are in better condition.

It's long been known that the 1990 and 1992 buses — of which there are 27 in total among the city's total fleet of 105 — will need work, and the department has a plan in place, Onodera said. The city has been buying inexpensive used buses with life left in them, to replace those older ones. The department doesn't plan to refurbish those buses from the early 1990s due to significant costs, for which funds could be better allocated elsewhere, Onodera continued. The SGI audit "accelerated" the timing, he said, noting the inspections are being looked at as positive because they call attention to the need for resources to maintain and replace assets.

"The situation's under control," he remarked. "Nothing is a surprise to us."

He said service is expected to be affected minimally, if at all, and stressed that none of the buses on the road were ever unsafe. The transit department has the authority to certify its own fleet and all of the buses were inspected and appraised safe by professional mechanics.

"We would never compromise anyone's safety. We would never put an unsafe vehicle on the road," Onodera said.

In the audit, it appeared "the bar's been raised a little bit" by SGI in terms of interpretation of safety regulations, according to Onodera, who said the city now will recognize such interpretations.

Onodera said efforts to get the fleet in shape are ongoing, noting more new and used buses are expected later this year.

SGI plans to inspect more buses, said Onodera. Playter said more inspections are scheduled to take place on Monday.

Playter said buses taken out of service will be "inspected individually" and a bus will be allowed back on the road when deemed to meet safety standards.

The Amalgamated Transit Union Local 588, which represents transit workers, didn't return requests for comment.

Good to see it's not the used buses at fault, and interesting that apparently they are looking at more used buses (Edmonton?)

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I got these pictures from David Onodera (Regina Transit Director) today showing ex-RDT 502 (7137) in their new colours. He says "211 and 212 have now been painted in these colours - the first New Looks to wear the current colour scheme. The next two are to carry the older, full blue front (as when the New Looks were delivered)."

Regina_212_ex_RDT_502__7137.JPG

Regina_212.JPG

Regina_212_2.JPG

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I got these pictures from David Onodera (Regina Transit Director) today showing ex-RDT 502 (7137) in their new colours. He says "211 and 212 have now been painted in these colours - the first New Looks to wear the current colour scheme. The next two are to carry the older, full blue front (as when the New Looks were delivered)."

Regina_212_ex_RDT_502__7137.JPG

Regina_212.JPG

Regina_212_2.JPG

They sure don't look their age.

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The next two are to carry the older, full blue front (as when the New Looks were delivered)."

You mean they will look like this:

http://www.busdrawings.com/Transit/sk/regi...tdh5303/340.jpg

Maybe I'll have to go back to Regina yet again! More new paint schemes on fishbowls to get... The poeple that got pics of the ex-Red Deer bowls running in Red Deer colors in Regina are all the more special now..

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Cool, thanks for sharing those!

Does anyone know which buses are grounded because of S.G.I.'s recent inspection. If you have not herd S.G.I. inspected 21 buses and grounded 10 or 12. 2 have been fixed and put back in service and some need major repair to go back into service.

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Does anyone know which buses are grounded because of S.G.I.'s recent inspection. If you have not herd S.G.I. inspected 21 buses and grounded 10 or 12. 2 have been fixed and put back in service and some need major repair to go back into service.
I believe it was stated in an above post that these inspections grounded mostly the 1990 to 1992 MCI Classics, but most of the older equipment was unaffected. Long live the Fishbowls!

Here is part of the quote from post #99 of this thread:

"We know we have fleet challenges," said Onodera, noting that most of the issues SGI identified were with buses from groups purchased in 1990 and 1992 — those vehicles have now reached the ends of the expected lifespans, he said.

Both older buses that have been refurbished and used buses the city recently acquired are in better condition.

It's long been known that the 1990 and 1992 buses — of which there are 27 in total among the city's total fleet of 105 — will need work, and the department has a plan in place, Onodera said. The city has been buying inexpensive used buses with life left in them, to replace those older ones. The department doesn't plan to refurbish those buses from the early 1990s due to significant costs, for which funds could be better allocated elsewhere, Onodera continued. The SGI audit "accelerated" the timing, he said, noting the inspections are being looked at as positive because they call attention to the need for resources to maintain and replace assets.

Edited by MBTA9244-9640b
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And a follow-up article...

Regina Buying New, Used Buses

Service won't be hurt by removal of old buses

Reported By Patrick Book

Posted January 19, 2010 - 12:32pm

Regina Mayor Pat Fiacco insists the removal of more than a dozen city buses from the transit fleet won't hurt service.

The city acknowledges 13 city buses that were purchased roughly 20 years ago recently failed SGI safety audits and were pulled from service. There are still 90 buses in the fleet however, with eight new vehicles that were purchased in the last two years expected to arrive sometime this year.

But Mayor Pat Fiacco makes no excuse for having used or aged vehicles on city streets, saying the city can only spend so much on a money-losing service.

"We have an obligation to make sure we're spending taxpayer dollars properly and I think we're being very prudent about how that's done," he explained after Monday's City council meeting. "Our bus service is being subsidized by property taxpayers at the rate of about 66 cents per rider, so cost recovery is about 34 cents on the dollar. If you can expand the life of a bus by renovations we will do that and a lot of our buses have had a tremendous amount of work done to them. We have aging fleets right across the country and it's difficult for a smaller municipality that has low ridership to deal with this."

At their scheduled meeting Monday City Council approved the purchase of three new buses and several used ones. That $2 million needed for those purhcases will come from the 2010 General Capital Budget.

"We've been purchasing new buses and used buses at a faster rate than ever before," Fiacco continued, "which is going to allow us to improve the age of our fleet."

With the advance spending approval granted by Council it's expected those new buses will arrive late in 2010 or early in 2011. Fiacco says it can take up to 18 months after purchase for a new bus to be delivered.

http://www.newstalk980.com/story/20100119/28089

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Regina Transit buses pulled off road impacts service: drivers' union

BY ANGELA HALL, LEADER-POST JANUARY 22, 2010

REGINA — Regina Transit is down 20 buses after an additional seven were put in park this week following an audit by SGI.

While the city's transit director said Friday that service to the public isn't suffering from the smaller fleet, the union representing bus drivers contended the sudden downsizing has an impact on passengers.

Mike Ehmann, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union local, said there has only been some minor issues so far. But if a cold snap hits and send more buses into the shop for weather-related reasons, "we're going to have a problem," he said.

"From the workers' point of view (the concern) is getting our passengers downtown. They're the ones getting to work. It creates a lot of problems for the riding public and we're here to help the riding public," Ehmann said. "They pay for a service."

The problem needs more than a "Band-Aid solution," said Ehmann. He said the union has for years argued for more transit funding, but he said the desire not to increase the mill rate has won out.

But City of Regina director of transit David Onodera said the sidelining of 20 buses has created little to no change to service. About 90 buses are still in operation.

"As far as service goes we have said right from the beginning, the worst case scenario yes, sure, we could start impacting service a little bit because we can only pull so many buses out of service before it becomes a critical issue. Are we at that point? No we're not," Onodera said.

Onodera said the audit of 36 of the city's oldest buses led to total of 20 being taken out of service, including the 13 that were reported last week.

"We'd identified all these buses already as needing attention within the next year, probably," he said.

"Since we knew this was a problem beforehand we had already got a plan in place."

He said the vehicles weren't unsafe to operate and didn't pose a risk to passenger safety.

As many as six buses will be back in service within a month. The others require "heavy structural refurbishing" and it likely isn't economically viable to do the work because there are alternatives, Onodera said.

That includes the purchase of as many as nine low-floor buses from the U.S. that are about a decade old. He added that Transit also has money set aside toward the purchase of some brand new buses.

Serviceable, old and affordable buses will help fill the near-term gap and the purchase of newer, accessible buses will help fill the need for the medium-term, he said.

But he said the ongoing goal has always been to buy new buses to upgrade the fleet as the budget permits.

Onodera added that, ideally, new buses are added in stages — because purchasing a new fleet all at once means the city faces a costly challenge in 20 years when they all come due for replacement.

Interesting is the bolded paragraph - I guess these would be D40LF's or possibly Nova LFS, as I believe Memphis or another city has just retired some.

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Me again with another article...

Regina Replacement Buses Arriving Soon

City trying to replace forcibly retired vehicles

Reported By Patrick Book

Posted January 26, 2010 - 4:37pm

The total number of 20+ year old buses recently taken off Regina's streets is up to 16, according to the Director of city Transit.

An on-going SGI inspection process has knocked a few more vehicles out of the city transit system's fleet since it was originally reported that 13 vehicles failed the inspection. David Onodera confirms that 16 buses have been taken out of service due to what he calls, "structural problems."

"The majority of the buses that failed that inspection was for major structural reasons. It wasn't really a surprise; we knew the age and conditions of the buses for the most part. We already had some arrangements in place to cover them with over vehicles and we're making other arrangements now to get some more."

He explains that the problem had to do with the buses' unibody construction and the inevitable wear and tear that comes along with more than 20 years of service in a rough area. He indicates that the cost to carry out an adequate structural refurbishment would likely run from $70,000 to $90,000 and would grant another 10 years to their lifespan. But Onodera and the city feel a more cost-effective solution is out there.

"We're expecting two new buses at the end of January, they should be here shortly. We've got four used buses coming from the United States; they're in the Southern Ontario area getting some retrofitting, they should be here by the end of February. We've also got some other used buses we're just scoping out. One more arrived this morning from Lethbridge, Alberta and we're expecting two more by the end of the week."

He also insists that it's unlikely any more buses will be pulled from service. He says the older buses that were suspected to have problems have undergone inspections and were likely in the worst shape of the fleet.

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