Bus Route Roundup...

[Tranzit]

Are you a "fanatic" ticket and transfer collector? Have you ever entertained the notion of riding every single bus route

within the STM--even if just for the sake of knowing you actually did it? And does all of this even matter?

Well, maybe not, and call me facetious for suggesting it, but for all those obsessives out there, here's a new twist

for transit fandom that came to mind yesterday.

Since our old STM tickets and transfers will soon be history, a new and different way that collectors will be able to

keep a record of their fanning, gunzelling, marathoning, or whatever you want to call it, will be to simply maintain a collection

of all of your trips as printed by the validators on the back all of the new 6-ticket/transfers.

There are several different ways this could be done, of course. The neatest, most organized way would be to start off with

bus routes 10 through 15, taking care to keep your cards clean, unbent, and away from magnets, liquids, and other nasty stuff

until all of the validator-printed data is complete and accurate.

Then, if you do plan to ride every route in sequence, the next card would contain routes 16, 17, 18, 22, 24, and 25

(since, for the benefit of those out-of-towners, unfortunately for completists, routes 19, 20, 21, and 23 have either been

discontinued years ago, or have yet to be initiated. Same as for routes 1 through 9).

Remember, too, that busses you have transferred to are not actually printed on the ticket, so

you will be obliged to wait 2 hours before you can validate your ticket on board the next bus route in your plan.

Obviously, to collect a complete set could present a daunting task indeed when you consider the potential inconvenient

inaccessibility of distant routes, rush-hour-only routes, Metro-Busses, routes like 51X, 165X, (although you may choose to

omit those), future route additions, specific-season-only routes like the 169, and other oddball possibilities which could

slow you down in your endeavour.

Unless your goal is to make the Guiness Book of Records or the like, the easiest and most laid-back way to reach your goal

of every route ridden and printed in numerical order would be to keep cards specifically for that purpose, and use them

only whenever you happen to be in the neighbourhoods of the routes you need next. Sure, it may take you months or even

years this way, but it could definitely be done.

Alternatively, real die-hard, "number freaks" might want to ride as many routes in sequence within a single day--

which is certainly possible depending on how geographically convenient the desired routes would be--and even purchase

a monthly CAM to use for riding other, non-sequential routes in order to arrive at the next sequential bus route number

on your list, or even have a willing (equally "weird" ) pal drive you in his car from route to route. (see, I thought of

everything!)

Thus, say, if you start off by boarding route 10 outside Papineau Metro then ride it north to as far as you wish, and

optionally transfer to route 45 Papineau southbound (which, needless to say, won't actually register on your ticket's

printout), and ride back near to route 11 where (making sure your 2 hours have expired!), board it, validate your ticket,

and then later move on to routes 12, 13, 14, and 15 at which point you will then have filled your first card--the first of many

such cards, depending, naturally, on how determined you are to achieve your ultimate goal.

Then again, you might prefer to ride and validate routes in a given area regardless of any specific numbering sequence.

This would obviously be a lot less demanding but more difficult to keep track of when you look at your cards and tally up

your score.

And what if you want to go even deeper than this? You may choose to organize your rides by date or even by time as well, thus the real

"Champion Route Collector" could, say, have his printed card showing route 10 on January 1, on the first shift of the day, and then route 11 on January 2,

etc., etc.,--use your imagination.

I suppose a sense of paranoia could set in whereby the fear of a screwy validator messing up your ticket in some way could spoil your sequence,

requiring a re-start.

Who knows, maybe the STM will get wind of this and offer an OPUS card loaded with a full year's worth of fares for the first

one who manages to pull this off!

[SMS]

Are you a "fanatic" ticket and transfer collector?

I collected at least two transfers from every metro station (took two afternoons to do it)... I guess I qualify

Bus transfers are a little harder. I'm not rich so I can't go and grab a transfer for every 2.75 I put in on every bus I ride... I have a few here and there though. Everyone on my private 59 charter got a souvenir transfer because come the next STM charter, those things won't exist.

Everywhere I go fanning, I keep my transfers, daypasses, etc. The mess is accumulating! I need a filing cabinet!

That's enough for fanaticism... I also want to buy tickets to sell them on eBay later on.

Have you ever entertained the notion of riding every single bus route

within the STM--even if just for the sake of knowing you actually did it? And does all of this even matter?

I've been on every daytime route of the STM. End to end. Or at least the terminus loop or very close to it anyway. Some things I admit I haven't done, like 166X Ridgewood loop extra, but that's somewhat inconsequential. A few night buses need to be done but I'm in no real hurry.

I'm a long way off from accomplishing this anywhere else. I'm doing this little by little with my exploits with Tristan.

Sure, it may take you months or even

years this way, but it could definitely be done.

Plan in terms of years if you wish to do it at a casual pace... it took me all of 24 years to do it all

[dj.surf.lfs]

It took a man 16 years to ride every single rail line in Japan.

For STM, I don't have any bus transfers , but I have metro transfers from like 20 stations. The one I had for Jean-Drapeau was still Ile-Sainte-Helene

[SMS]

It's still that and it will remain that until the SCAM magnetic cards come to the forefront.

[Tranzit]

Regarding paper transfers, tickets, and passes: I, too, have managed to accumulate quite a number of them--starting all the way back from the tram and trolley-bus era, (the old route 1 Amherst!) and even including some of the different coloured paper ones of routes within the old Montreal Transportation Commission's long-defunct "zone system".

Needless to say, my foreign travel is always an opportunity to collect, although it would be redundant and expensive to try to collect everything--even if that were possible. Not surprisingly, in foreign book flea markets, I've stumbled upon binder after binder of tickets and old passes commorating one local event or another!

Just as with collecting stamps, there has to be a limit, however, so I can't imagine myself (or anyone else for that matter) losing sleep in order to accumulate night bus transfers. The most reasonable way is to have a general sampling of what's out there.

Try to find the excellent article called "75 Years Of Montreal Transfers 1892-1967" by Jacques Pharand, Eng., which is probably available in some Montreal archives. It shows many samples, of course.

When In Melbourne, I made it a point to ride every tram line from end to end--many even more than once in the circumstance where different routes partially shared the same trackage. That way, I managed to see the city pretty comprehensively and inexpensively (with a multi-month pass) while avoiding having to rent a car in a strange city, not to mention parking and driving on the left side of the road! Everyone knows you can't really see anything properly when you're doing the driving anyway!

I also rode most of their commuter rail lines end to end and several bus routes too, of course, but it would have taken me many more months to do it all--had I been inclined to do so. This is where the real value of monthly passes comes into play.

As far as selling your stuff on eBay: don't expect to get rich, as I'm sure many other people have the same idea--just as they did with their stamps, coins, comic books, trading cards, milk bottle tops, telephone cards, and so on.

[SMS]

As far as selling your stuff on eBay: don't expect to get rich, as I'm sure many other people have the same idea--just as they did with their stamps, coins, comic books, trading cards, milk bottle tops, telephone cards, and so on.

Don't worry about that... I'll sell it when Montréal-Ouest metro station opens However I do legally possess a few different signs from the metro which I am sure would fetch a pretty penny.

[mtltransitguy]

Im working on riding the 'FULL STM', STL is well under way, and SURF will be very inexpensive thanks to the $30 pass. RTL and others are also progressing.

Hopefully, I will collect tickets or something from each Montreal Transit Corporation.

Now, the extreme fans, would do what transit has suggested with the OLD system........I just don't have the money to do this, even with tickets, it isn't cheap.

[Tranzit]

No need to spend a fortune.

If your goal is simply collecting for its own sake, there's no reason why you would need to actually ride every bus, tram, or train yourself. Why not use this forum to arrange swaps, ask your non-collecting friends and relatives to save whatever they have for you, or keep your eyes on station platforms, etc., for whatever has been tossed away. Do you have contacts within the STM itself? Ask if they can help.

In fact, years ago I had once mentioned my collecting interest to someone and to my surprise he later gave me a large stack of transfers which a friendly bus driver had handed over to him--including those of routes I had never bothered to ride on my own. These were the old MTC hand-punched types which were later phased out in the late '60s early '70s. Indeed, I'd even found a couple on the floor of one of the trams stored in the sheds at Delson's CRHA Museum, back in the days when visitors were permitted to climb aboard these relics!

I see no reason why a bus driver today wouldn't give a collector his plastic bag full, or at least let you sort through it for whatever you need--unless he or she has strict orders not to. Is there a rule regarding this?

Ha...this reminds me of the time when we kids would go around asking restaurants for their bottle caps! Jeezuz...we ended up with tons of different kinds, most of which are probably quite rare today! If I still had 'em, I could probably ask a pretty penny!

[SMS]

The plastic bag also contains garbage

[mtltransitguy]

The plastic bag also contains garbage

No problem, get me some transfer bags, I'll gladly glove up and pull out the good stuff.