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Safeway Tours


Orion V

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On 7/5/2023 at 12:19 PM, Articulated said:

All of the Safeway contractors either sold off or converted much of their Safeway-branded coaches during the pandemic; no use keeping them sitting when Safeway was operating zero long-distance tours and barely any Fallsview Casino trips. They still have not resumed the pre-COVID level of service to Fallsview today.

GTA wrapped one of their 2018 H3-45 coaches for Safeway runs, and renumbered it from 3956 to 7816 to match the numbering of the other Safeway coaches, albeit in a white base with red logos, so they have made do with what is available.

Attridge has also converted many of their Safeway-branded coaches to regular charter coaches; still in red base paint but with Attridge logos and new 1xx numbers to match Attridge's system instead of the 6xxx numbers in Safeway's numbering system.

Safeway has a 'no bus older than 4 years' requirement. The 2019 Model Years should be Safeway Wrapped.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 7/26/2023 at 10:39 PM, Prevost said:

Beautiful! Are these used for tours or the casino shuttle? 

Probably used for both.

GTA Crew Services also has new 2024 model Prevost H3-45 coaches; 7320 is pictured operating on a Fallsview Casino run today. Also notable is that both 6375 above and 7320 below have "100 Edition" badging.

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7 hours ago, Prevost said:

Received an email from Safeway about their new Prevost H3-45 coaches: 

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Still got their beloved Coach Canada unit on the website. Safeway wants Coach Canada back, Coach Canada is not budging. I believe Great Canadian Coaches wants out of Safeway, I am hearing only 1 bus was ordered for Safeway.

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17 hours ago, Megabus Rider said:

Still got their beloved Coach Canada unit on the website. Safeway wants Coach Canada back, Coach Canada is not budging. I believe Great Canadian Coaches wants out of Safeway, I am hearing only 1 bus was ordered for Safeway.

Interesting how bus companies would turn down business…

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21 hours ago, Prevost said:

Interesting how bus companies would turn down business…

High mileage runs equals more maintenance costs equals higher costs and Safeway still being Cheap to pay these companies. What do the Companies do? Go elsewhere on who is willing to pay the costs. Great Canadian runs their own in-house tours and they have prestigious Charter work that pay more than Safeway does . Same with Coach Canada, they have prestigious Charter work and their Megabus Line Runs.

Safeway has been playing the Cheap game before the pandemic, Safeway would ask their loyal drivers to disclose the fuel consumption for each trip for the sole purpose of Cheaping out. It's one of the reasons Coach Canada never renewed a contract with Safeway. If a Safeway wrapped unit brakes down, the Casino riders start bitching that they 'never saw' the bus especially when Great Canadian uses their Canadian themed wrapped coaches as a replacement bus.

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On 8/14/2023 at 1:03 AM, Megabus Rider said:

High mileage runs equals more maintenance costs equals higher costs and Safeway still being Cheap to pay these companies. What do the Companies do? Go elsewhere on who is willing to pay the costs. Great Canadian runs their own in-house tours and they have prestigious Charter work that pay more than Safeway does . Same with Coach Canada, they have prestigious Charter work and their Megabus Line Runs.

Safeway has been playing the Cheap game before the pandemic, Safeway would ask their loyal drivers to disclose the fuel consumption for each trip for the sole purpose of Cheaping out. It's one of the reasons Coach Canada never renewed a contract with Safeway. If a Safeway wrapped unit brakes down, the Casino riders start bitching that they 'never saw' the bus especially when Great Canadian uses their Canadian themed wrapped coaches as a replacement bus.

also i heard Safeway demands coach providers to use H3-45 only.  Something Coach Canada doesn't like to buy from the looks of it.

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13 hours ago, leylandvictory2 said:

also i heard Safeway demands coach providers to use H3-45 only.  Something Coach Canada doesn't like to buy from the looks of it.

It is a requirement in their contract with operators, that not only are they to use the H3-45, but that they have to be relatively new (aka no older than 3-4 years). That's an awful lot of money for a small company to be shelling out for brand new coaches every year.

Not only to mention that coaches in Safeway service tend to rack up higher mileage (especially on the Casino runs) compared to other charter coaches of the same age. Therefore, they're not very attractive on the resale market... so your ability to recoup costs on your investment is quite limited.

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18 minutes ago, Articulated said:

It is a requirement in their contract with operators, that not only are they to use the H3-45, but that they have to be relatively new (aka no older than 3-4 years). That's an awful lot of money for a small company to be shelling out for brand new coaches every year.

Not only to mention that coaches in Safeway service tend to rack up higher mileage (especially on the Casino runs) compared to other charter coaches of the same age. Therefore, they're not very attractive on the resale market... so your ability to recoup costs on your investment is quite limited.

One example is Great Canadian 1515, was a Safeway Unit, Great Canadian tried to sell it and no body budged, now it's wrapped in Canadian Theme.

Western University Team buses with Great Canadian are former Safeway Units. Attridge and Coach Canada just removed the Safeway wrap and put their name on it.

Seems GTA Crew was fortunate to sell their Safeway Units to TJ Bus Lines.

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14 hours ago, leylandvictory2 said:

also i heard Safeway demands coach providers to use H3-45 only.  Something Coach Canada doesn't like to buy from the looks of it.

The reason for that is Safeway had bad experiences with the J4500 and Setra with Great Canadian. The D4505 was a turn off for Safeway. They tried the Van Hool TD Coach but it took long to collect passengers fares and create a handwritten manifest of the passengers to present to the Casino upon arrival. They did authorize Great Canadian to use their Van Hool T2145 Coaches as back ups and extras but Safeway wished Great Canadian had spec'd the washroom to be located at the rear of the Coach instead of the middle where the second door is located. Also, the feature where the seats swivels and you can put a table, that's a no no with Safeway.

13 minutes ago, MCIBUS said:

Who owns Safeway Tours?

It's a Family owned company. Current Owner is Frank Huang (if I spelled the last name correctly). His parents founded the Company and passed it onto him.

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  • 4 months later...

GTA Crew has been sending lots of oddities on their Fallsview Casino runs lately. I got their Volvo 9700 (#6068) today. 

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The,ey have been sending some of their older H3-45's as well, including 4113, 4517, and 7201. As 4 is an unlucky number in Chinese culture, no Safeway Tours bus is numbered with this number, so it was funny to see those buses doing these runs. Not to mention 4113 being 15 years older than the current oldest Safeway wrapped bus.

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  • 1 month later...
On 12/24/2023 at 3:32 PM, ZümmyZüm said:

Did GTA crew take on additional runs other companies couldn't maintain and theyre running these on exemptions? I can't see them not getting penalties from Safeway for running that fleet, they're not very forgiving normally. 

Must be extra runs, at that point Safeway can't be picky when they find themselves needing buses such as a Concert event. There should have been some Great Canadian branded units as well.

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