King County Metro - Seattle, Washington

[David Brown]

2 minutes ago, 19adam99 said:

Anyone know where paper copies of the 900s routes can be found? 

In particular, the 952 from Auburn to Everett.

You can find them at Metro's customer service office or the Westlake tunnel station on the mezzanine level they have the big kiosks with all the schedules

[Atomic Taco]

On 1/19/2017 at 9:50 PM, David Brown said:

You can find them at Metro's customer service office or the Westlake tunnel station on the mezzanine level they have the big kiosks with all the schedules

Highest at Westlake is 631.

There's a 38MB zip file with PDFs of each route on this page.

[pnwelevator]

Quality is a bit suckish since this was a cell pic but this morning when headed into Downtown Seattle on the LINK I spotted MEHVA's '63 Flxible 598 outside the maintenance garage at South Base. I know it couldn't go on the Santa's Lights tour due to an issue that slipped out of my memory but I know was keeping it from passing inspection, is MEHVA underway on repairing that issue judging by it sitting just outside the maintenance garage???

[rickycourtney]

14 hours ago, pnwelevator said:

Quality is a bit suckish since this was a cell pic but this morning when headed into Downtown Seattle on the LINK I spotted MEHVA's '63 Flxible 598 outside the maintenance garage at South Base. I know it couldn't go on the Santa's Lights tour due to an issue that slipped out of my memory but I know was keeping it from passing inspection, is MEHVA underway on repairing that issue judging by it sitting just outside the maintenance garage???

598 has been sitting in that same spot for weeks now (at least it is when I pass by on my commute).

[pnwelevator]

1 hour ago, rickycourtney said:

598 has been sitting in that same spot for weeks now (at least it is when I pass by on my commute).

Huh, well I guess I shouldn't be shocked then if it's that issue they're repairing then.

[anonymous guy]

Is there any reason why the 3600s almost always consistently smell of a dirty men's locker room?

 

On another note, the 2600s always smell of damp moss and the dearly departed 4100s smelled of burnt rubber. 

[Atomic Taco]

The 2005 9600s are pretty bad too

[MetroFan6774]

Questions about MEHVA: How come MEHVA never uses their old 1939 (231 I think is the fleet no.) and 1948 Twin Coach 192 for motor (Fall/Winter) tours? I've also noticed that the old Brill trolley coach 798 hasn't been out for a while on any trolley tour also.

I hope that the 1963 Flxible comes back into service soon: I still have a lot of MEHVA buses to ride, as the only ones I've riden are 5034 and 1455.

Also, I saw that on the fleet list for MEHVA that there apparently have 2 old Kenworth buses, but but I have no idea where those two are or what they look like. Also, where is the other twin Coach trolley 636? I've seen 643 many times but not the 636 one ever out.

[anonymous guy]

I can't say I've been following their available fleet lately, but have those coaches/trolleys seen excursion before?

I do recall seeing old pictures of MEHVA acquisitions and they tend to be rusting metal husks until they have the funds for restoration. 

[northwesterner]

12 hours ago, MetroFan6774 said:

Questions about MEHVA: How come MEHVA never uses their old 1939 (231 I think is the fleet no.) and 1948 Twin Coach 192 for motor (Fall/Winter) tours? I've also noticed that the old Brill trolley coach 798 hasn't been out for a while on any trolley tour also.

I hope that the 1963 Flxible comes back into service soon: I still have a lot of MEHVA buses to ride, as the only ones I've riden are 5034 and 1455.

Also, I saw that on the fleet list for MEHVA that there apparently have 2 old Kenworth buses, but but I have no idea where those two are or what they look like. Also, where is the other twin Coach trolley 636? I've seen 643 many times but not the 636 one ever out.

If you haven't seen it, it doesn't run. MEHVA has a number of vehicles on the offical roster that are in very rough condition. The 1939 Twin Coach was dragged out of the bushes in the Maple Valley and traded to the property owner for former Center Park Coach 1850 (or 1851). The engine certainly hasn't turned over in 40 years. 

The Gas Twin(s - there is a second one not on the official roster) doesn't run ... needs work. 

Brill trolley 798 needs a new roof - very hard to find someone who knows how to work with a canvas over wood frame streetcar style roof. 

Twin trolley 636 doesn't run - has never been an operable member of the historic fleet. May have a bad traction motor which will cost $XX,XXX to repair, in addition to all the body work needed.

[SounderBruce]

SDOT published a video to highlight their snow plow crew, who went down to Portland during their big storm last month. At about 1:20 in the video, there's an old bus in the SDOT sign with a headsign displaying "311 via SR-520" moving in the background. Wonder why it's there.

 

[busdude.com]

Looks like one of SPD's buses judging by the lights on the side of the destination sign. Probably going to the county shops for maintenance.

[rickycourtney]

Well it's officially official: King County Metro is getting 222 New Flyer Xcelsior XDE60 coaches. 

Here's the announcement from New Flyer: Seattle Awards New Flyer a Contract for 222 Xcelsior® Transit Buses

8100-8199: Equipped with 2 doors for suburban routes and expected to go into service June 2017-March 2018. Initially the plan is to have 45 coaches operate out of South Base first, followed by 55 coaches out of East Base.

8200-8299: Equipped with 3 doors for urban routes and expected to go into service March 2018-September 2018. Initially the plan is to have 63 coaches operate out of Ryerson Base first, followed by 37 coaches out of Central Base.

8300-8321: Listed as "BRT Ready" so expect at least 3 doors (maybe 5) and an interior layout with fewer seats. Expected to go into service September 2018 out of Atlantic Base.

By March 2018, all of the D60HF (2300) coaches will all be retired, followed by all of the D60LF (2800) coaches and about 78 DE60LF (2600) coaches in September 2018.

[pnwelevator]

10 minutes ago, rickycourtney said:

Well it's officially official: King County Metro is getting 222 New Flyer Xcelsior XDE60 coaches. 

Here's the announcement from New Flyer: Seattle Awards New Flyer a Contract for 222 Xcelsior® Transit Buses

8100-8199: Equipped with 2 doors for suburban routes and expected to go into service June 2017-March 2018. Initially the plan is to have 45 coaches operate out of South Base first, followed by 55 coaches out of East Base.

8200-8299: Equipped with 3 doors for urban routes and expected to go into service March 2018-September 2018. Initially the plan is to have 63 coaches operate out of Ryerson Base first, followed by 37 coaches out of Central Base.

8300-8321: Listed as "BRT Ready" so expect at least 3 doors (maybe 5) and an interior layout with fewer seats. Expected to go into service September 2018 out of Atlantic Base.

By March 2018, all of the D60HF (2300) coaches will all be retired, followed by all of the D60LF (2800) coaches and about 78 DE60LF (2600) coaches in September 2018.

Another Question;

According to the Wiki Metro is also getting 100 Gillig Low Floors come 2018 (7300-7399) to replace the 3600 D40LFs, true on that???

[rickycourtney]

12 minutes ago, pnwelevator said:

Another Question;

According to the Wiki Metro is also getting 100 Gillig Low Floors come 2018 (7300-7399) to replace the 3600 D40LFs, true on that???

According to the documents I've seen, Metro has purchased 100 Gillig Low Floor coaches for delivery between March 2018 and September 2018. All will be assigned to Bellevue Base. They're scheduled to replace the remaining 30' & 40' Phantoms and about 11 of the D40LF coaches.

[pnwelevator]

3 minutes ago, rickycourtney said:

According to the documents I've seen, Metro has purchased 100 Gillig Low Floor coaches for delivery between March 2018 and September 2018. All will be assigned to Bellevue Base. They'll replace the remaining 30' & 40' Phantoms and about 11 of the D40LF coaches.

Ok thank you for the info, was curious about that.

[_jrst]

Where do the 120 Proterras fit into this? Will they be distributed around Bellevue/North to retire off the rest of the D40LFs?

[dancingfatpotato]

On 2/11/2017 at 0:52 PM, _jrst said:

Where do the 120 Proterras fit into this? Will they be distributed around Bellevue/North to retire off the rest of the D40LFs?

To retire the gilligs 

[anonymous guy]

With the recent snowstorm last week, I observed how Metro handled the inclement weather. Surprisingly well, given the much more prepared snow response from the city and outlying communities (remember the no-salt disaster from the previous Mayor?). 

The only noticeable absence was the D40LF while most other fleet types were chain ready. I did notice that XT60s were replaced by XT40s as the day wore on and that coaches continued to sport chains well into the melting of snow and ice. 

Other than that, service seemed to perform relatively well given the inclement weather. I would remember previous years where all coach types disappear except the D60 and Gillig Phantom. 

[rickycourtney]

On 2/11/2017 at 0:52 PM, _jrst said:

Where do the 120 Proterras fit into this? Will they be distributed around Bellevue/North to retire off the rest of the D40LFs?

Not clear.

Also, at this point, only 73 of the 120 battery electric buses are supposed to be from Proterra. 

[roamer]

On 2/11/2017 at 10:59 AM, rickycourtney said:

According to the documents I've seen, Metro has purchased 100 Gillig Low Floor coaches for delivery between March 2018 and September 2018. All will be assigned to Bellevue Base. They're scheduled to replace the remaining 30' & 40' Phantoms and about 11 of the D40LF coaches.

So it sounds as if all 100 will be 40-footers?  ...no 35s?  And will they have the standard Advantage front cap (THIS) or the optional BRT ...or in the new BRT+ configuration?  I hope they'll be ordered in the BRT+ design in keeping with a modern and streamlined look.

 

[pnwelevator]

7 hours ago, roamer said:

So it sounds as if all 100 will be 40-footers?  ...no 35s?  And will they have the standard Advantage front cap (THIS) or the optional BRT ...or in the new BRT+ configuration?  I hope they'll be ordered in the BRT+ design in keeping with a modern and streamlined look.

 

I believe we're getting Standard Low Floors from what I heard when I first heard about the Gillig rumor, this of course is to reduce the parts cost $$$, I remember a discussion earlier on here stating if Metro had their choice they would continue to order the Standard New Flyer Low Floor design hadn't it of been discontinued, Xcelsior parts from what I heard, especially the headlights are NOT cheap to replace compared to most parts for a Standared New Flyer or a Gillig Low Floor.

7 hours ago, roamer said:

So it sounds as if all 100 will be 40-footers?  ...no 35s?  And will they have the standard Advantage front cap (THIS) or the optional BRT ...or in the new BRT+ configuration?  I hope they'll be ordered in the BRT+ design in keeping with a modern and streamlined look.

 

If I had to take a guess, I would presume our Gilligs we're getting are going to be very similar to the new 6400-Series Gillig Low Floors that the Santa Clara VTA just got recently so they'll be a fancier version of a Standard Low Floor

9 hours ago, dancingfatpotato said:

To retire the gilligs 

Actually no, the new 7300-Series Gilligs will be replacing all the remaining Phantoms, here's the proof

Quoting user rickeycourtney  "According to the documents I've seen, Metro has purchased 100 Gillig Low Floor coaches for delivery between March 2018 and September 2018. All will be assigned to Bellevue Base. They're scheduled to replace the remaining 30' & 40' Phantoms and about 11 of the D40LF coaches."

7 hours ago, roamer said:

So it sounds as if all 100 will be 40-footers?  ...no 35s?  And will they have the standard Advantage front cap (THIS) or the optional BRT ...or in the new BRT+ configuration?  I hope they'll be ordered in the BRT+ design in keeping with a modern and streamlined look.

 

If you ask me I've always felt the Standard Low Floor is a Timeless look too, not outdated like many people say.

[rickycourtney]

11 hours ago, roamer said:

So it sounds as if all 100 will be 40-footers?  ...no 35s?  And will they have the standard Advantage front cap (THIS) or the optional BRT ...or in the new BRT+ configuration?  I hope they'll be ordered in the BRT+ design in keeping with a modern and streamlined look.

 

Correct. All 100 coaches will be 40-footers. After September 2018 the only coaches shorter than 40' will be the 60 Xcelsior XDE35 coaches.

I don't know if these will be standard, BRT or BRTPlus units. The document I saw only described them as "Hybrid Gillig LF." Since these coaches were likely ordered off the master contract held by the Washington State Department of Enterprise Services and since Gillig doesn't publicize coach orders, we won't know how these coaches are configured until someone inside Metro says... or in about a year from now when the coaches first start arriving.

I won't even venture a guess. The one thing that's probably for sure, they'll likely have a more "standard" rear end, since Metro likes the large LED tail lights.

I'm glad some people are excited for these coaches. I'm not looking forward to that "bath tub" feeling in the low-floor section... where the bottom of the windows comes up to chin level.

 

[northwesterner]

1 hour ago, rickycourtney said:

I'm glad some people are excited for these coaches. I'm not looking forward to that "bath tub" feeling in the low-floor section... where the bottom of the windows comes up to chin level.

 

Gillig needs to do a major overhaul of the platform. Many of us are expecting such whenever their new, much, much bigger plant opens, along with a 60ft competitor to New Flyer, which now has the market to itself.

The bathtub feeling wasn't so bad in the late 90s, early 00s, when the ride quality of the New Flyer competitor was so bad.

But New Flyer really improved their product throughout the 00s but I don't find much difference between a brand new Gillig in 2016 versus the ones I rode on 15 years ago.

[roamer]

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm also in the camp that never wanted to see low-floor buses.  A "real" bus to me will always have a high-floor configuration.  Not only from a driver's standpoint but from a passenger's too, a low floor just isn't comfortable.  For the disabled and ease/speed of ingress-egress, yes, low-floor buses make a lot of sense but for ordinary comfort, I much prefer the high-floor design.  

Personally, I only drove a few of the low-floor buses as they were being introduced towards the end of my "career" at Metro so it was mostly the first batch of D60LF (ST) and DE60LFs that I drove.  I was only able to drive the D40LFs twice as I spent my last years on the east side.  The novelty of a low-floor was interesting to me but I definitely didn't like sitting in the driver's seat that was so elevated above everything else.  It just didn't feel natural.  

I think the "bathtub" feeling that rickycourtney describes will be worse with Gilligs as they seem to design the belt-line higher so the windows are not as low as NFI.  You have to admit, NFI does a good job of mitigating the bathtub effect with a lower window line.  I agree with northwesterner on his point that Gillig needs to make some changes..  

Even with some high-floor buses, the design factor may dictate where a passenger's chin falls in relation to window height.  The AMGs, for instance, were such where passengers were just barely at neck level in relation to window height  ...aside from the first batch of diesels to arrive which had the seats elevated on a platform as on Metro's first 1100 -series AMG coaches where the bottom of the windows for most came to shoulder level.  

And, yes, I too agree with pnevlvator that the classic Gillig Advantage style I supposed could be considered pretty much ageless in its design.  It has fantastic lines especially with dark frameless windows as the Everett Transit ones have (HERE).  I guess the non-BRT traditional Advantage will be okay for Metro though Metro won't order them with frameless and dark tinted windows.  I suppose then that Metro's will look like the Tacoma hybrids HERE ...?  I personally like the "look" of the BRT front cap but don't like that "double" windshield pillar which presents additional sight obstruction.