King County Metro - Seattle, Washington

[roamer]

The East side gets a lot of new buses.

<snip>

Well, the eastside typically and historically has and has had the oldest buses in the fleet so it's refreshing to see that the eastside was the first to get the Xcelsiors and now should initially have the majority, or all, the XDE40s. Remember, the eastside currently has all the Phantoms (with the exceptions of the two 30-footers used as spares at North Base) which are some of the oldest buses in the fleet aside from the Bredas.

The few notable exceptions to the eastside having the oldest buses was in the early days of Metro, they ran the 700s out of Atlantic on the 251 route (the mainline route from downtown to Kirkland and Redmond over the 520 bridge). The other eastside routes were out of Dearborn and had all the junky old buses leftover from Metropolitan. The 700s were the newest buses that Metro ran (the newest acquired from Seattle Transit System) and from my recollection were used on the 251 because one of the head honchos (Carle Salley? ...maybe northwesterner or somebody else can refresh my memory on this) lived on the route.

Another exception that I remember vividly was when East Base opened in 1977, they initially moved all the AMGs over to East Base for the grand opening. They wanted new buses to showcase the new operating base. The AMGs, of course, were the first series actually bought new by Metro and were still trickling into service in that time frame when East Base opened. However, it was short-lived and they moved most of the AMGs back to Atlantic and brought 200s and a bunch of other junkers over to East Base after the novelty of the "new base" wore off. Also, the 1400 MAN artics were first used at East Base shortly thereafter. Again, newer buses were kept and used on Mercer Island (201 route) because Chuck Collins, transit director at the time, would take the bus to work.

However, I personally liked the Americanas and they were never used on the eastside. The M.A.N. buses, Americanas and artics, had the typical European handling characteristics, tight and precise steering, etc. so I did miss not being able to drive Americanas regularly. Another bus I liked but never got to drive because they were not used on the eastside were the D40LFs.

Attached: for those of you who haven’t read Routes: An Interpretive History of Public Transportation in Metropolitan Seattle, part V is attached and will mention both Salley’s and Collin’s impact on shaping Metro during its early years. The entire document should still be posted online in king County's library archive.

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[anonymous guy]

South Base typically gets a bulk of the new fleet and wear them in before getting passed onto the other bases.

[roamer]

Somebody asked if I could post a link to the entire transcript of Walt Crowley's "Routes: An Interpretive History of Public Transportation in Metropolitan Seattle." It was written for Metro's 20th anniversary in 1993 and is an interesting historical prologue to what is happening now for transit in the region. I figured that most here would have already read it but for those who have not, it is worth the read.

I've not been able to find it on the King County site but did email the manuscript to the person inquiring as I have it in my files. If there is anyone else who wants it (it's in nine parts), I would be happy to email it to you as I can't seem to attach all the parts here ...or if somebody else who might know where the links are to it on the King County site, may be willing to post them here.

[northwesterner]

Somebody asked if I could post a link to the five parts of Walt Crowley's "Routes: An Interpretive History of Public Transportation in Metropolitan Seattle." It was written for Metro's 20th anniversary in 1993 and is an interesting historical prologue to what is happening now for transit in the region. I figured that most here would have already read it but for those who have not, it is worth the read.

I've not been able to find it on the King County site but did email the manuscript to the person inquiring as I have it in my files. If there is anyone else who wants it (it's in five parts), I would be happy to email it to you as I can't seem to attach all the parts here ...or if somebody else who might know where the links are to it on the King County site, may be willing to post them here.

Thanks for posting that chapter. I don't need the whole thing, I've read the book before (in the library), many years ago. But it was good to take a look at that chapter for a refresher on some of Metro's earlier history.

Carle Salley was, by all accounts, a very interesting person. While he didn't last long here in Seattle, he certainly made his mark (he did the same in Pittsburgh, by the way). His vision for artics and a better bus really pushed through some big changes. While I still believe the GM Fishbowl is the gold standard of transit buses, ever, those MANs brought a lot of innovations to the US market. I googled Carle Salley tonight ... he passed away about six years ago.

On another note, stuck in my head for years was the fact that a Metro engineer invented the Lift-U platform wheelchair lift after the folding stair lifts delivered in 1340-1349 and 900-924 flat out didn't work. However, I'd forgotten the source for that tidbit of info. Apparently it was from this chapter in this book. Roamer, do you remember the original folding lifts in those coaches? Interestingly enough, the lifts in 1340-1349 were never replaced, though obviously 900-924 had Lift-Us retrofitted in (as did the rest of the trolleys, which came without a lift).

[roamer]

....

On another note, stuck in my head for years was the fact that a Metro engineer invented the Lift-U platform wheelchair lift after the folding stair lifts delivered in 1340-1349 and 900-924 flat out didn't work. However, I'd forgotten the source for that tidbit of info. Apparently it was from this chapter in this book. Roamer, do you remember the original folding lifts in those coaches? Interestingly enough, the lifts in 1340-1349 were never replaced, though obviously 900-924 had Lift-Us retrofitted in (as did the rest of the trolleys, which came without a lift).

You know, I remember looking at the lift on one of those 1300s out in the yard one day but didn't pay too much attention to it. They did not start mass-qualify operators on accessible service until the 1600-series D900 Flyers started to arrive in 1978-79 (actually, I remember it being in 1979 when accessible training started). The 1600s were the first to have the Lift-U installed at the factory en masse. From what I can remember, most of those 1300 AMGs were at Atlantic and all the lift experimentation was focused on Center Park service. I didn't realize that they had ten coaches equipped with that balky weird lift. I assumed it was just one or two.

Unrelated; I laugh every time I read that description in that last chapter (chapter 5 attached previously) when Crowley describes Metro rounding up every bus it could beg, borrow or lease from everywhere they could. There was a group of dilapidated old-look GM buses that the drivers referred to as "Tijuana Taxis" that they parked on the far west side of the East Base yard. We had difficulty starting those buses especially on cold mornings. The mechanics decided to start them very early one morning and leave them idling so drivers would not have to deal with it and they could just hop in and drive off. However, the exhaust expelled by leaving those old buses idle in the yard was so extensive that somebody from a neighboring business thought there was a fire in the yard and called the fire department ...or so the story goes. My memory of that morning was that in fact it did look as if something was on fire as there were horrendous plumes of black sooty smoke billowing upward and the entire yard was in a smoky fog where it was very difficult to breathe once stepping outside from the bullpen. It didn't seem as if we had them for too long after that incident as I think they shipped them back to Atlantic figuring that all those exhaust fumes would be better suited for Seattle than for the clean suburb that was Bellevue.

to add: agreed, fishbowls rule!!

[anonymous guy]

With advances in clean diesel and hybrid battery technology, we often forget about the plumes of black smoke that old coaches used to spew out:

Even as old as the 3200s are, they seldom give off exhaust that dark or heavy (unless going up a really steep hill).

[northwesterner]

With advances in clean diesel and hybrid battery technology, we often forget about the plumes of black smoke that old coaches used to spew out:

Even as old as the 3200s are, they seldom give off exhaust that dark or heavy (unless going up a really steep hill).

The Gillig's are no comparison to older coaches ... the Cummins M11 is a four-stroke engine, while what was pictured in this video is a two-stroke engines. The difference in regard to smoke is night and day HOWEVER a well maintained two-stroke did not normally puff huge clouds like in the video.

[roamer]

I remember when Gillig brought a Phantom demo to Metro after Gary Locke nixed the Orion natural gas order and they demonstrated the effectiveness of "clean diesel" technology and the particulate trap they used by putting a clean white handkershief over the exhaust opening while using different throttle angles, engine revolutions, etc. and showing us that the handkerchief was still white after all the tests. I was pretty impressed at the time.

[anonymous guy]

The Gillig's are no comparison to older coaches ... the Cummins M11 is a four-stroke engine, while what was pictured in this video is a two-stroke engines. The difference in regard to smoke is night and day HOWEVER a well maintained two-stroke did not normally puff huge clouds like in the video.

Here's an example of the two-stroke in the Breda dual-mode coaches coming out of the tunnel after coming out of electric mode:

 

(if the video doesn't start at the right position, skip to 5:30)

A thick puff of black smoke, but nothing like the AMG Metropolitan coach above.

[roamer]

Well, the Tijuana Taxis that Metro was using for that short period were ten times worse than those videos are showing. A mechanic told me that they were given directives do as little maintenance on them as possible as they were just a stop-gap measure to be used during that time of great expansion of the system with not enough equipment to keep up with that demand.

I was actually surprised that they'd give off that much black exhaust when just idling in the yard. Many of us found it quite amusing when driving them when we'd watch traffic behind us back quickly away when starting from a standing stop ...like accelerating away from a traffic signal. Metro got a lot of complaints because of it but they knew they were only keeping them for a short time. One mechanic thought that the two-stroke engines were tuned and adjusted for the poorer quality of fuel those buses used in Mexico and were not used to the better diesel used here. I'm not sure if that made sense or not.

Here's a video I've had bookmarked that is an old documentary on why diesel buses (and trucks) should not have vertical exhaust stacks but rather horizontal ones. The bus introduced in the middle of the video that is retrofitted with the vertical exhaust stack kind of reminds me of the old Tijuana Taxis only the Tijuana buses we were using obviously did have horizontal exhaust pipes out the left side so the black smoke and soot would be spewed out directly at the vehicle behind us as the bus accelerated. So imagine that old-look GM bus with a horizontal exhaust and putting out ten times the black soot and you can imagine how bad those old Tijuana buses were ...as a motorist, yeah, you'd sure hate to be behind one of those things!

.

[anonymous guy]

Here's a video I've had bookmarked that is an old documentary on why diesel buses (and trucks) should not have vertical exhaust stacks but rather horizontal ones. The bus introduced in the middle of the video that is retrofitted with the vertical exhaust stack kind of reminds me of the old Tijuana Taxis only the Tijuana buses we were using obviously did have horizontal exhaust pipes out the left side so the black smoke and soot would be spewed out directly at the vehicle behind us as the bus accelerated. So imagine that old-look GM bus with a horizontal exhaust and putting out ten times the black soot and you can imagine how bad those old Tijuana buses were ...as a motorist, yeah, you'd sure hate to be behind one of those things!

I'd imagine driving behind one of those coaches would be like a SODO industrial stack spewing black smoke in front of your vehicle.

I like how in the film, the horizontal stack's exhaust benefit upon start-up was that the exhaust fumes were pointed away from the pedestrians. However, as the coach moves, the black smoke wafts towards the right and upwards where the curb would be.

[coordinator47]

Well, the Tijuana Taxis that Metro was using for that short period were ten times worse than those videos are showing. A mechanic told me that they were given directives do as little maintenance on them as possible as they were just a stop-gap measure to be used during that time of great expansion of the system with not enough equipment to keep up with that demand.

I was actually surprised that they'd give off that much black exhaust when just idling in the yard. Many of us found it quite amusing when driving them when we'd watch traffic behind us back quickly away when starting from a standing stop ...like accelerating away from a traffic signal. Metro got a lot of complaints because of it but they knew they were only keeping them for a short time. One mechanic thought that the two-stroke engines were tuned and adjusted for the poorer quality of fuel those buses used in Mexico and were not used to the better diesel used here. I'm not sure if that made sense or not.

Here's a video I've had bookmarked that is an old documentary on why diesel buses (and trucks) should not have vertical exhaust stacks but rather horizontal ones. The bus introduced in the middle of the video that is retrofitted with the vertical exhaust stack kind of reminds me of the old Tijuana Taxis only the Tijuana buses we were using obviously did have horizontal exhaust pipes out the left side so the black smoke and soot would be spewed out directly at the vehicle behind us as the bus accelerated. So imagine that old-look GM bus with a horizontal exhaust and putting out ten times the black soot and you can imagine how bad those old Tijuana buses were ...as a motorist, yeah, you'd sure hate to be behind one of those things!

On my first trip to Eugene in 1981 I found a bunch of TDH4509s or 12s in the old Lane Transit yard west of Downtown which had roof top stacks. The tail pipe ran vertically up the left rear corner of the bus.

Denver's 55 foot MAN artics had a roof top exhaust which they ran in a cabinet up through the body just in front of the left middle wheel. There was a single forward-facing seat next to it. I wish Metro's had been so equipped.

The 800 series TDH4512s which Metro purchased from Transport of New Jersey (hence the more common term "Jersey Junkers") all had worn-out engines and transmissions in addition to salt-corrosion problems. Metro spent a lot of money to make those things run but most of it was on bodywork, not drive trains.

Remember, 250K miles was old for a 71 series engine and most were rebuilt between 250K and 300K miles. The Cummins M series engines haven't been rebuilt unless there was a catastrophic failure. 3458 has both its original engine and transmission with over 660K miles, so please forgive it smoking a bit and averaging only 4.0 miles per gallon.

OBA is currently showing coach 7203 on the 226/241 route. It's the first XDE40 I've noticed in revenue service.

7203 went out on a coach change replacing an 1100 at 9:40 that morning. Yes, it was the first one.

However, I personally liked the Americanas and they were never used on the eastside. The M.A.N. buses, Americanas and artics, had the typical European handling characteristics, tight and precise steering, etc. so I did miss not being able to drive Americanas regularly. Another bus I liked but never got to drive because they were not used on the eastside were the D40LFs.

In late 1990 there were a few Americanas sent to East Base (my unofficial recollection is 3068 - 3076). They lasted about six months and were always late. I have a slide of 3073 on a 230 in Kirkland dated 12/14/90.

[northwesterner]

There were also a few sent to East/Bellevue on occasion in the post I-695 world when Metro kept some in a contingency fleet (at one point they had 35 in service but 70ish on property ... eventually all were back in service all at once). I have a picture somewhere of a 3000 working a 271 Shuttle from Bellevue to Medina during a 520 bridge closure.

[Atomic Taco]

OBA is currently showing coach 7203 on the 226/241 route. It's the first XDE40 I've noticed in revenue service.

I saw 7203 at South Bellevue P&R on the 241 this evening. Couldn't get a picture. Looks good, nice to finally see one in service.Here it is outside Bellevue Transit Center:

https://twitter.com/AtomicTaco/status/589229712653746177

Forgot to mention: it looked like all of the seats above the back "step" were forward-facing.

[northwesterner]

Forgot to mention: it looked like all of the seats above the back "step" were forward-facing.

There should be a set of two side facing seats on the rear side of the wheel well. If you put a forward facing seat in that position, you wouldn't be able to get in over the wheelwell...

[Atomic Taco]

There should be a set of two side facing seats on the rear side of the wheel well. If you put a forward facing seat in that position, you wouldn't be able to get in over the wheelwell...

That's what I thought too, but I didn't notice any seatbacks parallel to the windows as it pulled away. I could be wrong.

[Puget Sound Rider]

7204 on route 235

[roamer]

Hah, I keep trying to remind myself not to post here as I continually embarrass myself when trying to describe certain things from memory which seems to be fading fast nowadays in my old age. Those which I think are vivid memories turn out not to be and some are just faulty to begin with. I find it uncanny how some of you, especially northwesterner and the coordinator, have such meticulous detail of not only what has happened in the past but such technical accuracy of transit related subjects. Although it makes me appear foolish and stupid, I really appreciate all of your recollections but especially for setting me straight on what I post here. I thank you all for that.

With that said, yes, now that I think about it some more, I do faintly remember the Americanas being used on the eastside in a limited capacity. However, I only remember driving one once on an eastside route with other incidences being while working overtime at Central or Ryerson. Since I bounced back and forth picking East and Bellevue through most of my time there, I may have just coincidentally missed being able to drive the few Americanas that were used.

Pertaining to the Jersey Junkers, perhaps they were junkers when arriving from New Jersey but as the coordinator mentioned, Metro did a nice job of refurbishing the bodies as from my recollection, they were very nice both inside and out. I don't even remember them having that many mechanical issues the way all of the other temporary junkers had that Metro didn't bother refurbishing or mechanically maintaining. Metro knew they were going to keep the 800s for awhile I suppose. I enjoyed driving them and being short and narrow, they were very easy to maneuver in and out of tight spots. They were a mainstay on the 48 route when it was run out of North Seattle Station (Mercer) when I started working there. I mentioned previously that what sticks in my memory was having the dreaded task of making road reliefs at Woodlawn and Ravenna ...especially not being paid for the time it took to take the bus back to 5th and Republican from the relief point after being relieved.

So, for those of you who may not be interested about the earlier days of Metro, I thank you for your patience and allowing me to use space here ...even if the accuracy of my babbling might not be the best. Keep on correcting my memory too for those of you who do know and remember a lot more than I do. Thanks.

7204 on route 235

I also see 7203 back out too. It appears to be on the 234.

[northwesterner]

The 3000s were also occasional visitors to the eastside ... but on trippers for eastside routes operated out of Ryerson or Central.

Always seemed a little out of place to see one filling in on the 266 (a long time Central tunnel route), or doing a trip on the 250 or 268 (also at Central for a while). 247 and 942 were long time Ryerson Routes ... I have a picture somewhere of one at Eastgate P&R on a 247.

[busdude.com]

Is there a list somewhere of which 3000s became "9300s" and went to Grant Transit Authority?

[Puget Sound Rider]

http://www.cptdb.ca/wiki/index.php?title=King_County_Metro_Transit_3000-3146

Only shows two of them. Not sure how many went to them.

[Atomic Taco]

Is there a list somewhere of which 3000s became "9300s" and went to Grant Transit Authority?

Might check with Zachary Ziegler

[Puget Sound Rider]

Questions:

Is 3701 going to be put into service?

Is there a 3700?

What # do the XDE40s start at-7200 or 7201?

In the past, it always started with the "00" (3200, 1100, 2300, 4100, 4200, 2600 [technically 2599]...etc) but I've yet to see or hear about a #3700.

[roamer]

Questions:

Is 3701 going to be put into service?

Is there a 3700?

What # do the XDE40s start at-7200 or 7201?

In the past, it always started with the "00" (3200, 1100, 2300, 4100, 4200, 2600 [technically 2599]...etc) but I've yet to see or hear about a #3700.

According to my notes, both 3700 and 3701 are in service. Both are being used at South Base. I now have accounted for and observed all the 3700s in service in the past week or so. I've updated the wiki page to reflect that.

There are 20 at Bellevue, 13 at North, and 27 at South for a total of 60

Bellevue:

3702

3703

3704

3705

3706

3707

3708

3709

3712

3715

3716

3717

3718

3719

3720

3724

3725

3726

3729

3731

North:

3728

3736

3737

3738

3739

3740

3741

3742

3743

3744

3746

3747

3748

South:

3700

3701

3710

3711

3713

3714

3721

3722

3723

3727

3732

3730

3733

3734

3735

3745

3749

3750

3751

3752

3753

3754

3755

3756

3757

3758

3759

I'm assuming that the XDE40s will also start with 7200.

[Puget Sound Rider]

I just noticed 3700 and 3701. Thanks!