BusTalk

[Mr. Linsky]

Looks like I'm working the grave yard shift again!

Here's one that's stumping me and I'm hoping that one of my learned NYC colleagues might have a clue or two;

Pictured is what appears to be a late thirties Model 40R Twin Coach dressed in City of New York Board of Transportation livery and carrying what might be either, although unclear, a fleet or depot number 'DITB2' (if I'm reading it right) over the side destination transom, and a BOT logo just about visible under the fifth passenger window.

The caption that accompanied this eBay photo states that the bus is from Brooklyn, and it is signed for the '57' Flushing Avenue route.

What I do know; the city did take over the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation's (BMT) surface subsidiary known as the Brooklyn and Queens Transit Company in June of 1940 inheriting virtually all bus a trolley lines in Brooklyn with some serving parts of Queens.

While B & Q did operate some very early Twin Trolley coaches, there bus fleet was virtually all Mack going back to the BT's and CL's of 1933.

To my knowledge, the only other Twin Coach operator that fell into the hands of the city and created the Queens Bus Division in doing so was North Shore Bus Company of Flushing in 1947.

It's a stretch to imagine that this photo is post 1947 and that the North Shore Twins were repainted and transferred to Brooklyn.

What really gets me though is that odd number mentioned above.

BTW; you can forget that these buses may have come from Staten Island Coach Company that was also assimilated in 1940 because they were devout ACF.

I'm sure that there's a logical answer, but I'm unaware of it.

Pundits comments will be welcomed.

Mr. Linsky - Green Bus Lines, Inc., Jamaica, NY

[Mr. Linsky]

Update;

After a far more exhaustive search, I may have found the answer to my own question based on the content of the paragraph below taken from Coach Built;

In the mid thirties Twin Coach built and delivered the first diesel bus ever built as such in the U.S., and about 300 large diesel-electrics (plus a smaller number of gas-electrics) were constructed thereafter. Most of these were used in New York City. The heavy and costly electric drive was never superseded in Twin diesels by anything better.

It makes sense that the city would have replaced B & Q's aging Mack fleet at the time of assimilation in 1940, but what amazes me is that there are no records and only a rare photo of the Twin equipment.

Most of B & Q's original Mack's were sold to the East Side and Comprehensive Omnibus Corporation of Manhattan.

Case closed.

Mr. Linsky - Green Bus Lines, Inc., Jamaica, NY