BusTalk

[timecruncher]

The World Equestrian Games has come to the US for the first time, and is being held at the Kentucky Horse Park near Lexington, KY. Lextran, the local transit system, struggles from day to day to get enough buses on the street to provide its fixed-route system, let alone try to carry several thousand extra riders out to the Horse Park (about 9 miles one-way) from its downtown hub. I have been working part-time at Lextran to help with some schedule revisions, and am on-site to help out on weekends.

Enter TARC and TANK, eagerly offering to lease some buses to Lextran for the three weeks. Your timecruncher prepared destination signs for the Louisville buses, but TANK did not. No biggie - those buses are being used everywhere anyway, utilizing Lextran's ubiquitous windshield card signs.

So here is a view you may never be able to re-create after October 10. TARC, TANK and Lextran Gilligs lined up side-by-side waiting their turn at the service lane on this past Friday afternoon, October 1. The three largest transit agencies in the Commonwealth of Kentucky are represented in a scene to make a Gillig sales rep smile from ear to ear...

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Meanwhile, the regular fleet is working hard, with anywhere from 8 to 20 coaches being used to shuttle thousands of people out to the park. Here is Lextran 555, a 2005 Gillig, boarding riders on Newtown Pike near the Mariott at Griffin Gate:



Here, TARC 2509, another 2005 Gillig product, is leaving the stop on North Limestone at New Circle Road:



Lextran has a few Nova RTS 06's from 2000 still in service, and all of them were running this past week:



This is a good place to see what is on the street in Lexington - on High Street at the end of Beck Alley, where about half of the buses from the pulse at :20 and :50 past the hour pull away from the downtown transit center. These photos were taken yesterday afternoon in heavy traffic, as the fleet departed at 3:50pm.

Here is TARC 2506 heading south on the busy Nicholasville Road route:



Followed by one of their Thomas SLF2000's running 7 North Limestone. Lextran and TARTA in Toledo, OH have the two largest fleets of these interesting coaches in their fleets. Their Mercedes-Benz diesels are a huge source of misery for mechanics, and many other components were simply under-designed for US operation. This bus is fairly popular in Europe:



Since passage of a permanent funding levy a couple of years ago, Lextran has doubled its service and quadrupled its ridership, and quickly outgrew its limited space transit center. Hence, three routes must make pickups on High Street behind the transit center, with elevator access to downstairs Vine Street bus docks and pass/ticket sales. Here is RTS06 #127 running the 13 South Broadway route and waiting for the 3:50pm departure this past Saturday.



TANK equipment was getting a lot of use Saturday as well.



And finally, the timecruncher himself got some 'wheel time. By 9:00am, all of the "standby" and "wildcat" operators available had already been used, there were over 20 buses tied up with the Horse Park shuttles, and there were two open runs. I pitched in and ran the first 2-1/2 trips on a mid-day straight run on 10 Hamburg until a regular driver was turned loose from shuttling and was able to relieve me at the transit center. Ironically, the run had been assigned a Louisville bus! So I found myself driving routes I am only marginally familiar with, in a bus from my home transit system, doing what I love to do best.

So I pitched in, along with two TANK drivers and one Metro driver who were recruited to help Lextran cope with this unprecedented demand on its services. It took me about a half trip to get back into my driving groove, and honestly, I would have been just as happy to stay on the bus and finish the run at 6:50pm. Alas!



timecruncher

[RailBus63]

Nice shots and an interesting story. Were there any farebox issues to overcome, or did Lextran install their own in the leased buses?

It’s funny that, with all the money and attention being paid these days by transit agencies to buy fancy BRT buses special paint schemes and ‘amenities’, most riders
will just hop on whatever bus shows up no matter what it looks like!

[timecruncher]

TANK has new GFI Odyssey fareboxes, and TARC has the old-style base model GFI "Cents-a-bill" junk fareboxes. Both agencies removed their fareboxes, and Lextran shop personnel mounted one of their Diamond fareboxes on a stand that bolted right in where the GFI bolts were. It was a simple process, actually. The MDT boxes and radios stayed on the buses, and Lextran added their compact radio on the side of the dash just to the left of the farebox and their own handset on the pillar at the left side of the windshield.



timecruncher

And you're right -- not one person made a comment about the TARC Gillig looking different from the Lex Tran bus, even though the interior and exterior colors are completely different. I had one kid get on at the downtown transit center and ask if this was an "old" bus! I told him the bus was not nearly as old as the driver...