BusTalk

[timecruncher]

Like the Energizer Bunny, Flxible Metros are still to be found here and there in the transit world of North America. Its getting hard to find parts, and many of the units left were not very well built by Flx (some were assembled at Nova's New Mexico facility, actually).

Louisville's 38 1994 Metros are intact, for the time-being. Three more Gillig hybrids just got delivered, and we're supposed to get another 10 before the end of 2009 and 15 more in 2010 by June, so these tired soldiers won't be running for much longer.

I had to go over a new route yesterday to a park & ride lot across the river in Jeffersonville, Indiana, and I wanted to drive one of these just one more time while still in service. The spotter set me up with 821. The a/c worked just fine, the brakes were a bit spongy (the retarder stopped working long ago), and away we went.

This one got repainted not too long ago, and she runs pretty good for having a DD50 engine. Slow on the get-up, and didn't like climbing up onto the Clark Memorial Bridge, but adequate for city driving:



At least I still get to have a little bit of fun with buses from time to time!

timecruncher
Schedulers give you the runs!

[Dieseljim]

Both Buffalo and Rochester,NY had Flxible Metros in their fleets and I had the pleasure of riding on at least one from each city . I think it is quite a good bus, what a transit bus should be.. I would probably rate it as one of the best transit buses to come along since the Old Look and the New Look buses of GMC. Rochester had a single door suburban version for use on its Park and Ride routes.

[timecruncher]

From the Grumman 870 through the last Metro, they were a great bus as long as it wasn't raining outside.

'Nuff said!

timecruncher
All I need is a washcloth and a bar of soap!

[RailBus63]

[GBL Rebel]

Let me toss this out here-- Rohr designed it, Grumman got shafted by it and Flxible cleaned it all up and made them into the 90's-- How bad was this bus after the flaws were worked out??

There not RTS's but comared to an Orion VII..............

[timecruncher]

Still leaked like a sieve. They were never able to fix that flaw!

Flx under United Automotive did fix most of the major design problems, but because of ongoing trouble with its workforce, quality control was spotty. And, to be fair, the new owners threw a lot of $$ into junk investments, hoping to recover from losses incurred due to a lengthy strike. When the junk investments tanked, Flx began its downward spiral.

The 38 units Louisville got in 1994 were all assembled (to some extent) at the Delaware, Ohio facility. They arrived with parts missing or lying on the floor, sub assemblies were not tightened down properly, and out of the 60 units originally ordered, after 38 TARC told Flxible to stop sending them due to poor quality. By that time Flx had nobody to send down to help with fixing the problems, and couldn't get parts from suppliers because they weren't paying their bills and had no money to pay for warranty repairs anyway.

Had Flxible survived into the 21st century, I suggest that they would have re-designed the bus with more rounded edges, created a low-floor version, gone to a T-drive and would likely have a hybrid offering as well. The Flx certainly rode and handled better than anything Gillig built (or builds today, for that matter), the RTS doesn't come close, and I firmly believe that had Flxible been able to ride out their cash flow problems, New Flyer would not have the market share with their junk that they have, and probably the other offerings to the transit industry would be slightly better for having the competition.



Ahh, Fountain Square in downtown Cincinnati (at lunchtime), back in '83 when there were still some great stores downtown and people enjoyed lunch every day by the "Mother of Waters."

One of Queen City Metro's original 1981 Grumman 870s on the very heavy 33 Glenway-Warsaw route --

timecruncher
Vas you effer in Zinzinatti?