BusTalk

Mr. Linsky · Posted: Fri Aug 30, 2013 4:06 pm Post subject: 'THE MARE ISLAND NAVY YELLOWS'

The images below that formed a Yellow Coach campaign brochure were recently sold by '4509bus' on eBay and are used here for educational purposes only.

Yellow Coach played a tremendous role in transportation during WWII in not only providing private operators engaged in vital services with sorely needed equipment but in sales to the government itself for dispersal directly to the Army and Navy.

By far, the largest single order went to the U.S. Navy for its transit needs radiating from its Mare Island Naval Shipyard just north of San Francisco and comprised 300 1942 47 passenger Model TD-4505's numbered from 32251 to 32550.

These buses, built of steel in lieu of scarce aluminum, were austere in every respect including their either wood or painted steel passenger rails and seat backs.

Many of these coaches found second homes with private and municipal operators after the war and some ran well into the late fifties and early sixties.

Images taken by official U.S. Navy photographers

Mr. Linsky - Green Bus Lines, Inc., Jamaica, New York

frankie · Posted: Fri Aug 30, 2013 6:53 pm Post subject:

The pictures are hard to tell the colors. Do you know Mr. L if these buses were painted in both naval and army colors?

Frankie

Mr. Linsky · Posted: Sat Aug 31, 2013 1:54 am Post subject:

frankie,

All buses that went to the Navy were appropriately painted battleship gray and all those that went to the Army, as seen in color below on a 1951 PGA 3301, were dressed in a dark chocolate brown.

BTW; while we're on the subject of the PGA 3301; 840 of these 'military only' models were built between 1950 and 1951 with power derived from 503 cubic inch GM truck engines mounted straight in at the rear and body panels made with dies leftover from the discontinued PG an PD 2900 series along with TGH 2708 transit style front clips.

Photo borrowed for educational purposes only.

Regards,

Mr. 'L'