Last time we looked at some GM (later GMC) New Look “Fishbowl” buses from East Coast operators. This time around we are going to look at some random ones from the West Coast. I don’t know the exact year and model numbers of all of these, so think of these more as a look at liveries. There will be several more of these posts since there are a lot I have drawn up and want to draw up. The hard part is finding good references. We start in Portland, Oregon with TriMet.
BC Hydro provided transit service throughout the province of British Columbia.
In 1983 BC Hydro’s transit operations were spun off from the power provider to form BC Transit.
Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District, AC Transit for short, serves the San Fransisco Bay Area counties of Alameda and Contra Costa.
Golden Gate Transit operates mainly commuter bus service in the Bay Area serving San Francisco, Marin, Sonoma, and Contra Costa Counties.
The San Francisco Municipal Railway, MUNI, operates public transit in the Bay Area city. In 1975 famed designer Walter Landor designed this striking livery and logo. The livery was long lived and replaced in the 2000s with something boring, but they kept the iconic logo.
A variation of the Landor livery was used by some buses to celebrate the American Bicentennial in 1976.
MUNI created this frankenbus that was damaged in an accident with the front end from a former New York City Transit Authority bus.
It was rolled out for service in this unique paint scheme.
Nice! I remember those Tri-Met busses very well!
AC Transit also ran “commuter” buses across the Bay into San Francisco itself. I spent many an hour in Fishbowls on one of those TransBay lines, the F, as a kid. Back then, in the early seventies, and before SF Muni went to that graphic design, I don’t recall many Fishbowl buses with Muni. They still ran lots of older GM’s and of course, trolleys and streetcars.
Muni’s Fishbowls first arrived in the late 1960s along with ten Flxible coaches, in a maroon/yellow scheme. Photo shows a Fishbowl when it was new, with Mack diesel and Marmon-Herrington electric coaches at the Presidio yard.
Interesting. You are of course correct, but my memories primarily from high school 1969-73, are only of the old tan/green colors and non-Fishbowls; the only Fishbowls at the time I associate with AC Transit. And the old GM’s I mentioned; turns out Muni didn’t have any and those were Mack’s. Just goes to show that as a kid I only cared about cars and motorcycles; buses were just part of my environment like phone poles and garbage trucks.
I remember the Presidio Yard having passed by it almost daily between 1988-98. Right across from Sears when there was a Sears but now called City Center. Not much of a bus rider except for Geary 38 to downtown whenever I wanted to go there and then the AC transit bus down College Ave. to Cal in 1977-78.
AC Transit ran high density “transit” Fishbowls between the East Bay and San Francisco on the A, F and N lines.
On the less dense B, C, H and J they ran suburban Fishbowls…shorter, with high back seats on raised floors, with air conditioning and no rear exit doors. Those were a nice ride!
Re: Frankenbus…it was always easier to replace the front end of a Fishbowl rather than graft in smaller sections especially around the windshields. Any measurements that were even slightly off would make 1/or more of the 6 pieces of glass very hard to fit.
I worked in Vancouver BC in the bodyshop….there were at least 3 more colour schemes than the 2 shown in my 35 years there.
My favorite fishbowl bus in the 70’s was the 3 window AC transit short bus for hilly routes. It had diagonally oriented single seats next to the windows and typical over-wheel and rear seats.
Here’s one, in a newer AC Transit livery!
OMG I can’t believe you found that. Brings me back
Check out the folks at Rapido model trains out of Toronto. They not only sell scale models of them for your train layouts, but the owner Jason loves them so much he bought and restored his own Fishbowl! He has it restored to an old TTC scheme and drives it around now and then for fun or to promotion events.
At work, we recently acquired one of our 1970 GMC Fishbowls that had been in storage since ’94. I think the plan is to restore it, and use it as a parade piece.